Wow this thread is bringing back a lot of memories (good and bad). We had twins 20 months ago and I can honestly say, the last 20 months have been great but a blur. Let's see if I can remember what we did to answer C02's questions.
We have one crib with the sliding rail and one without. We don't use the sliding rail and it's worked ok but as your child gets older it does get harder and harder to pull them out of their crib. If your wife had a hard labor or C-section, this might be difficult for her for a while.
We used glass bottles when the twins were tiny but switched to plastic once they could hold the bottle themselves. Babies who can hold a bottle can also throw a bottle and I'd rather have a plastic bottle hit the floor than a glass one.
Disposable diapers. We use Pampers Baby Dry. The Pampers Dry Max have something in them that really irritated our children. Our friends son received a bad rash or burn from the Dry Max but for others, they were great. We also had issues with Huggies cause after a wet diaper our kids had what looked like a lot of tiny pellets stuck to their skin. I guess whatever Huggies used to dry up the diaper started to fall back onto the baby.
We only used a standard baby monitor. If you get one, get a good one. The cheap ones make a hissing static noise after a while which gets real annoying when you are trying to sleep. As for a video monitor, just hook up a day/night web cam so you can use your smartphone to look in on the baby. Why spend the money on a video monitor when you will never use it once they grow up.
We had to use formula. Monitor how your kids react to formula. We used Similac Advanced in the beginning and we realized that none of our twins were pooping. Once we slowly switched over to Enfamil, the pooping started up again. I'm not saying one is better than the other but I'm sure one of them is better for your child. The trick is to find the one best for yours.
Our twins slept in one crib in our room for the first 5 months. Afterwards, they moved to their own crib in their own rooms. We tried some sort of sleep training and I have to give a big thumbs up to sleep training. The first 3 days were hell but now our kids sleep quite well by themselves which makes it so much nicer for everyone.
Someone mentioned routine. I so agree with this. Once our kids got into a routine, they knew what to expect.
Take lots and lots of pictures and videos. I look back to last year and I can't believe how much our kids have changed. It's great looking back at older pictures cause your mind blocks out all of the pain and lets you just remember everything as sheer bliss.
Congrats to all the upcoming fathers and mothers! Enjoy the ride!
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