Making Mealtime Easier with Twins

Last updated on September 30th, 2021 at 10:11 am

Listen up, gang! We’ve got a fantastic article for you today, full of tips to make mealtime easier with your twinnies from the baby stage all the way through the preschool stage and up — PLUS a Contours giveaway!

One lucky family will win TWO Contours Twist Grow-With-Me Seats! We LOVE this seat! It starts out as an infant floor seat for babies who are just starting to sit up on their own, and then the seat transitions into an infant booster seat, AND THEN it converts to a toddler booster seat for sitting at the family table. Brilliant! You’ll be able to get 4+ years out of these chairs. These are the perfect space savers for your kitchen and are so easy to grab and go on your way to Grandma’s house.

The Contours Twist Grow-With-Me Seat features…

Swivels 180° to five different positions
Foam seat pad easily wipes clean
3-point restraint keeps baby secure
Removable tray for meals, snacks and toys
Foam seat pad removes for older babies
Seat securely attaches to most chairs for booster modes
Choice of 3 colors: aqua, berry, or lime

Making Mealtime Easier for Twins

As a twin parent you feel like you are being pulled in two directions simultaneously (or 3+ if you have more kids). Feeding your multiples by yourself doesn’t have to be stressful. A few simple tips can help you save not only time, but sanity.

Infant Bottle Feeding

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I can offer new twin parents is to feed the babies at the same time during the daylight hours. I do not subscribe to the notion that you should do it at night (since some twins develop differently and sleep through the night earlier or later than their twin), but during the day they really need that structure and routine. There are many contraptions and $100 pillows on the market to aide you in feeding twin infants when you are alone, but in truth you already have everything you need in your own home. Here’s some tips to make it easier…

1) Buy a double bottle warmer (or just use warm tap water). Twin B isn’t going to want to wait those extra few minutes while A is eating to get their own bottle.

2) One way to bottle feed them both at the same time is to put them in their infant car seats because it props them up in a good feeding position. Sit between both car seats while holding the bottles.

3) Another method is to prop them both up on the couch with pillows and feed them in the same manner. If you’re looking to save money (and who isn’t?), skip those huge and costly items that you see on the market. They often end up taking up space and gathering dust in the long run.

Starting Solids

Starting solids can seem like it would be an insurmountable and daunting task for twin parents. You think to yourself, “But bottles are so easy and convenient!” This is why some twin parents wait longer than parents of singletons to start this stage. While it does take longer to spoon-feed them, it’s really not much more complicated to feed two babies than one. Again, I would opt for feeding them at the same time. There are a number of ways that you can do this.

1) Place a handful of Cheerios, puffs or other stage-appropriate foods on the tray of one chair tray and let twin A munch on those while you spoon feed twin B. When you are finished spoon-feeding the first baby, add a handful of snacks to their tray to entertain them while you feed their sibling.

2) You can simply feed both babies simultaneously, giving them spoonfuls on a rotation. Some babies can get quite impatient if their bites are not coming fast enough so you can always put a few snacks on their tray if they are getting grouchy. Most of the time it goes very smoothly, you just have to make sure to move quickly.

Feeding Toddlers

I am a huge proponent of toddlers feeding themselves. This can be very, very hard for parents because of the mess. You think to yourself that if you just fed them, the meal could go quicker and there would be much less mess to clean up. However, it is very important for both their speech and fine motor development to use their tiny little fingers to pincer-grasp small pieces of food as well as figure out how to use their utensils. I remember when my boys were at this stage. It was sometimes maddening watching all the food fall on the floor and in their laps.

1) Invest in a long bib that has sleeves. This will protect all of their clothing, rather than just a small portion on the front of their shirt. The large pocket at the bottom also serves as a food catcher.

2) Use high chair seats or booster seats that strap onto a chair at your regular table, such as the Contours Twist Grow-With-Me Seat. You can remove the tray and scoot them right up under the table top so food is less likely to find its way to the floor and into their lap, as with regular high chairs. This also allows them to eat at the table with the family. Traditional high chairs also take up a considerable amount of room and require an adult to be turned away from the table to assist the toddler in eating. An additional bonus of the booster seat is that you can take it with you wherever you go. We have several friends who either have no children or much older kids. We needed to bring our own gear when getting together for meals and holidays and the booster seat allows you to not only save money, but space in your house.

3) Feed your toddlers exactly what the rest of the family is eating, just cut into much smaller pieces. This will make sure that your toddlers become good and well-rounded eaters from the get go. It will also save you a considerable amount of time in the kitchen. There is no reason to make special “kid-friendly” meals. There really is no such thing. You can teach your child to eat absolutely anything. We learned that lesson the hard way with my oldest. He always got a separate dinner. It took a full year to break him of that habit. Now, thank goodness he eats whatever might be put in front of him. My twins are also great and diverse eaters. I am not saying that they don’t also get hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and chicken nuggets; they do, just not all the time.

Big Kids

Bigger kids can be very distractible at the table. There is a time between ages 3 and 6 where dinner can sometimes be a real chore. You may find that it sometimes takes your twins a good hour to finish their dinner at the table. This is a normal period of development, but there are a few methods that you can use to work around this.

1) Novelty plates are a great way to get your children to finish their dinner and finish it quickly. There are plates that have faces for you to arrange the food on, game board-based plates that have little inset compartments for food along a path to the finish line where a dessert awaits, as well as surprise reveal plates that have silly and encouraging slogans under the food as well as silly pictures. Novelty plates make dinner fun and let your kids feel like they are working towards something. Dinner becomes a game instead of a chore. We call the child who finishes first the “Ultimate Winner”. For your 4-7 year olds, a great prize for the ultimate winner is possession of the “Dinner Trophy” for 24 hours (any trophy you can find at your local second hand store or rummage sale). For your 7 and up kids, offering double of whatever dessert you are offering is enough to light a fire under even the pickiest eater.

2) Kids are not always going to eat what you make them, and that is ok. However, it is important for them to remain at the table until everyone else is done. In addition to reinforcing the notion that this is eating time and not play time, it also most often results in the child eating at least some of their dinner (eventually.)

3) We strictly enforce the no electronics or toys at the table. It is extremely distracting and usually ends up with someone’s milk getting spilled all over someone else’s plate. Kids are filled with such kinetic energy that any distraction can mean that either dinner takes over an hour to eat or there is a huge mess for you to clean up.

4) We have multi-color packs of matching plates, bowls, cups and utensils for the kids. In our house whomever finishes first gets to set the table for the next meal. This allows the child to choose what color of everything that everyone gets, but who gets to sit where. I have no idea why this is a big deal, but it is a huge incentive to finish your entire plate and quickly. Before we instituted this they would fight over who got what color. This solves that problem and ensures that dinner is fast and successful.

Mealtime with any children, let alone twins, always feels like an uphill battle. You may have won the battle of broccoli, but it feels like you are losing the dinner war on meals altogether. Following a few of these tips will help make your mealtimes not only less time consuming, but more successful.

Destiny Effertz is a stay at home mom to 3 boys under 5. Prior to having children she worked as a paralegal in a large civil litigation firm. Now she uses those research and organizational skills formulating new pie recipes and planning family vacations. For more articles by Destiny on Twiniversity, click here.