Double the Trouble, Double the Time

Can I please get a show of hands for every parent who is overwhelmed by their baby’s health information? Now, how about combining the general overwhelm with being a first-time parent and newborn fog, Now, how about all of that… plus twins.  Welcome to my world.I recently gave birth to preemie twins.  That’s two babies. Two teeny tiny little humans that we are now responsible for.

My little guy, Hunter, came in at 5lbs and 13 oz and spent his first few days of life in the NICU for hypoglycemia.  My baby girl, Hayden, came in at 4lbs 13oz and was a rockstar in the hospital, but then her temperature dropped and she lost weight quickly.

We spent 4 days in the hospital tracking their every move, temperature reading, feeding, poop, pee, heart rate, sleep time etc. etc. etc.  I didn’t bring a notebook, so I was furiously writing on spare napkins and pamphlets that were laying around.  I opened new notes on my phone that were instantly lost, or didn’t make any sense having been written at 4 am after 38 hours of consecutive awakeness.

At one point I may have written Hunter’s blood sugar test on the wrapper of one of those ginormous hospital maxi pads.

(No judging.)

When we were discharged, we all breathed a sigh of relief to go home and enjoy our new family, but the tracking became even more intense without the safety net of the nurses and doctors checking in on us every 2-4 hours. We continued our process the old school way, with paper and pen, amassing nearly 5 pages of notes each day that we had to wade through for doctors appointments.

Like posting on Instagram, I feel like if it’s not written down on my scattered papers, did it even happen?

These days, I’m feeling much more in charge of the record keeping thanks to the Telus Baby Health App which helped me join the digital age of record keeping.  I love using this app to track Hayden’s weight and keep the twins’ immunization records in order.  It also helps me work on the developmental milestones for each of the babies, so that’s just one more thing that my already cluttered mind doesn’t need to worry about remembering.

Another cool thing is that Telus has partnered with the Baby Box people, and if you click here and take the Baby Box University course you can receive your own!  Hunter thoroughly enjoyed napping in his box while his sister hogged the crib 🙂

Check out my full video above for a behind-the-scenes look at my old school analog ways and all the neat features of the app. Visit telus.com/babyhealth to learn more.

Disclosure: I have partnered with YMC and TELUS Health and have received compensation for this post. All opinions in the post are my own.