How To Keep One Twin Healthy When The Other Is Sick Dad's Guide To Twins podcast

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How to Keep One Twin Healthy When the Other is Sick

2d ago 7:04

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One of the challenges with twins is that they get sick. Sickness doesn’t always strike both twins simultaneously. Your twins will catch a cold, get the flu, have a stomach bug, or come down with any number of other contagious illnesses. This brings up the question: how do you keep one twin healthy when the other is sick?

Sick Baby Girl

Is it Worth it?

Every time one of our twins get sick, we have to ask ourselves: does it matter if the other kids get sick too? Is this one of those colds or stomach bugs that they’ll get eventually anyway? Does this “build their immunity”?

These are very subjective questions and the answers really depend on your parenting style. Generally speaking in our house, if the child doesn’t have a fever, we aren’t too concerned if the other kids catch it.

That said, when in doubt, always give your pediatrician a call.

Many parents of twins find it’s often a losing battle to prevent the healthy twin from getting sick. Rather than focusing solely on prevention, it may be more helpful to also prepare for the inevitable, such as by stocking up on sick-day essentials for both children.

Father of twins Aaron Ameen shared his experience that since all three of his young children attend daycare, they experience a “revolving door of sickness”. He observed that illness completely overthrows any established routines and systems, making it a particularly tough time for parents, especially if the parents also fall sick. When the children are sick, they don’t sleep as well, requiring one or both parents to take time off work, which creates practical challenges for working parents.

Separate Them

Keeping your twins from spreading their germs is an almost impossible task. When your twins are infants, you can’t teach them good health habits and they can’t take care of themselves.

Toddlers and older kids don’t always practice good hygiene, will forget to cover their coughs and sneezes, and tend to do a poor job washing their hands.

If you want to improve your odds of preventing the spread of the illness, you could isolate your sick twin in his or her room. Avoid sharing clothes, toys, towels, kitchen supplies, etc. that the sick twin uses.

Twin dad Tim Brien shared that when one of his kindergarten-aged twins gets sick, the other also has a “really, really hard time,” and they usually keep both children home from school. He also mentioned that when both of his two-and-a-half-year-old twins were sick, they amazingly tried to take care of each other.

Think Sanitation

Keeping your whole family healthy starts before anyone gets sick. Teach your twins good practices like how to effectively wash their hands. We like to have our kids sing “Happy Birthday” twice while scrubbing their hands so they know they washed long enough.

Teach your twins to cough or sneeze into a tissue or into their elbow or sleeve. They should never sneeze or cough into their hands.

You should not stress excessively about sanitizing the entire house. It’s okay to let everyone get sick and recover, rather than making yourself crazy trying to prevent it. Balance what is right for your family and situation.

Lower Your Expectations

During a sick period, it’s okay to let routines and schedules slide.

The focus should be on getting everyone through the illness, not on maintaining a perfect schedule. This includes being more relaxed about screen time or a lack of routine.

Keep Yourself Healthy

You are the primary caregiver, and if you get sick, it makes caring for your twins (especially if one or both is sick) much more difficult.

While caring for your sick twin(s) make sure that you do everything you can to stay healthy. Eat well, get your rest, and wash your hands.

If you get sick on top of having to care for sick kids, things will get really tough. The best sick times in our family are when my wife and I take turns being sick. This way there is always a parent available to carry the load while the other recovers.

Father of twins Chris Titus described an instance where his wife was sick, and he took over the entire nighttime shift to care for their twin infants so she could get a full night’s rest and recover. This highlights the importance of proactive teamwork between you and your partner, especially when one parent is ill.

Sometimes instead of an illness, one twin gets injured and the other twin is totally fine. Instead of worrying about cross contamination, you’ll need to shift attention to care and recovery. Here’s an example of when one of our twin daughters needed stitches.

Picture by Kourtlyn Lott

The post How to Keep One Twin Healthy When the Other is Sick appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

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