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Double the Stuff?

What You Really Need to Prepare for Twins

By Jamie Moore

(Harpeth House, 2002) by NOMOTC. "Many hospitals have found that co-bedding in the NICU helps premature babies to be calmer and grow faster than those kept separate," she says.

But for Gary Baker's twins, separate sleeping quarters was a necessity from the beginning. His boys needed their space if either one was going to get any rest. Separation was the only way to keep them on the same sleeping schedule.

There's really no right or wrong approach, says Elizabeth Lyons, a mother of twins in Plainfield, Ill., and author of Ready or Not ... Here We Come! The REAL Experts' Cannot-Live-Without Guide to the First Year with Twins (Xlibris/Random House, 2003). "The major rule of thumb is that if you are going to separate the babies, do it before they reach 4 months of age," she says. "They're very attached to one another from the get-go, and by 4 months of age, they will be devastated not to have the security of their sibling with them overnight."