This study aims to describe the ways in which mothers of twins organize their childcare activities during the first year after a twin birth and to determine what factors might affect these mothering practices. The mother's physical and psychological state, support and help from the father and others in the surroundings, and the type of twinship were among the factors studied. Data on the organization of feeding, sleeping and waking routines were gathered from 51 families. A correspondence analysis and a cluster analysis showed that twin mothering practices can be described along two dimensions: individualized care vs collective care, and level of organization of daily routines. The mother's state of fatigue only partially accounts for the different types of maternal behavior. Likewise, the presence of several caregivers does not lead to greater individualization in care routines. Nor does there seem to be a clear link between the type of maternal behaviour and the type of twinship. The discussion deals with the mother's emotional investment, her personal capacity for adjusting to the "triadic motherhood' process, and the nature of the father's involvement in that process. Another consideration is the impact of the type of childcare pattern on twin development.

No abstract

Findings from an earlier phase of this research project clearly pointed to the mother's psychological adaptation inherent to the specificities of triadic interaction. Mothers' attitudes were classified in a typology ranging from "early twinness" where the two babies are treated as though they were a single unit, to attempt to create two dyadic relationships. The current program deals with the effects of the type of parent-child relationship at one year on the emergence of twin bonding. Sixty-eight families of twins (26MZ, 24DZ same sex, 18DZ different sex) are followed up from birth to the age of 3 using a method based on clinical interviews, videotaped observations, and questionnaires. The data cover mothers' rearing attitudes towards organization of babycare and outward signs of twinness, maternal representations of the relationship between the twins and observation of the children's interaction in a standardized game situation. The findings are discussed in terms of zygosity, and parental SCS.

This paper examines the specificity of intrafamilial experiences to which twins are exposed during early childhood, and the impact of this family context on the psychological development of twins. An overview of the literature on the psychological development of twins indicates two broad categories of findings. The fitst category covers studies dealing with the developmental features that appear early in twins. Although there are numerous studies comparing the psychomotor and verbal development of twins to singletons, only a few have dealt with the emergence of personality and identity, and most have been conducted in clinical settings. The second set of studies deals with mother-twin relations, explored in m n t years in terms of the psychosocial stress created by twin births. Few studies have examined the mother-twin relationship in the light of major theories on mother-child bonding (psychodysis, attachment, interactionist model). These developmental models have mainly focused on mother-infant dyads, while the construction of this specific mother-twin relationship needs to be set within the framework of a triadic situation. Rather than describing a specific 'twin mentality', it is argued here that the twin situation should be seen as a special case of adaptative development, both for the mother and the child, which has effects on the formation of the individual.