Pamela's Twins & Multiples Blog

Deoin and Jordan are two year old fraternal twins.
Share your thoughts, opinions and advice in our comments section.
More Worldless Wednesday Posts on About.com

Q: Is it possible to breastfeed triplets or other higher order multiples like quadruplets or more?

A: A big concern for moms of triplets and other supertwins is how to feed their infants. Recognizing the benefits of breastmilk, many mothers want to attempt to nurse their multiples.

Although more challenging than nursing twins, it is possible to breastfeed higher order multiples like triplets, quads or more. With three or more babies, you obviously won’t be able to nurse them all at the same time but with some organization and perseverance, it can be done. Read more about how to breastfeed triplets and other higher order multiples in the Breastfeeding Twins & Multiples FAQ.

Some interesting news from around the world this week. While the eyes of the world are on the Olympics in Beijing, two women in the middle east have achieved some amazing feats of motherhood. Ghazala Khamis, a twenty-seven-year-old Egyptian women, gave birth to septuplets this past weekend. That's seven babies - enough to field an entire water polo team. Amazingly, the babies weighed between 2.3 and 4 pounds each when they were delivered by Cesarean section at about thirty-four weeks' gestation. Khamis became pregnant with septuplets after taking fertility drugs. There are four boys and three girls.

In Iraq, a mother gave birth to sextuplets on Saturday, but two of the babies have died already due to poor hospital conditions. Their mother, Ibtisam Najim Abid, also used fertility drugs to conceive the babies. Two boys and two girls have survived.

All around us, costs are going up, up, up. We're paying more for gas, food and everything else. For families with baby twins or multiples, who go through 10-20 diapers per day, the cost of those diapers is also on the increase. Kimberly-Clark announced recently that they would be raising the price on their Huggies brand of diapers by 6-8% this summer.

So what's a family to do? Here are some strategies to help you save. How to Save Money on Diapers

My favorite answer to this question is, "Well, they do now! They run up and down the stairs, and all around the house!" For some reason, people want to be convinced that some families are biologically destined to have twins. Perhaps it's the hope that they, too, will have twins because their husband's father's cousin's niece had twins in 1962, or maybe it's an attempt to ensure that they'll be exempt from the "curse" of multiples because their family's offspring is historically single.

Yes, it's true that some families seem to have an abudance of twins dangling from the branches of their family tree. But there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about the ways that twinning and multiple birth are related to heredity. Get the facts. Do Twins Run in Families? Is There a Twin Gene?

Beach babes, Conal and Roisin, are one year old fraternal twins enjoying some fun in the sun.
Share your thoughts, opinions and advice in our comments section.
More Worldless Wednesday Posts on About.com

Check out these new sites in the Parenting Channel at About.com:

• Susan Adcox is the Guide to Grandparents
• Amanda Rock is the Guide to Parenting Preschoolers
• Jennifer O'Donnell is the Guide to Parenting Tweens
• Katherine Lewis is the Guide to Working Moms

Whatever your parenting situation, you'll find resources and advice from the Guides at About.com. Take some time to browse around the sites in the Parenting & Family Channel -- just be sure to check back here for all the information you need about twins and multiples!

Already, the Olympic games have been a pleasant diversion from our usual summer routine. It's the first time that my twin daughters have appreciated the games from the perspective of their own athletic endeavors; one plays volleyball and the other basketball. They also enjoy seeing the swimming events, as they both compete on a swim team.

One of the big disappointments of the Beijing games is the absence of the Hamm twins from competition. Both enjoyed great success at the 2004 Athens games, but injuries thwarted their hopes for glory in 2008.

Other interesting twin stories from the Olympic games:

• Janet and Jennie Culp are twin sisters and syncrhonized swimmers. Janet made the Olympic team. Jennie did not.
• Diana Pickler makes her Olympic debut in the Heptathalon. Unfortunately, her twin sister, Julie, didn't qualify.
• Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are 26-year old twin brothers and part of the U.S. rowing team.
• New Zealand rowers Caroline and Georginia Evers-Swindell are another dynamic duo in the double scull event.
• About.com's Guide to Paddling predicts that Slovakian twin brothers Pavel and Peter Hochschorner will win the gold in the C-2 Men’s Slalom Canoe/Kayak event, repeating their 2004 victory.
• Twin boxers Oscar and Javier Molina won't meet in the ring, even though they represent two different countries. Welterweight Javier fights for the United States team while his brother Oscar made the team from Mexico, but didn't qualify to compete at the Olympics.
• Another set of twin boxers, McJoe and McWilliams Arroyo Acevedo, represent Puerto Rico on the U.S. Olympic team.
• Bob and Mike Bryan are a dynamic duo in tennis doubles, and they're looking for gold in 2008.
• Twin sisters WenWen and TingTing Jiang are one of the top synchronized swimming duets in the world, and will also represent China in the team synchronized swimming event.
• Jake Gibb started playing beach volleyball player with his twin brother. I also heard one of the Olympic commentators mention that his family includes another set of twin sisters among the eleven siblings.
Finally, a nod to a member of the U.S. Women's Field Hockey team. Kelly Doton started her career playing ice hockey with her twin brother before moving to the grass as a teenager.

Read more about the 2008 Beijing Olympics at About.com.

Many parents feel that having multiples is like being part of a special club; only other families in the same situation can understand the unique joys and challenges that they face. In that spirit, local support clubs have formed throughout the world. Explore the benefits of participating in a club, and find out how to contact an organization in your area.

• Finding a Support Group
• Links to Local Multiple Groups


More Options:
• Poll: Are You Friends With Other Parents of Twins/Multiples?
• Meet friends online. Visit the message forum.
• Don't want to join in? Read along. Blogs from fellow parents

What about you?
Post a comment about your experience with a twins club. Was it a life saver? An invaluabe network of friends and support? Or not worth the bother? Share your thoughts.

We've just completed one of my all-time favorite activities as a mother: our annual Mother/Daughter summer book club. I started the club in 2005 when I was dismayed that my nine-year-old twin girls didn't seem interested in reading for pleasure. When I was a kid, I was a passionate reader (I still am!) But their busy lives offered too many distractions: video games, television, the computer, sports, activities, friends -- and each other. So I thought I'd sweeten the pot and make the idea more attractive by making it a social event. Thus the Mother/Daughter book club was born, with about a dozen other girls and their mothers. (I'm the only mom of twins.)

We've met annually since then, usually twice over the course of the summer. We've been lucky to read some wonderful fiction books, as well as a few classics that I remember from my own childhood. This year's book -- Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (compare prices) -- was especially compelling, as it was a more mature storyline (no less than the end of the world!) and because the author had sent the girls an email message and autographed bookplates. I love how the book club brings out the best in my girls; it's amazing to see how their viewpoints of the same book can be so different. Yet, at the same time, it's funny and astonishing how similarly their brains work. Sometimes they'll start to say the same thing at the same time or have the exact same answer to a question. One year, the girls all decided to write their own alternate endings to one of the books and my twins ended up writing the exact same storyline, despite the fact they'd written then completely on their own!

If you're a mom who loves to read, I'd highly encourage you to consider starting a book club with your kids. I think eight or nine years old is the perfect age, depending on reading ability. And if you're lucky, as I feel I am, it's a tradition you can continue as your kids grow up. I look forward to continuing the book club tradition throughout their teen years, as an opportunity for us to connect and communicate over a shared love of a story. (If you'd like more information on how our book club works, please post a comment or email me at multiples.guide@about.com.)

• Read more about our book club at ReadingGroupGuides.com
• Reading with Twins
• Children's Books Guide at About.com