For my two singletons, I bought cribs.
My firstborn spent a bit of time in a hand-me-down bassinet in our room, but mainly he was in my bed. All told, he slept perhaps a month in his crib in his own room until it became a place to store laundry and cats. For baby two, I felt unprepared without a crib, so I bought one. She never slept in it at all!
Although I might joke about how it can be like sleeping with a drunken octopus, I have loved co-sleeping with my kids, and I don’t mind that they still like to get in bed with me once in a while now that they’re no longer babies.
When I found out we were having twins, I definitely wondered where they would sleep. For one thing, our upstairs only has two bedrooms. Cub and Little Miss are already sharing the smaller bedroom (although Little Miss typically spends at least some of the night in the master bedroom), so there was no option of the twins having their own private cub cave. I wanted the twins to at least start off sleeping in the master bedroom with me, but let’s face it, even if I didn’t want them as my roommates, there’s nowhere else I could’ve put them!
Our master bedroom is generously sized, but not so generously sized as to accommodate two cribs. And besides, my crib track record is zero for two. That said, I knew that co-sleeping with newborn twins was not a practical option. I wanted a single, shareable sleep-space that was compact enough to fit in our room, light enough to be portable and designed to grow with them. Some twin sleep spaces are really only for the newborn phase, and that didn’t appeal to me.
The Joovy Room2 (“Room Squared”) Playard with Twin Nursery Centre has turned out to be the perfect twin-sleep solution.
Being oh so very Type A, I had ours set up and ready for its future occupants about two months early. We added a twin bed perpendicular to our queen to act as our “overflow” bed (on any given night you’ll find it occupied by me, Papa Wolf, Miss Cub or Cub), and the Room2 nestles perfectly in the corner between them.
Having had two children who slept almost exclusively in bed next to me, I’m shocked to announce that the Cub Twins have spent every night swaddled next to each other in their Room2 since coming home from the NICU at 2 weeks old. (Likely their experience sleeping alone and swaddled in the NICU has a lot to do with this success.)
The Twin Nursery Centre, purchased separately, nestles inside the playard to create a raised bassinet for newborns up to 15 lb each. The height is such that I can be lying down in my bed alongside the playard and reach my hand in to pat a fussy bubba or two.
The bassinet comes with a zip-in divider in case the babies aren’t respecting each other’s personal space, but we haven’t needed to use it yet.
There’s also a flip-up change table with a wipeable surface. I use our dresser as a change table, but the Joovy change table has served me well so far as a little shelf to store extra receiving blankets and the like.
The Room2 was easy to assemble right out of the box. Since it’s designed to be a travel sleep solution, it folds down to 37″ x 10″ x 9.5″ and can be packed in its included travel bag. It has two wheels making it easy to move around the room as needed, so I can access the underbed storage behind it or so someone can eventually vacuum. (Vacuuming is not high on the priority list in the triage of chores right now!)
When the twins outgrow the bassinet (Linebacker Twin B will hit the 15 lb mark first, that’s for sure!), they’ll move down to the ground floor of their pen for play and general containment once they’re mobile. I’m not sure up until when they’ll be able to share a sleep-space for naps, but the longer the better as far as I’m concerned.
Even if they’re not sharing the Room2 for napping, it’ll be their headquarters for play when mommy’s in the shower or otherwise occupied. With ten square feet of space, there’s room for both boys and their toys! The sides are full-length, wrap-around mesh panels, permitting air circulation and allowing curious babes to see what’s going on around them.
The Joovy Room2 is perhaps THE most crucial and useful piece of newborn twin equipment in our home, and I expect it will continue to be useful to us well past the squishy newborn stage!
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