Congratulations Simone,
Twins are a joy!!! I know this because I have twins. Mine are now in their teen years and for the most part are the best of friends.
I don't know about Australia, but in N America there are several twin (multiple birth) clubs. Moms and children get to together to share coffee, info, stories, and support. Lots of activities planned for the children. Ask your ob if there is one in your area. They are a great source of information and a good starting point.
By the crawling - toddler stage, I found I had more time than many of my friends who just had a singleton. The twins entertained each other while I prepared dinner, cleaned, studied, etc. My friends often felt they had no time as the singleton needed mom to be the entertainer all the time. So, enjoy!! and continue your studies
I also nursed my twins for 15 months with no troubles other than mastitis(sp) a few times in the early days when I was totally exhausted (I read up on mastitis at the time and the 3 reasons for it were stress, exhaustion and nursing multiples - well, duh!!) - do try to have some support in place for when you first get home with the babies - help with food preparation and laundry. Ask hubby to get up and change babies in the middle of the night and hand them over to you for nursing. Those early days, for me, are a kinda fog. Fortunately my hubby was not working outside the home at the time and was very helpful. Don't be afraid to ask for HELP!!! My friends and neighbours organized meals for me for the first week. Each night a different casserole was delivered to my door. It was fantastic!! Maybe someone could organize something like that for you. Or at the very least take care of the shopping.
And don't let the docs worry you unduly about premature or early birth. Many twins, including mine, are born late and have good birth weight. My due date before we knew there were two was 8th Aug, when the doc found out it was twins, he moved the due date to 26th July (twins are always early he said), finally the twins were born Aug 16th.
Enjoy!!
Gini
ps - if you would like to ask any specific questions about my experience feel free to email me
ginimas@hotmail.com
I just read what I wrote. I hope I'm not scaring you, it really was good!!! I'm just glad I had lots of support for those first weeks at home. They were my first babies, and I was also stressed with not being sure if I was doing it right. You have parenting experience, so you will probably weather the first month better than I.
Find out if there is a diaper service in your area, it was also a big help to me. 2 large garbage bags full of clean diapers were delivered to my doorstep and the dirty taken away.
And it was cheaper than disposals - which I didn't want to use anyway.