How much is enough?

I just had my baby shower and I got a good amount of onsies, socks, all that jazz. And I'm not a first time Mom. It's just the fact of having twins. I'm not sure how much changing their really going to need. Should I buy more outfits for home use? Sleeping gowns? I'm just afraid to be UNDER stocked...pls help me. How much did u stock up? And sizes? Thanks!!

 

I'm in the same boat as you! I was so well stocked with my son that now I have no idea how much is good for two. We bough bottles yesterday the 4oz I got 7 (thats all they had at the store) I would like to have a days worth for both so I'm not doing dishes all day everyday but I have no idea how many I will need...Ugh. I'm hoping you get lots of answers=) and clothes how many outfits is good in each size?

 

Its kind of hard to guestimate for sizes for when they are first born..b/c they may need preemie clothes, but they may just need newborn and 0-3 months.. depending on how long you carry, and the estimated weights the DR is giving you towards the end. I would say to have AT LEAST 20 onesies and nighties, whether they are the feety ones or nightgown type. You also want to have the same for bibs.. this will only give you 2 outfits a day for 10 days..in case they need to be changed! I personally didnt change their clothes during the day unless they spit up on themselves, or something like that.
I didnt count how many of these things I had, but I know it was a lot. I actually had some nightgowns I didnt use. . but I guess its better to have more than less!

Bottles... I had at least 10, maybe more.. The hospital gave me a lot of those little 2 oz premade formula bottles, so I washed and reused those for a while... then I used the playtex drop ins (personal choice)

diapers are really the main thing you want to stock up on. . they are the most expensive thing they will need, so if you can get a lot of diapers at your baby shower, or any little bit of extra money you come across, you want to buy diapers!
HTH!! Good luck!

Edited to add bottles, and diapers

 

My twins almost never wore socks until they were several months old. When they were newborns they wore sleepers pretty much all the time. And then after that, they were barefoot at home & at daycare, and wore Robeez (without socks) if they couldn't be barefoot for some reason. They didn't start consistently wearing socks until they were walking well and wearing real shoes, around a year.

I think we had about a dozen sleepers, which was plenty. A couple of them were preemie size, and the girls grew out of those at about 6-8 weeks. The rest were either newborn (which lasted till about 3 months) or 3 month (which lasted till about 6 months).

I much preferred sleepers (with feet and snaps) to gowns (with elastic around the bottom), but that's personal preference. I felt like the gowns always rode up over their diapers and left their legs bare -- it was easier for me to just do up the snaps on the sleepers than worry about that. Some people really love the gowns though.

We had maybe 10 onesies, which was also plenty. (We didn't use onesies under sleepers, only if they were wearing "real" clothes.) It's nice to have some that are more like normal shirts but with snaps under the crotch, as opposed to just the boring white onesies.

We had about a dozen bibs. My girls were not spitters/droolers, so we didn't have to change their clothes very often, but they did always dribble when they ate.

One thing we had a gazillion of and almost never used was receiving blankets. I don't know what people use them for! We had some bigger ones from the hospital that we swaddled them in at first (until we got the Miracle Blankets), and we occasionally used them as drool bibs or to tuck around the babies' feet in their carseats. But we had at least a dozen and could have made do with 4-6.

We had two days' worth of bottles, which (if I recall correctly) was 24.

 

I like the gowns that zip up, I had those for my son at night and they were better than the elastic ones because they dont ride up but still great for late night changes just unzip change and zip back up and they were warm so no need to worry about blankets or anything.

 

Mine aren't here yet either, but I can commiserate!
I have just a few outfits (maybe 5 for each kiddo) in newborn sizes. By outfits, I mean sleep and play type things that are cute enough for visitors.
I have a ton of gowns, which is what I really liked for nighttime/ non company days. Maybe....10 per kid? I just remember those getting peed on and spit up on a lot. Most are 0-3, but some are 3-6.
I also have a pretty decent supply of 0-3 mo clothes....maybe 8 new sleep and play type things, and 3 shirts and pants type things per kid. Plus a few things from my first child as hand me downs.

I've made a conscious effort not to buy anything larger (except for stuff that is not season specific like PJs) I just don't feel confident knowing when they will move into the next size, what the season will be and if they will be on the same growth curve.

I'm planning to BF, so I have only minimal bottles. I never needed bibs with my singleton until he started eating solids, so I'm not buying any of those.
What I feel like I still need are sheets for the co-sleeper. I'm not sure how many I'll need. It seems like a bunch!

 

Add me to the kinda unsure list.

I haven't even dug out what I have left from my first 2 kids, so we haven't bought a lot. I have bought mostly "cute" stuff they can wear when we go out (like similar outfits and double trouble onesies! ). And sleepers! I prefer snap sleepers to zippers and gowns myself, because the gowns ride up, and the zipper only has a zipper down one leg, I find it easier to unsnap both legs! Personal preference.

I just know that with 4 kids I have no intention of doing laundry every day, so I want lots of everything!! :lol: I'll spent the extra now rather than deal with no clothes for the babies!

Fortunately my ds was born at 5 lbs 13 oz in feb, and these babies are due in march, so I know most of his clothes should fit. But my dd was 9 lbs 12 oz in sept, so I know none of her little stuff will fit my twin girl! I've bought more girl stuff than boy newborn stuff! My dd went straight to 0-3 month.

As for bottles, don't buy a ton of 4 oz ones, they don't use them very long! Buy the 8 oz ones and just fill them half full, that way you aren't buying a whole new set of bottles when the babies start eating 5 or more oz of food!

And for diapers, I disagree with stocking up. DO stock up on gift cards/coupons, but actual diapers, some diapers won't fit some babies, and I'd hate for you to have a wall full of diapers that you have to return because the brand won't work for your baby!! I had to give a bunch away with my ds because we stocked up, but the only thing that didn't leak was pampers for him. Huggies is what worked for my dd. Same goes for wipes, you don't want a bunch and then have one have a reaction to a certain brand, stock up on gift cards and coupons instead!

 

Oh how I feel your pain!!
Just a couple of thoughts..

we weren't expecting to need preemie clothes so we had to go out and buy some.but our boys are growing very quickly so they have both already grown out of their preemie, newborn and one of our boys is growing out of his 0-3mth size (they are 6wks)

What I wish I had known was to be careful what you 'stock up' on. We bought tons of bottles and literally went through every kind imaginable before finding one that worked with our boys. (they have reflux).

We also found that diapers were kind of like clothes. Depending what size your babies are. We started out in Preemies, and we had so many newborns given to us, we actually have 4 boxes we won't be using because they have out grown them and are now in 1-2.

Along with that, we have been using pampers but wanted to try a cheaper brand and tried walmart, and they had many blowouts, every changing was messy! So we decided to stick with pampers.
Also I have had a couple of friends have issues with skin sensitivities with different brands...so maybe instead of stocking up you could ask for gift cards. I think the same is with formula, we bought about $250 worth of formula and almost had to switch due to the reflux issue...that was scary!

Just keep in mind things change so fast, it can be hard to prepare.
This is a very hard concept for me to grasp, I am a HUGE planner!

Gift cards are great (when we had xtra money we would go to walmart and buy gift cards for ourselves for later-it was a great way to save $$)
Ask people to tape reciepts to items...Walmart has been GREAT about taking back returns! I returned those boxes of diapers (a quantity they didn't carry) and they gave us a store credit!

If you have any questions...feel free to PM me.

Best of luck...our boys are still "new" and we are loving every second of it! Best of luck to you!!
rebecca