20 month twin boys-speech/discipline/bottles/etc

Nicole - posted on 02/17/2012

i have fraternal twin girls who are 22 months. i am a kindergarten teacher. i had started introducing sippy cups when they were about 6 months old, the week after they turned 1 i got rid of the bottle and they have never used it again, mine also dont not use pacifiers. i understand that u need sleep, but what about letting them cry it out on the weekends. as for discipline, i use time out and i speak to them in a very firm voice and give them a look, this seems to work. i refuse to give into their tantrums and ignore them. i have spanked their diapered bottoms and like u it does not work. i will take away favorite toys and this does work. my girls talk well for their age. the only thing i can tell u is to look into speech therapy, or they may just be late bloomers.

Miriam - posted on 02/10/2012

definitely Kim, sorry I did not read the whole thing :+) good luck..

Kim - posted on 02/10/2012

Yes Miriam I know,.its ok to introduce new languages early, but since my boys don't speak ANY words yet, the speech therapist told us to hold off a little longer till they are able to learn how to make speech sounds. They are trying to rule out speech apraxia. I never said you shouldn't introduce a second language, mine just aren't ready to. And suggested it to Alison that she may want to also.

Miriam - posted on 02/10/2012

Kim, that is not always the case like I said I am a teacher (counselor) and my oldest son is 9 and by the time he was 2 I introduced Spanish to him and he never had any speech problems. He learned to speak very quick, by 1 he could say plenty of words and know English is his primary language, but he understands and can speak Spanish fairly well... If anything research has been done and children that are brought up bilingual at a young age are smarter because they are using different parts of their brain at an early age :+)

Miriam - posted on 02/10/2012

Allison, I am a teacher as well (just finished my masters in counseling) and I know that here you can even call a school and they will point you in the right direction. I have a niece that's 4 but when she was 3 she went to school 2 times a week a couple of hours on those days for speech and social. Call your neighborhood school or the administration office for your district.

where do you live?

Yes our were in their own room and thats how I spent my nights going from one end of the house to the other (yes I did have bruses to show for it:) so hubby said NO we (specially you) need our rest so they are moving in with us:) thats why my new motto is whatever works for you, before you know it they are in a new phase :+)

Kim - posted on 02/09/2012

Also, my boys father is.Mexican and speaks Spanish to the boys too. Our therapist suggested we hold off or limit Spanish until they start talking to keep them from getting confused or mixing the languages.

Kim - posted on 02/09/2012

Talk to your pediatrician, I think some children need it, others are just late talkers. My boys don't immitate sounds at all! I'm lucky if they say "mom". We've had 6 months so far and they have 2-3 words each. I'm going to wait a few more months and take the next step that was suggested by their current specialist. I hear all the time that boys take longer to talk, twins commonly take longer to talk, I still feel they should be saying more. But speech therapy has helped us a lot.



Good luck with the bottles. Try playtex sippy cups, my boys have always had the best luck with those. Or try to distract them by teaching them how to drink from a big boy cup. I got lucky and just took them away once they turned one and haven't seen a bottle since. I introduced sippy cups at 6m so by the time they were 1, thats all they used.

Alison - posted on 02/09/2012

Thanks guys, thanks Miriam we sound a lot alike! Ours have been sleeping in our room since birth, but in their own cribs-although whenever they need to they join us in the bed, thankfully its not often because Ale kicks like crazy lol! I cant bear the idea of waking in the nighttime and having to walk out to another room, yeah right, I would be covered in bruises trying to navigate my way down the hall.

Speech therapy wow...I should know more about this after being a teacher but I didn't even think it was a possibility til they were in school-I will have to call around about that.

they have actually gotten much better the past couple of days, Im not sure if my venting allowed me to see things/do things differently or what, but the tantrums are less, the hitting is a lot less and Ive been way more calm...even though Ale is cutting another molar! he already has 2 on top and 2 on bottom but I think there is another one on the way yikes. so he is yelling a lot but if I yell back he laughs and stops (not all the time, but enough times that I am not going crazy over it).



The bottles yep...well...Ive cut back on the milk in them by 1 ounce this week and I think i will try that approach, I did before and they just cried for more but so far its working....and I also put those Yop yogurts in their milk to add nutrients and sometimes those Carnation breakfasts. they actually arent fans of sugar at all, what they do eat is green peas, cheese, black beans, ham, chicken, they like spicy things with flavor a lot...so salty yes but no sweets (tehy are like their dad, certainily not like me!) but I dont give them chips or cheesies-only those gerber graduate whole grain cheetos...I havent been a stickler over the bottles because I like that they like milk (2%) and they are the a great size, not skinny and not chubby.....and I think drinking too much milk from a sippy/plastic lipped cup is just as bad as a bottle if they are are carrying it around sipping on it? so why take it from them, I have enough battles going on!



can you guys tell me more about this speech therapy?

Kim - posted on 02/09/2012

My identical boys just turned 2, they are receiving speech therapy and still are not talking. They still twin talk and make lots of noise, but no words. Like you we've tried everything From superwhy, singing...everything. they use sign language and can shake their head yes and no. Their receptive language is right on track,.but their expressive language is pretty much non existent. Tantrums have become a norm due to the communication barriers. I highly recommend speech therapy. It's helped our whole family learn how to communicate with no words.



As for the bottles.....its time to go!!! Throw them out! Take one away a week, they will get over it in a week. They may scream and throw a fit,but they can't cry blood! Theyre not going to die without them.

Michelle - posted on 02/08/2012

Alison, this is a long shot, but where in Canada are you?

Miriam - posted on 02/08/2012

Alison, dont worry about the books or people do what works for you and your family! We have 12 month old fraternal twin boys and also a 9 year old boy. I also work full time and so does my hubby. my first born was a very well behaved child I could tell him once dont touch that and he never would. My twins love to challenge me they are into everything and they love on each other hug and kiss each other, but they also pull each others hair and hit each other!! We just enforce that thats not right light slap on the hand (husband does that not me) I think if you slap they just slap more! :+) They do say a lot of words already though and we speak English at home to them, but my mom comes over to be with them 3 days a week and speaks Spanish to them, The words they speak are in English, but they understand both. I would not worry about the bottle yet either. My oldest stopped using his at maybe 3 and he has never had a cavity and has straight teeth. by then he was old enough for me to say were saying bye bye to bottles and threw them out and he did fine :+)

Mine still wake up 2 times a night every night for a bottle (they are actually starving and they eat well during the day) but I dont believe in CIO plus they grow up soon enough! I never thought I would allow co sleeping but they were waking up 4-6 times a night so we moved them in our room and bed a couple of weeks ago and now its only 2 times. We decided to what works for us all to be better rested and happy. so dont worry too much enjoy the moment it will soon pass. Do enforce that hitting is wrong though! .. good luck..

Jill - posted on 02/07/2012

Hey...sounds like my place. I still haven't cleaned up all the toilet paper strewn all over the place from yesterday...lol! It gets stuck to my slippers. U have a lot going on and u may have to consider a little more seriously the crying-it-out thing or just put ur foot down. Subtract a bottle a week and offer some food or snacks instead of the bottles. They will get it that u are eventually going to make them stop the bottle but u can coddle them. Just act like it is natural. Be calm and firm. And if they eat a lot of sugar, cut it down, too. Do the justice cutting thing. I did that for my kids. I stopped buying so many things with high fructose corn syrup in it. They can be calm if u do that and stick to a consistent schedule. My boys had speech therapy. And it helped. They played games where they had to talk...engage them. Make it fun. All these things seem kinda simple to me.



If u have any questions, I can try to answer them for u. :-)