I like to participate in Twin Happy Jen’s meme every week, though I haven’t actually done this for a couple of weeks.

This week’s Twin Happy QOTW is:

Do you think you receive more or less help, then if you had had only one baby?

I’m lucky to have a fantastic family support network on hand to help me with my gorgeous girls.  Both sets of grandparents, several aunties and uncles and some family friends have been on standby over the past five and a half years.

When my daughters were first born, my Hubby was working away from home during the week (as he had been throughout most of my pregnancy).  This could have driven many a hormonal mamma of preemie multiples over the edge.  However, I was extrememly lucky that my mum, sister and best friend were willing to take it in turns to come straight to my house from work in the evenings, prepare dinner, help with washing and ironing, and get up through the night with me for the night feeds.  My inlaws would call round every day, during the day to help out too.  I doubt very much that I’d have coped without this support network.

I don’t think parents of multiples get enough help from the government though.  We don’t get adequate child benefit, because we don’t get double money.  We get a smaller payment for our second child, even though they are twins. 

Similarly, we don’t get double maternity pay or extra leave.  I think this is unfair.  Had I given birth to my daughters eighteen months or more apart, I would have had up to a year off for each child (albeit it partly unpaid), and the same full maternity pay each time.

You can read Twin Happy Jen’s answer to the QOTW here.

Twins in the News

A report last week claimed the parents of twins or triplets are more likely to divorce than those with single-born babies. In the Daily Mail on Friday, one woman told how having triplets destroyed her marriage. But writer Amanda Cable, who lives in South-East London with her husband Ray, daughter Ruby, 11, and eight-year-old sons Charlie and Archie, tells how the twins have made them even closer.

Read more here.