Double Trouble: Twins and How to Survive Them. Emma Mahony

sells some unusual hand-finished clothes for babies made from organic cotton – its long-sleeved ‘bodies’, sleepsuits and babygros are an environmentally-friendly alternative to the bigger stores.

       Mothercare

      (0845 330 4030: www.mothercare.com)

      Unless you are reading this after a major relaunch, Mothercare seems to me to have gone off the boil in recent years with some frumpy maternity offerings and often poorly-stocked shops. Shame when you consider that it’s the name everyone gropes for when they need anything baby-wise. One pregnant friend became so exasperated with not being able to find a shop assistant recently that she stood in the middle of the store and announced ‘I am here to spend hundreds of pounds with you, please can anyone help me?’ She spent £800 at the store and had to return to the shop when the goods were delivered because they still had their security tags on.

      When I contacted Mothercare about these general issues of stock and customer service, they replied:

       ‘We acknowledge that our performance in these areas has not lived up to the expectations of our customers. We have a new and revitalized senior management team in place that is concentrating its efforts on returning Mothercare to its position of pre-eminence as the number one retailer for parents.’

      Watch this space.

       Not Mail-order but Worth the Schlep

       H&M Hennes – Mama Range

      (www.hm.co.uk)

      The Hennes maternity line knocks spots off the catalogue stuff price-wise. Pick up basic long-sleeved T-shirts and stretchy trousers for a few quid. It is also much trendier. Think Natalie from All Saints rather than Cherie from Number 10. However, as we go to press, the website only offers a store locator rather than online ordering, so you will need to plan a trip.

      Little stuff for tiny babies

      You’ll be amazed at how little stuff you need to begin with, particularly if you are breastfeeding. Don’t be seduced by the magazines. Buy as you go along and second-hand from twins club newsletters, if you can. There are some things that only the catalogues sell, however. I’ve listed below the best buys that do the rounds through our local club’s quarterly journal.

      The swing chair

      This is a battery-powered rocking chair, suitable from birthish up until 25lb in weight. The benefit for a twin mother is that you can put one baby in it, rocking happily away on one of two speeds, with annoying jangly music, while changing the other. The downside is that they take up about as much room as a small helicopter in your living room. Brand new, they cost around £89 from catalogues such as Perfectly Happy People (0870 607 0545: wwwthebabycatalogue.com). Second-hand, they sell for around £50.

      The V-shaped cushion

      This is used for breastfeeding and propping up one little baby while you feed the other. One twin mother even uses hers to stop her two-year-old falling out of bed (one arm is a pillow, the other a buffer). She also found a rare V-shaped cushion with Velcro straps, allowing her to walk around the house with it strapped on like an ocean-going liner. Poor husband. The V-shaped cushion always comes out as a best buy for twin mothers because it allows you to breastfeed both babies at the same time (the double football hold), no-handed. Even if you bottle-feed, you can prop up both babies facing each other while you hold the bottles. Oh, what versatility! As well as being on sale at WI meetings for oldies who like to read in bed, it is also found at John Lewis stores and catalogues such as Perfectly Happy People (see above).

      The baby change station

      If you only had one baby, you might get away with not having to invest in a baby change station (the cheapest being a canvas and metal foldaway number costing around £30 in IKEA). However, if you don’t invest in one with twins, you would spend triple the cost at the osteopath after 100 nappy changes in the first week alone. If you can possibly afford it, buying one for upstairs and one for downstairs will also see you through the blizzard of nappies in the first few months.

      Bath safety seats

      Bathing twins in the early days is a two-person job unless you invest in bath seats. I bought two from Cheeky Rascals (£12.95 mail-order: 01428 682488) and I credit the purchase with helping my twins love water. The seat, which has recently won Parenting magazine Best Buy, is made of moulded plastic and props the baby in a semi-upright position. The baby is supported under the arms and legs, which are free to flail about, but cannot slip downwards. Once the twins get used to the water (my little girl used to scream when first immersed for about a week), they can splash around to their hearts’ content. In the early days, this means you could down a whole cup of tea. Well worth every penny.

      The real nappy issue

      You may be wondering at this stage what on earth makes one nappy brand better than another (the answer is whichever has a freebie of some wipes attached to them). Or you may be thinking that you’d like to do your bit for the environment and use real nappies. Whatever your view, you are entering a fiercely competitive world where the big brands like Pampers will be vying for your loyalty along with the little local nappy laundering services. Whatever you decide, remember that you will only have time to research the options before the babies are born. After that, it will be whatever the local store has in stock.

      Biodegradable disposables

      There is only one brand of disposable nappy that is biodegradable, and it is called Nature’s Boy and Girl. They are unisex (useful for boy/girl twins) and sold in all the big supermarkets, but sadly not in smaller chemists. Invented by a Swedish woman called Marlien Sandberg, the nappy is 70 per cent biodegradable, and a new prototype – 100 per cent biodegradable – may even be in production at the time of reading. For those too overstretched to want to wash or fold nappies, these are a good compromise. You are doing your bit for the environment, and can sleep at night knowing that of the 800,000 tonnes of nappy waste collected every year in UK landfill sites, at least your babies’ contributions will be rotting down. The shocking alternative is the knowledge that the very first disposable nappy ever made has yet to biodegrade.

      Real nappy laundering agencies

      For the first nine months of the twins’ lives, I opted for a nappy laundering service, which delivered 100 nappies for the babies every week and took away the soiled ones. As well as the laundering service, I also rented 12 plastic pants to put the nappies in, and they worked well with no problem of rashes or leakages. I even quite liked the chore of folding these white cotton nappy liners; it gave me a whiff of what it would be like to be a real earth mother. However, my main problem was the smell. The buckets that had to wait for a week for collection began to pong so badly that they eventually had to be put at the end of the garden near the compost. And if I forgot to put the nappy bucket out for collection, then the garden became a horsebox. The total cost was around £8 per week per baby, around the same cost as disposables. For your nearest nappy collection and delivery scheme, call The National Association of Nappy Services (0121 693 4949).

      Real nappies to buy

      In the year 2000, there were 10 companies selling cloth nappies; today there are about 22. Some mothers go for buying and using the cloth nappies because it works out cheaper in the long run. Friends of the Earth estimate that cloth nappies cost an average of £400 per baby over a two-year period before a baby is potty-trained, including the cost of washing powder, electricity, water and wear and tear (estimated at £40). Disposables cost £1,200 per baby for a two-year period – no small figure when doubled.

      These days ‘real nappy systems’,