The father of twin newborn girls who tragically died in a co-sleeping accident with their mother claims his toddler son still doesn’t understand his sisters are gone.
Six-week-old twins Indiana and Violet were found unresponsive in bed with their mum at their Sunnybank Hills home, in south Brisbane last Wednesday morning.
Their father was reportedly ‘howling and screaming’ when he found them.
He has since told News Corp his two-year-old son, who has autism, doesn’t know the girls won’t be coming home.
‘Our son is walking around the house looking for the babies. He loved them so much,’ the chemical technician said on Wednesday.
The devastated family released family photos they had taken of Indiana and Violet when they were born
The twin six-week-old girls both died after a co-sleeping accident where they were reportedly smothered by bedding
The couple’s older daughter, who is five, knows her sisters died in an accident but the news hasn’t entirely sunk in yet.
She is back to playing games and jumping on the trampoline and doesn’t quite realise why her parents aren’t as excited to play with her at the moment.
The father-of-four said he and his wife understood the risks associated with co-sleeping, but were just doing their best with two newborns and two young children.
Pictured: Indiana and Violet’s parents picking up some necessities from home after the incident
He said his wife hadn’t slept a full night in the six weeks since the girls were born.
She told him to sleep in the guest bedroom so he was refreshed enough to take the children to school of a morning.
‘We are educated people. It was only the second time my wife had co-slept,’ he said.
During the night, both girls got caught up in the bedding and suffocated.
When their father came in, he said he knew Violet was already gone.
‘I got to name her Violet. She was my little cutie… Indiana was still warm and my wife was thinking enough to call for help, but at the hospital we were told she had lost too much oxygen. We knew she wouldn’t make it,’ he said.
The grieving mother and father returned to their family home in the days after the incident to collect necessities for their two older kids.
The twins’ grandfather told Daily Mail Australia the couple were barely coping.
‘It’s every parent’s worst nightmare what they are facing… they’ve been through hell,’ he said.
Neighbours and friends have left kind notes and gifts out the front of the family home in Brisbane
The little girls were considered the couple’s ‘miracle babies’. A GoFundMe was launched using this picture to raise money for the family
Violet and Indiana were the couple’s ‘miracle babies’ as they hoped to have one more child after their two-year-old son was born and were ‘blessed with two’.
‘They did want to extend their family and it was probably going to be the last throw of the dice for them,’ family friend Kieran Garratt told The Courier Mail.
Friends of the couple have since created a GoFundMe page to ease the financial burden.
‘Violet and Indiana were tragically lost this week in Brisbane. They leave behind a big sister, big brother and two heartbroken parents,’ Mr Garratt wrote on the page.
‘These Angels graced us for only six beautiful weeks but have created such a hole since their passing.
‘It is hard to see where the next smile will come from for their beloved parents… help us in the costs for the funeral services for Violet and Indiana.’
The appeal has raised more than $22,000 in the six days since it was launched.
The couple – and the grandfather of the children – were spotted outside their home a few days after the incident
Paramedics were called to the home about 5am on Wednesday where they learned Violet and Indiana had stopped breathing.
Locals in the quiet suburban street instantly knew something horrible had happened when they were woken by the screams of the father.
‘He was howling and screaming,’ one neighbour told The Courier Mail.
‘I thought someone was dead and it really scared me… he was so upset.’
The young family had lived in the home for about two years and largely kept to themselves, but were always ‘doting on’ their children.
A young boy with flowers at the Sunnybank Hills home where police were attending a crime scene after a dead baby was discovered
The Sunnybank Hills home where the two little girls were found last Wednesday morning