The Best of Twins

There’s something truly magical about the days you take your toddlers outside to play. After a long, cold winter, our twins had a severe case of cabin fever. The first few days, they’re just happy with a change in scenery. Now is the perfect time for outdoor activities, because it’s too early for sunburns or most bugs. We have a very nice swingset, and it serves to entertain the kids for about fifteen minutes before they lose interest and want something new.

Here are ten fun outdoor activities for toddlers that we employ to keep them entertained.

1. Wagon Rides

Why is it that toddlers seem to cherish activities that require a lot of manual labor on the part of the parents? Wagon rides are a perfect example of this. We finally have a way to beat the system, though: a 4-year-old sister who’s strong enough to pull one or both boys around by herself. The twins get a free ride; she gets to be bossy and tell them what to do. It’s a match made in heaven.

A wagon is also very useful for taking walks around the neighborhood, because it keeps our toddlers contained. We have the Radio Flyer Pathfinder wagon which includes seats and harnesses. The boys are largely content to ride in it, as long as we provide a dozen or so leaves, gumballs, or pine cones for them to play with and toss out as we roll along.

Gazillion Incredibubble Wand

2. Bubble Activities

Bubbles are a simple, cheap, and relatively clean source of entertainment whenever we’re outside. Come on, it’s literally soap and water, so how bad can it be? Our 4-year-old likes to be the bubble maker, and the twins enjoy being the bubble poppers.

Bubbles are great for walks or parks or just your backyard. It’s most fun if there’s a slight breeze to send the bubbles zooming around the yard.

When you let one of your kids hold the bubbles, though, you should know that:

• He or she will be the envy of all siblings, who will clamor for their turn
• Far more bubble water will be spilled or splashed on the ground than used to make bubbles
• Inevitably the wand will end up on the ground or carried off, leaving you to hold the bottle with no lid.

Gazillion Bubble Cannon

I should also note that “traditional” bubbles, where you have to reach in and find the little plastic wand, are not optimal for toddlers because they’re harder to use, but easier to spill. A super bubble wand or (better yet) the Gazillion Bubble Cannon make giant or tons of bubbles, respectively.

3. Plant Flowers or Vegetables

There is a simple pleasure in growing something from a seed. This is a fun outdoor activity that your toddlers can enjoy all spring and summer: planting the seeds, watering them, and checking their growth.

For toddlers and small children, you probably want to select something that has large seeds (easier to handle), doesn’t have special pest or disease problems, and sprouts/grows/blooms quickly. Here are some suggestions:

• Sunflowers. These have large seeds, grow quickly, and produce a stunning result. You can harvest the seeds for planting next year, or leave them for the birds to enjoy in the fall.
• Gourds. These are fascinating plants to watch grow. They have large seeds and sprout quickly. The plant itself is a vine that will cover a fence or trellis.
• Beans. Fast-germinating, large seeds make these easy to grow. Twirl the vines up a bamboo pole as they grow. Blue Lake, Derby, Romano, and Pencil Wax are some of the best edible varieties.
• Tomatoes. These have small seeds that your little ones can scatter in a pot or garden. They are fast and easy to grow, and cherry tomatoes are just the right size for toddlers to eat (once they’ve been washed, of course. The tomatoes, that is).

Many thanks to the Redwood Barn Nursery, whose great article on seeds that are easy to grow provided this and other helpful information.

4. Sidewalk Chalk

Crayola sidewalk chalk

If you have a driveway, porch, patio, or other concrete surface, sidewalk chalk makes for a very fun outdoor activity. True, your kids will get chalky hands, but it cleans off easily (and rain usually takes care of the pavement). Some kids will be entertained for hours by this, some won’t last five minutes.

Sidewalk chalk is inexpensive and lasts a long time if you remember to bring it back inside. The Crayola Box of 52 sidewalk colors is about $10 on Amazon. You might also look into a set that comes with chalk holders, which keep your toddler’s hands clean and are easier to grip.

You can also use sidewalk chalk to decorate the driveway or patio in preparation for a child’s party — like dinosaur footprints for a dinosaur-themed party, or fairies for a princess party. For that, you might actually prefer the Crayola Sidewalk Paint kit with 3D glasses.

