What to buy twice and what to share on a baby registry for twins

The twelve-week scan shows two heartbeats, and the same evening every line on the registry gets doubled. Two changing tables. Two baby baths. Two play gyms in a flat with one living room. Half of it goes back to the shop within a month. Some things do need two. A lot of things do not, and the trick is knowing which is which before the shower.

The things you genuinely need two of

Car seats, first and without discussion. Each baby needs their own seat for every single journey, including the one home from the hospital. This is the law, and it is also the biggest expense on the list, which makes it a good item for grandparents to buy together.

Cots come next. Newborn twins can share one for the first months, and many do, but by four or five months they need their own. Two babies rolling into each other at 3am is a safety problem and a sleep problem. Two high chairs are worth it too. Feeding twins at the same time, side by side, saves you an hour a day compared with taking turns.

The last one is carriers. Tandem carriers exist, and some parents like them, but two ordinary slings mean you and your partner can each take one baby and go different ways, or one of you can carry the one who is grizzling while the other sleeps in the pram.

The things one of will cover

You only ever change one nappy at a time, so one changing table is enough. The same is true of the baby bath, the bouncer, and the play gym. Two babies on one play gym is fine; they are not exactly fighting over the toys yet.

A twin pram replaces two single ones and is far easier to push, park and get through a shop door. One monitor covers both cots if they are in the same room. Swings and the bigger bits of play equipment can be shared without any trouble.

Anything portable can just move between babies through the day. A Moses basket or a rocker goes to whichever twin needs it at that moment.

Clothes and feeding: ask for more, in plain colours

Clothing is about quantity. Twins go through three or four outfits a day between them, so ask for lots of bodysuits and sleepsuits in newborn and 0 to 3 months. Skip the matching pair of every cute print. Fourteen plain sleepsuits beat six coordinated sets.

Feeding depends on your plan. If you are breastfeeding, one good electric pump and a handful of extra bottles for expressed milk is enough. If you are bottle-feeding, double the bottles, teats and formula supplies. Twelve bottles sounds excessive until you are washing up at midnight.

Bibs, muslins and burp cloths in silly quantities. Twenty muslins is not too many. Two babies get through them faster than a washing machine can keep up.

A few things that help day to day

Buy the duplicates in different colours. Give each twin a colour, blue bottles for one and green for the other, and you will always know whose dummy is whose. Twin parents tend to be evangelical about this one.

Measure your home before doubling anything big. Two of everything sounds logical until the hallway is full of prams. Duplicate only what both babies will use at the same time.

Get the safety items and the feeding kit first, and fill in the rest once the babies arrive and you see what you actually reach for. Other twin parents are the best source on this. They will tell you, unprompted, what they wasted money on.

Putting the list together

So the registry does not need to be twice as long. It needs two car seats, two cots, two high chairs, two carriers, a lot of clothes and cloths, and one of most other things.

When you create a baby registry, add "x2" to the name of anything you need a pair of, and let friends reserve or contribute to items. That way the car seats get bought once, together, and four different aunts do not each turn up with one.