If you think you have your hands full with one baby, imagine having two or three at once. Women's Editor Lindsay Jennings meets a mum of twins whose new business is designed to help parents with double the trouble.

THERE came a point when Delyth Raffel was describing her business idea to the people in suits that she felt they just weren't grasping her concept. Every time she pitched her business - to create a website which would give information, products and advice for parents of twins and multiple births - she was greeted with the remark: "Well, don't you just buy two of everything?"

"It is actually quite difficult to explain to people why it isn't just two of everything. It's actually a lot more than that," says Delyth, 39, who being the mum of toddler twins, Abbey and Ellen, knows exactly the challenges having a multiple family can pose.

The twins, who are non-identical, were born after Delyth and husband Graham turned to egg donation following two failed IVF attempts. They were born on September 24, 2003 at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, seven weeks premature. Delyth, a finance manager with Procter & Gamble, near Newcastle, hadn't even had time to start her maternity leave and went straight from work to hospital.

"I literally went in the clothes I was standing in and I felt totally unprepared," she recalls with a shudder. "I hadn't finished anything off at work and I was saying 'if you can just get my computer, I can send those messages'. Of course I never did send them!"

Delyth had pre-eclampsia, a serious toxic condition which develops in late pregnancy, and spent three days in hospital enduring an incredibly difficult labour, before finally undergoing an emergency caesarean.

It took three days before Delyth was well enough to see the girls, who were in the special care baby unit. More than 50 per cent of multiples spend time in the special care baby unit and the twins were not allowed home to Blyth, in Northumberland, for another seven weeks.

Like many parents of twins, Delyth found the shock of an early arrival and traumatic birth led to problems bonding with the girls.

"I had no idea just how life-changing this was going to be," she admits.

"In the hospital, I struggled with bonding with either of my babies as the birth experience had not been enjoyable and I hadn't seen them for three days. They spent weeks in incubators where you can only take them out and hold them for a few minutes so it's really difficult to get to know your children under these circumstances. It's hard to explain as the common myth is that you will fall in love with your babies as soon as you see them, but it took a long time for me to bond with them and I felt incredibly guilty."

Delyth found that once she got the twins home her life was turned upside down, with literally double the work load. The only way to cope was to run the home with military precision and establish a good routine.

She and Graham ended up with charts so they knew which baby had slept, been fed, changed and given medication - which they studiously completed, even at 4am.

"We also found that by dividing daily tasks between us it was a lot easier to get everything done. For instance, one of Graham's tasks was to make up the 16 bottles we used per day. Teamwork is essential when you have so much to do and I was lucky to have a very supportive husband who was involved from day one in their care."

Initially the girls slept in the same room, but after two months they got their own bedrooms to stop one waking the other up in the night. Even so, Ellen struggled with eczema for a long time, which kept her awake night after night, and, along with the night feeds, sleep soon became a distant memory for her poor parents.

"Lack of sleep was probably the most challenging and stressful things to deal with and I didn't always cope well," says Delyth.

"There were times when I would just sit in the nursery and cry as I felt I couldn't carry on anymore. But I read an article from another twins' mum which said no matter how bad it seemed, you would get through it. And you do."

There were also challenges with feeding and weaning. Delyth expressed breast milk for bottle feeding initially and then fed with formula. She found the easiest way to feed them was to do both at the same time - with a bit of ingenious balancing of the girls.

Getting out and about also proved challenging. It would take her two to three hours to get herself and the twins ready and pack up all the gear in the car. "I ended up in the MetroCentre all the time because they have wide walkways, no doors on the shops, and wide aisles," she laughs.

Delyth went back to Procter & Gamble after eight months and now works part-time. But in the months after Ellen and Abbey's birth, she thought more and more about creating a website-based business to help fill in the information gaps for other parents. She sent off questionnaires to the parents of 350 twins to see what they would want from a website and launched www.twinsuk.co.uk on October 1. Since then, more than 4,000 people have logged on.

On the site, Delyth has developed her concept of creating 'TwinsKits', sourcing products from across the world. The kits, which come in handy carrying boxes, range from the Day Tripper TwinKit for £50, which includes feeding and changing essentials and entertainment for days out, to the Fun In the Tub TwinKit for £55, which has imaginative games for two in the bath. Other kits are aimed at changing, feeding, or bedtime and people can design their own.

There is a raft of other practical and stylish products to buy, from a twins feeding cushion (£36.95) to a pregnancy body care kit (£23.95). Delyth has worked with designers Bob & Blossom to create a clothing range with pink and blue long-sleeved jerseys. Delyth came up with the cute slogans such as 'I love... tiaras, treats & twins'.

Judging by the feedback and orders she has had so far - some from as far away as America - Delyth seems to have filled a gap in the market. She has also appeared on Sky's Baby Channel twice with friend Sarah Swegsda, who has a twins and multiples shop, Mums2Be.

And even double the trouble has turned into double the love. "Life is never easy with twins," says Delyth. "Although the first few months are hard, it does get better as they grow up and you do have the double joy of two of everything later on - two first smiles, two first steps, two first words and two big kisses and cuddles."

* www.twinsuk.co.uk