Frankie Essex welcomed her twin bundle of joys Logan and Luella, whom she shares with doting boyfriend Luke Love, in June and has since started a column exclusively with OK! magazine to detail the highs and lows of navigating life as a parent.

In recent weeks, the 34 year old TOWIE star has spoken out on a range of different topics – from her terror of taking her babies out on her own following a fellow mum's warning over strangers to her plans to move in with cousin Chloe Sims while renovations at her own home get underway.

Now, Frankie tells to OK! about the terrifying moment she had to take her baby boy to hospital after he developed hives, the subtle sign she's received from her late mum and some life-saving parenting hacks she's already picked up…

Logan's battle with hives

Logan's got little hives. He had them last week so I took him to the doctor. She said it could be a bite, but I knew they weren't because I get hives myself. I know what they look like. I get them sometimes on my neck, when I eat, when it's really cold out… I'm in the warm and I'll go outside in the cold and I'll just come up in hives – it's really weird.

She had an appointment with him a week later, so we took him back and she's referred him to a specialist, which is good. I'm really pleased because sometimes you really have to push with that doctors. Obviously the baby literally just has milk and he's been on the same milk since the day he was born. The hives have just started to appear now and he's 11 weeks old, so it wouldn't be the milk. I haven't changed their washing powder and or anything I was their clothes in, nothing.

They're only on his hands. I'll keep my eye on it. They have calmed down since last week. But obviously if he did have a big flare up, I'd go straight to A&E Anyway, I wouldn't even think twice about it.

A sign from heaven

Luella's got a little red birthmark in the shape of a love heart. I noticed the shape the other day and pointed it out to Luke. I've never spoken about it on Instagram and I was never asked.

But the other day someone DMd me and said, 'Oh my God, the birthmark is shape for love heart'. And they said it was a 'kiss from heaven'. And I thought, 'Oh, that's really nice. That's a really nice way to put it'. I thought that was really cute, like it could be from my mum.

It was there when she was born. It's just that it was tiny. A tiny little red love heart. Honestly, it was a kiss from heaven.

Baby brain moments

We had an appointment on Friday and I think this must have happened on the Wednesday, I kept saying to Luke, 'Yeah we've got that appointment tomorrow…' You know I was obviously just trying to be little miss organised but I was just tired.

When I'm so tired I also go to drink the baby bottle automatically. We were out the other day and I literally went and picked the bottle up to drink it and I was like, 'What am I doing?'

I've not actually drunk it, but I have tasted their milk just because I wanted to know what it was like for them. Yeah, it's just like protein powder.

Relationship dynamics

Not much has changed between us, we just think they're the funniest babies. We literally just sit there crying with laughter. I don't think me and Luke have laughed this much in a short space of time. Every day, I'm not joking, there's always something they do where we just crack up and belly laugh.

We haven't lost the spark. Honestly, it's just been such a whirlwind the past 11 weeks, we're just in a little bubble. It's lovely.

The only thing that impacted us was the lack of sleep. At the start they were feeding every three hours and it was honestly so hard. Luke was looking after me and the babies because obviously I had a C-section. It was hard for me to get in and out of bed, it was really hard.

He had to become mum – he had to clean. When he was hoovering he was like, 'Oh my God, I actually rate you. This is hard. Hoovering, mopping and looking after us…'

Clever mum hacks

One of the doors slams in our house so we put elastic band over the handles, twisted it around so there's a criss cross and then put it around the other hand. It just softens the door when it closes, which is a dream. When you've got sleeping babies a door slamming makes them jump. It doesn't really wake them up, but it makes them jump.

The best thing is white noise to calm them down. I've got it on my phone, I've got machines… My new one is a shushing noise. It's a woman's voice saying shush on YouTube. Luke thinks it's the most annoying thing ever, but it works.

Another one is giving the babies Infacol, which helps them when they have wind, in a bottle. Having wind is really painful for them, so we give them Infacol and you have to squeeze it and squirt it in their mouths. But that doesn't work because they spit it back out. What we do is we get a bottle teat and squirt the 5ml Infacol in their and they suck it because they think they're having their bottle. So we trick them, it works a treat. They don't know they're having it.

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• Frankie Essex’s baby album: All of the stunning photos of TOWIE star’s adorable twins

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