Courtesy of Inner Child Fun

5. Build A Fairy House

Here’s a fun outdoor activity that also goes well with a girl’s birthday party: building a fairy house in the backyard. All you need is one or more girls and the following materials:

• A bird house kit, ideally of unpainted wood. These are inexpensive and easy to find (try the hardware store or craft store). A hollowed-out gourd works too.
• Craft paint and paintbrushes
• Doll furniture or other little decorations
• Flowers, stones, and other things collected from the yard
• A Barbie or Tinkerbell doll to try it out.

If you paint and decorate these little houses, maybe some little fairies or pixies will move in! At least, that’s what you and your little ones can hope for.

6. Sprinkler or Water Table

When warm weather hits, there’s nothing more fun or refreshing than water play in the backyard. When we were kids, that usually meant running through the sprinkler (which is still a fun outdoor activity) but I think that’s been eclipsed by something relatively new: the water table. These aquatic play stations are like knee-high miniature water parks, just the right height for your toddler to stand beside.

There are pools, cups, water spouts, little boats, and most importantly, plenty of water to splash around in. On a summer day, our water table literally provides hours of entertainment. It’s a bit bulky to store but still well worth it. Safety note: don’t leave the water in the table overnight or even alone for long hours during the day, because animals will drink out of it. We caught a deer and her fawn drinking from ours!

7. Backyard Camping

At some point your little ones will hear about camping, and to their naive little heads, it will sound like a wonderful idea. As many children (and adults) learn, the idea of camping out is often far more appealing than the action of camping out. Then again, some people love it. That’s why a backyard campout is a fun outdoor activity that serves as a trial run for your aspiring scout.

It doesn’t even have to be overnight — it could just be a fun afternoon or evening in the tent, with the agreement that when it’s time to go to sleep, everyone will return inside.

8. Kites and Pinwheels for Toddlers

Prism Stowaway Delta Kite

Our backyard has trees overhead, but at the inlaws’ house it’s mostly open sky. On a clear, breezy day, flying a kite is one of our favorite outdoor activities. The right kite pretty much flies itself. Once you get it up, there’s not a lot of effort (or skill) required in keeping it there. The kids love watching the kite while it’s up, or running to save it when it comes down.

Side story: when our daughter was about 2, we flew a kite with her on a too-windy day and the string broke. That kite was gone, and she was rather traumatized by it. Months later, whenever we asked her about a kite, all she would say is “kite broke” with a sad little pout.

Pinwheel 8-pack

Another option for outdoor fun is a couple of bright pinwheels. Toddlers love these and are fascinated with them; they’re not expensive, and they really brighten up the yard. Don’t bother putting them in the ground until you’re ready to go in, because your toddler will want to carry around as many as his little fingers can hold. Then you can stick them in the ground or a flower pot in view of the window, so they can still see the pinwheels after you go back inside.

9. Nature Activities

There are plenty of ways to get your toddlers learning about and interacting with the natural world, and the backyard is a great place to start. Now is the time to inspire a love of the outdoors, before television and video games take hold of your child’s mind! Here are some ideas:

• Seed hunt. Here’s an excuse to have fun with your toddlers while cleaning up the yard a little bit. Give them a bucket or basket, and see how many pine cones, acorns, gumballs, or other things they can collect.
• Bug collection. Toddlers are fascinated with bugs, but occasionally can be frightened by them — probably the remnant of some ancient survival instinct — so take it slow. Butterflies, worms, and lightning bugs are safe and easy to collect and (when placed in a jar) may keep your toddler fascinated for a long time. Before you go in, let him or her release the prisoners: it’s a good exercise in “catch and release”.
• Animal watching. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, and other animals are busy this time of year. Point out these little critters as they appear. Give them names, and think about setting out a birdfeeder or bread crusts to keep them around. We have a regular squirrel visitor at the front window that our daughter named (for reasons still unknown to us) “Apple Dapple”. Whenever that guy comes around, the kids are enraptured and the parents get a few moments’ peace.

What’s Your Toddler’s Favorite Outdoor Activity?

Please leave us a comment and share your toddler’s favorite things to do outside!

