Customer Reviews

Mothering Twins: From Hearing the News to Beyond the Terrible Twos

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was so depressed by this book that I stopped reading it halfway through for about a week. I also told my husband that after the babies arrive we will never have any fun again ever. Since I know several families with twins, I know that this is not the case. But it sure feels like it while reading this book.

While I feel that it is useful to have eyewitness accounts of the reality of caring for twins, I felt this book was pretty much a summary of the worst of everything most of us know already, that it is a lot of work, a lot of sleeplessness, a lot of demands, etc.

I also felt that there was not a whole lot of useful information about the specifics of caring for twin babies. The most useful info seemed to me to apply to handling the relationships between the twins when they are older, as well as relationships with older siblings.

None of the contributors returned to work full time while their children were very young. The sections on finding childcare were therefore of limited value.

Finally, since 2 of the contributors were mothers of identical twins, some discussion of special issues related to identical twins would have been useful.

For what this book proports to do: tell anecdotes of what it is like to be pregnant with twins, bring them into the world, and mother them for the first couple of years...it succeeds.

I stumbled upon this book mid-pregnancy with my fraternal twin boys, our only kids, in the summer of 1993 when it was first published. Because no one else I knew had twins, I depended upon these women's stories to guide me along. I found it very reassuring and reaffirming. I wish I had one now that my boys are about to turn seven and I have questions about schools and socialization. Let's face it..it isn't a clinical resource, it's a support group in book form for the sometimes isolating and ever-challenging adventure of mothering twins.

If you want to find out what women really think about having twins, this is the book to get. You can only read so much about how many little shirts to get before you scream and want to read about someone who's really been through it.

Yes, twins are exciting and fun, and the experience of a lifetime (I can say this now that mine are five). Yet to ignore the hardship and risks involved would be criminal. I wish someone had scared me MORE into getting help through the first few critical weeks. It can be very difficult, and I understand the women who want to read positive, uplifting things about a multiple-birth pregnancy--but there's a time to face facts and arm yourself with the truth.

My main critism of the book is that I thought it needed more emphasis on the fathers. Maybe sections throughout the book rather than one chapter--I kind of felt like they got off the hook.

Also great was the emphasis on being in a support group-- mothers of multiples clubs are indispensable.

I enjoyed the practical aspect of this book although I felt the women had very similar experiences and thus didn't cover a broad enough spectrum. The sections on how to actually feed two infants at once was great and I felt like a sister was filling me in on all the little details you don't read in the usual "expert" books. I would say this book is invaluable to first time parents and quite useful to repeat parents. Great job!

The "chatty" discussions cover most aspects of having twins in a calm and "been there" tone. It calmly discusses things usually left out of singleton birth books, such as what happens in NICU and how to handle premature babies at home. It also prepares you for the day to day things like how to deflect gawkers when shopping, how to handle prolongued fatigue and how to encourage the twins' individuality

I got this book on the recommendation of a friend with twins to read as I was expecting my twins. While the authors do a good job of providing several different points of view and experiences with the twin pregnancy experience and raising of twins, a lot of the content is very dated to the late 80s and early 90s. (Similar to how some pregnancy books tell you to make a list of important numbers to call when you go into labor---hello, cell phones?) One reason this is important to note is that medical technology has developed a lot in the past 20 years, so several of the situations noted in the text are not widely practiced anymore. Also, given the internet explosion and social networking, along with the many general pregnancy books in publication, a lot more information about pregnancy and infant care is now available that makes the authors seem really in the dark about some of their experiences. Finally, twin pregnancy books, and internet-based information, tend to generalize about all twin pregnancies and do not note the difference between mono/mono, mono/di, and di/di twins and the different level of concerns and precautions that come with each. Just as all pregnancies are not alike, all twin pregnancies are not alike, and modern medical science recognizes this more now with increased use of ultrasounds for monitoring.

If you can find this book used or borrow it from someone, there are still ideas/tips/tricks that could be useful to you. As the saying goes, in a bag of 1000 tricks, it helps to have 1001.

Another good book on raising twins. It is a little dated but advice still is good and helpful.

My daughter-in-law is pregnant with twins (first children). She found this book very informative. So did I when I read a few chapters. It is helpful before and after the birth. I was delighted with this book.

FABULOUS book. It was very well written..It was entertaining and humorous yet straight-forward and to the point. The stories were great, and I can only imagine how difficult it was for Linda Albi to raise two sets!! Twins certainly are a handful, but I cannot imagine now only having a single child. I LOVED this book and highly recommend it to anyone expecting or curious about raising twins..

I found this book to be very staright forward and It helped me by not "sugar" coating things. I read it when I first found out, and I read it again as a refresher in the last weeks of my pregnancy. After my twins were born I thought wow....my labor was by the "book"