By Mikayla van Loon
Finding support as a parent is critical to everyone’s wellbeing but even more so for those who bring multiples into the world, being twins, triplets or more.
That’s why the Eastern Area Multiple Birth Association (EAMBA) exists, to offer guidance, friendship, support and advice to parents who have multiples or are about to have multiples in Maroondah, Yarra Ranges, Knox, Whitehorse and Manningham.
EAMBA president Sarah Lavis said when she found out she was having twins, she didn’t believe it could be any different to raising a single child.
“I’ve got two step children so I’ve raised children and I was like, it can’t be that different,” she said.
“It is a different ballgame. I found that quite quickly myself when I was trying to go to mother’s group and I was the only one with twins and the group would choose cafes that weren’t double pram friendly and didn’t understand it’s very hard for me to do things like taking my kids to swimming lessons because I can’t do it on my own.”
Looking to connect with more parents experiencing the same and finding it hard to relate to singleton parents, that’s when Ms Lavis joined EAMBA.
Whether it’s providing resources, hand-me-down equipment, answering questions on the community forum page or joining the playgroup, EAMBA tries to assist multiple birth families in any way they can.
Ms Lavis said the lovely part of running the playgroups in Mooroolbark and Bayswater is children can make friends, grow together and parents get to communicate in a safe space.
“Playgroups are usually for children who are not in school because they run on a Wednesday and a Friday during the term and they’re 100 per cent volunteer led,” Ms Lavis said.
“It’s a really beautiful opportunity, you can have eight or 10 toddlers running around and a lot of mums and dads bonding over their experience, which is really, really beautiful.”
Creating a community that “normalises the experience of raising multiples”, Ms Lavis said is key to what EAMBA does.
Part of fostering that connection is the ability to put on broader events and family days so parents and children can mingle.
For the most part, EAMBA tries to use either acquired grant funding or funds it has raised to host subsidised events, like going to Chesterfield Farm or the cinemas.
But Ms Lavis said funds also go towards the running of the group’s other functionalities and to support parents in crisis, who may need prepackaged meals provided.
Gaining the support of Grill’d Croydon, every $25 meal deal purchased on Thursday 29 February between 5pm and 8pm will see $10 go to EAMBA to help fund these initiatives.
“If you had 10 people come well, that’s $100 and that’s about the cost to run one facilitated playgroup and these things start to add up. So for us, it’s how we engage with the general public and rally support for what we do,” she said.
“It’s everything from how do we keep our playgroups running? How do we support families going through the NICU journey? How do we keep our school aged families engaged and allow even the entire group to be able to experience things that might be quite expensive when you’ve got multiples?”
Because Ms Lavis said support for parents caters towards singletons, it can often be a hard system to navigate so by raising awareness of the challenges and the disparities of raising multiples is also essential to gaining more widespread support.
“Multiples really only equate for a small percentage (two to three per cent) of births and so the general public doesn’t necessarily understand that there are differences.
“There’s also double the sleep deprivation, it is more expensive. There are so many factors that lead to that anxiety.
“Twins are cute and they’re magical, and they’re amazing and people are just fascinated by them but behind the scenes there is a lot of anxiety. There is a lot of depression, there’s a lot of things that probably aren’t talked about.”
One of those being the equal parental leave payments that multiples and singleton parents get.
“And twins, according to Centrelink, aren’t considered a multiple birth. There’s a lot of assumptions that get made that multiple birth families are well supported but unfortunately, it’s not the case,” Ms Lavis said.
“I feel very, very blessed to have my girls but there’s so much work to be done. Not only to normalise the multiple births experience but also to have those supports in place.”
More information about EAMBA can be found at eamba.amba.org.au