Image credit: Pinterest

Sleep training is one of the most challenging aspects of parenting newborns, and it’s even harder with multiples. For one thing, there’s twice as many babies to change, feed, burp, and tuck into bed at every nap time. Also, you encounter the classic problem of one fussy baby waking up the other. Over and over again.

After so much success in establishing our daughter’s sleep habits — she was sleeping through the night at 3 months — we were cautiously optimistic about doing the same with our twins. We weren’t that lucky, of course. There were setbacks. There were surprises and bumps in the road. Ultimately, however, we had both boys sleeping through the night (7:30 p.m. to 7:45 a.m.) by the time they were 6 months. Here’s how we did it.

Setting the Stage: The Twins’ Nursery

Our twins share a room, which is pretty common. There was not much of a debate on whether twins should share a crib; we knew there were safety concerns so we have a crib for each of them. These are positioned at a 90 degree angle to each other, so the boys can see one another if they want but they don’t have to. Both are 4-in-1 convertible cribs so we can use them as toddler beds when it comes to that.

Darkening the Nursery

We put room-darkening shades and heavy curtains on both windows. Blocking out the sunlight and achieving total darkness is critical for sleep training, because it helps prevent early wake-ups due to sunrise. This has burned us a few times in the past when we’re not on daylight savings, because there’s an east-facing window. Just a sliver of sunlight getting past the shade and curtain and right onto a twin’s face has caused super-early awakenings.

Darkening the nursery also helpful for getting the twins to sleep at an early bedtime, which we’ll go into later.

Graco Sound Machine

Providing White Noise

White noise is another important element in the nursery, for two reasons. First, it provides a steady background “hum” that covers up other noises — dogs barking, neighbors slamming their car doors, garbage trucks, thunderstorms — that might cause the twins to wake up.

Second, we generally only turn on the sound machine when it’s bedtime, so it’s one of the sensory signals to the twins that it’s bedtime. They hear the steady hum, they know it’s time to sleep. A Graco Sound Machine is perfect for this… it even works with an iPod.

Twin Bedtime Routine

Establishing a bedtime routine for your twins is crucial. Following the same steps, in the same order, at around the same time each night, tends to be habit forming for both you and the twins. For you, it helps you remember to do everything to get ready. For them, it’s a series of cues that prepares them mentally for going to bed. They know what’s coming, and they will come to understand that resistance is futile.

Here are some tips we’ve picked up in establishing our bedtime routine:

1. Do both twins at the same time. This will make putting them to bed easier, and prevents disputes over bottles, blankies, pacifiers, and such.
2. Start the routine at dinner. If your twins are eating solid food, make sure they get a nourishing meal at dinner. After dinner, we allow for about an hour of play time until we give them the bedtime bottles (now sippy cups) of warm milk.
3. A warm bath can help. We don’t give our twins a bath every day, but when we do, it almost always helps them sleep better. Indeed, the bath-bottle-bed routine is a proven method that’s been in use for generations.
4. Clean diaper, soft pajamas. Dressing each twin comfortably and in a dry diaper will make them both more comfortable, and signal them that it’s time for bed.
5. Pacifier and crib. Two things are proven to reduce the risk of SIDS: letting baby sleep in the crib each time, and offering baby a pacifier. When both of these are part of the routine, they make a healthy, effective sleep habit.

It’s bound to be a little chaotic around bedtime, especially if you’re putting them to bed on your own. If there’s a spouse or family member who can help, take advantage of that! Four hands are better than two.

Overnight Diapers

One thing that I highly recommend for when you start teaching your baby to sleep longer at night is an overnight diaper. These have extra padding and are super-absorbent, designed to last 8-12 hours while keeping your baby comfortable. It’s frickin’ amazing how much these diapers will hold. I’m convinced that they help our twins sleep longer, especially by preventing wet-diaper wake-ups.

Side note, we also use overnight diapers on road trips to keep the twins extra comfortable. We’ve had luck with both Huggies Overnites and the Pampers Extra Protection. There’s also an environmentally friendly overnight diaper from Seventh Generation.

