- Dishwasher: If you don't already have one, do yourself the favor of getting one asap! You don't have time to do dishes when you have 2 little ones to take care of, and preparing babyfood in a messy kitchen is just sooooooo depressing.
- Microwave sterilizer: Don't be boiling water to sterilize those bottles - and don't skip sterilizing them either!! Get a sterilizer to put in the microwave. We have the one from Philips Avent, and I don't know what we would have done without it! (We bought it on Amazon.com, loads cheaper than in any shop - see ad at bottom of page)
- Bouncing chair & playmats: We bought 2 chairs and 2 different playmats, it's great to be able to put the girls there for a while so I can do laundry, prepare formula, start dinner or whatever. One of the playmats is in the room where we change the girls, that way one girl is entertained while I change the other. Never leave the babies alone in the bouncer chair or on the playmat! (Again, Amazon.com has a great selection at unbeatable prices - we bought all ours there. See ads at bottom of page)
- Breastfeeding pillow: Buy the pillow asap - while you're pregnant if that's still the case! It helped me relieve back-pain during the pregnancy and it helped me sleep when my belly was the size of a basket ball. While the girls were breastfeeding it made it possible to feed both at the same time, now they're not breastfeeding anymore but we still use the pillow to prop them up when we bottle-feed them. When we don't use it for the girls, Albert uses it to sleep.
- Electric breastpump: Chances are that you'll struggle with breastfeeding, and that you'll be pumping a lot of milk. Do yourself the favor of getting an electric pump, not one of those manual handpumps. Pumping milk is annoying enough as it is, don't make it worse by having to do it all manually. I have the single electric breastpump from Philips Avent, but wish I had known about the twin one. Once again we bought it on Amazon.com - see ad at bottom of page.
- Baby monitor: You need to be able to disconnect while the babies sleep, the only way is to make sure you can hear them without having to constantly check on them. Don't waste your money on a monitor with a camera/screen, none of them are big enough to focus on more than 1 baby at a time anyway. Make sure the parent unit can easily be taken with you. We have the Philips Avent monitor and we have been very, very happy with it.
Here are some tips to make grocery shopping easier:
- Shop on-line. We shop on-line once a month, buy a month's (or more) worth of water, juice, milk, cans (formula, olives, diced tomatoes, coke, tuna, etc), breakfast cereals, cat-supplies, toiletpaper, cleaning supplies, detergent, etc etc etc. Basically, the only things we don't buy are fruits, vegetables and meat since we'd rather pick that out ourselves. We always use Carrefour, but there are plenty more to choose from, for example:
- Big supermarkets, like the above mentioned, are always easy enough to get around with a double stroller. But getting through the "caixa" can be a problem. Most have one for wheelchairs which is wider than the others, a double stroller fits through some. In Carrefour, the "caixas" for "Servei a casa" are always open, and wide enough for a double stroller without problems. Other supermarkets where you can comfortably get around are:
- Keisy: Consell de Cent (between C/Girona and C/Bailén)
- Lidl: Gran Via (Between C/Sicilia and C/Sardenya)
Here are some tips to make formula-life easier:
- We always have cartons of the liquid version of the formula. It's more expensive, so for financial reasons they are only for emergencies - days where there just isn't time to boil water and mix powder, days when there's no milk left just as we're on our way out the door, days when we've forgotten to buy powder, etc. The liquid version for the first six moths is hard to find, we buy ours at our local pharmacy (on Consell de Cent with Roger de Flor).
- Though it says on the package not to pre-mix the formula, we always mix enough for 24 hours. We have a glass jar where I've measured out exactly how much water we need and drawn a line with a permanent marker on the jar. Then I measured out exactly how much the necessary 50 (or so) measuring spoonfulls of powder weighed, with an electric kitchen scale. Now, when I have to prepare the formula, all I have to do is pour cooled, boiled water until the line and add 215 gr. of powder. I pour the pre-mixed formula into the bottles and heat it for 30-50 seconds in the microwave just before the girls have to eat.
- As mentioned, we shop on-line once a month. We buy 10 cans of powder formula, that way we don't need to worry about it for a couple of weeks at least.
- When we go out, I boil water and pour it in their bottles. We have a zip-lock bag with powder and a measuring spoon in their stroller bag, that way we can mix the milk when they need it, and the water is still warm, meaning we don't need to worry about founding somewhere we can warm up the milk.
- Cook enough food for the whole week - while you're at it, you might as well get it over with.
- Freeze the food in ice-cube boxes, that way it's really easy to take just the amout you need. We have one ice-cube box with mashed potatoes, one with mashed sweet potatoes and one with mashed carrots. Once they start eating more varied we'll fill half the box with one thing and the other half with another. It's so wonderful to just be able to take out a couple of food-cubes, defrost them in the microwave, and feed the girls.
- We were given a Chicco