Swaddlers and Blankets

At the newborn stage, we always swaddled the twins for sleep. It’s the only safe way to give them a blanket, it keeps them warm, and it mimics the snug comfort of the womb. They make velcro-assisted swaddle blankets that are super-easy to use, but I learned to swaddle with just a plain receiving blanket too. When they started kicking out of that, we went with a baby sleep sack (left) instead. It’s a sort of wearable blanket that zips from the bottom for easy diaper changes.

Aden+Anais Blankets

Now that our twins are over 12 months and we’re not as worried about SIDS, we let them keep a loose blanket in the crib. They cherish one blanket above all: the light, airy, Aden+Anais muslin blankets. We own about eight of these because our twins usually won’t go to sleep without them.

If you own some, you know why these are the #1 bestselling baby blanket on Amazon.com. They’re just that good.

 Sleep Training Tips

Now that you have your nursery stage set, and your bedtime routine figured out, we can dig into the actual baby sleep training. You should have realistic expectations about how much your babies will sleep. If they’re under 3 months of age, they might only do 2-4 hours at a stretch and that’s normal. It’s hard for you because there are two babies, so you might only get 1-2 hours of rest at a time yourself between feedings.

You’ll know your babies are ready when they start sleeping for longer stretches – 5-7 hours at a time or longer. It might not happen at the same time for both of them — in fact it almost certainly won’t. Most other parents of multiples I’ve spoken to about this have one good sleeper and one not-so-good sleeper, just as we do. Put your good sleeper in the crib farthest from the door, so that you can extract the fussy one / early riser without disturbing his or her sibling.

Image Credit: Pinterest

Set An Early Bedtime

One of the most surprising yet effective techniques to help babies sleep longer at night is to set an early bedtime – maybe 45 minutes to an hour after dinner at the latest. For you, this might be 6:45 or 7:00. It’s earlier than you’d think. Intuitively, it seems like putting a baby to bed earlier would have them waking up earlier. But an earlier bedtime does two things:

1. It helps align your twins’ sleep schedule with circadian rhythms, which are driven by daylight and nighttime
2. It allows your twins to go to bed before they’re over-tired, fussy, and would fight being put to bed.

Another benefit, and I suppose you could take this either way: it gives you and your spouse a bit more time to relax in the evening before you go to bed. After some long days, that’s very valuable.

When One Twin Cries

We used to freak out a little bit when one twin was crying while the other was still asleep (or trying to be, anyway). The good news is that because they share a room, our twins don’t seem very bothered by each other’s cries. This isn’t always true — sometimes one of them will be bouncing and noisy and keep the other awake almost on purpose — but in most cases, when one boy fusses, the other one keeps on snoozing.

Most mornings, the older twin (and lighter sleeper) wakes up first. This is fine, because usually I can slip in and retrieve him before his brother wakes up. We always put them to bed at the same time, I just think that one of them needs more sleep each night than the other. This way, they both can get what they want and we have the nursery set up to make it possible.

When Both Twins Cry

I’m not a fan of the strict cry-it-out school of baby sleep training. Neither is my pediatrician, quite frankly, and I trust his opinion more than most. He actually advises that if you need to let them cry — when teaching them to sleep in the crib, for example — to go in every 10-15 minutes, don’t say anything, but reinsert the pacifier, tuck in the blanket, and then leave again. It reassures them that you’re still around but gets the point across.

There have been times when both twins wouldn’t sleep — they’d cry and cry, when we knew they sorely needed a nap or to go to bed for the night. We took a hard stance on a few occasions, letting them cry until they went to sleep. It’s hard to do, but it’s occasionally necessary, and we have never seen any ill effects (psycological or physical) from it. In fact, it’s usually the opposite: they wake up cheerful as can be, because they got the sleep they needed.

The Bottom Line on Sleep Training Twins

Sleep training with twins isn’t twice as hard as a single baby – like most other things, it’s about three times as hard. There’s two of them but only one (or two) of you. They aren’t likely to encourage one another to go to sleep, but they might easily wake one another up. I’ll leave you with one parting note, something that might encourage you.

Once our boys started sleeping through the night (because we did all of the things above), a curious thing happened. When we are getting the twins ready for bed, if we happen to put one in his crib before the other’s quite ready — especially if he’s out of the room, like in the bathtub — he won’t settle down until his brother comes in. Both of them going to sleep at the same time is part of the routine now, and they sort of need each other to do it.