10 months old?!

Today Luke and Amelia are ten months old!  They are more active, mobile, fun and exhausting by the moment.  They both have decided that they love crawling and being able to get to things across the room (like poor poor Molly, who has decided to take refuge in the basement when the babies are awake).  Luke has decided he's had enough of diaper changes ... we have to completely pin him down on the floor (the changing table is too much of a safety risk anymore) to change him.  Thankfully, Amelia hasn't caught on quite yet to his new antics.  I feel like Luke's personality has really emerged in the last few weeks.  Of the two, he used to be the more mellow one but now he is constantly on the go ... he is quick to laugh and loves to engage visitors which makes Amelia seem almost shy in comparison ... an interesting shift.  They interact with one another more and more all the time which makes my heart happy.  I'm excited to watch their relationship develop.  What a great thing to have a built-in playmate!
Luke has four teeth now (two top and two bottom) and Amelia has eight (4 top and 4 bottom) with new ones on the way for both of them.  The babies have slept through the night a small hand-full of times (I'm glad I didn't know six months ago that it would have taken this long ...).  Because I'm a terrible sleeper (I was pre-babies and now it's worse because I feel like I spend much of the night awake and waiting for them to cry) I sleep in the basement on the nights before I work and Scott gets up with the babies.  I very much look forward to those nights where I can get a full 8-hours of sleep.  Amazing!  The sleep situation is such a tricky thing.  I've discovered over the last year that parents have very strong opinions and thoughts about the "right way" to get babies to sleep.  I have friends and family members that co-sleep with their babies and have loved that experience.  I also know people who feel very strongly that it's best to let babies cry-it-out and learn to comfort themselves.  I agree with Dr. Sears who said that the best way for a family to sleep the is the way that everyone gets the best night of sleep.  I think co-sleeping can be done safely and can be a great bonding experience (The No Cry Sleep Solution is a great book that outlines safe guidelines for co-sleeping) but it wasn't the right choice for us.  I also didn't feel comfortable when they were tiny to have them far away from us in the nursery (which isn't actually very far away but it felt like it).  For the first six months, Scott and I took turns sleeping on the couch with the babies right next to use in their bassinets.  The person who was up with the babies could usually get a few hours of sleep but it was very broken up.  If Scott was working the next day, I was up with the babies for the night but if he was off, one of us would sleep from 8pm-2am and the other from 2am-8am.  It was the way that I stayed sane!  If I knew that a few times a week I could get a six-hour block of sleep, I knew I could make it!  Once they hit the six month mark, we transitioned them to their cribs, which actually went much more smoothly than I thought it would.  The single most helpful thing we tried in order to get them to sleep longer was white noise.  We downloaded "Rain in the country" from itunes and have it playing continuously in their room for naps and nighttime.  It almost doubled their nap time and significantly decreased their nighttime wakings.  We decided we were okay with a gentle cry-it-out method.  We let them fuss and wimper (they rarely truly cry unless they need something) for 5 minutes and then go in a rub their backs and comfort them.  Thankfully, it usually it only takes about 5 minutes for them to fall asleep.  Right now the average night looks like us putting them to bed around 730pm, we dream feed Amelia at about 10pm (pick her up and feed her without her ever really waking up.  It's a great technique but doesn't work well for Luke because then he doesn't fall back asleep easily), they sleep until 3-4am at which point one of them wakes up so I feed them both.  Then they sleep until about 7am.  So really there is only one nighttime feeding which is very do-able.  I know at this point we could train them not to eat at all at night but the problem with that is that they're usually awake by 5am then and not as likely to go back to sleep.  I would rather feed them at 4am and then get two more hours of sleep!  Anyway -- sorry for the rambling about sleep but I've gotten some great ideas from other  blogs so I thought I'd share what has worked well for us.  Every baby and every situation is so different and having twins definitely has taught us that.  There are things that work so well for one of the babies that don't work at all for the other.  I look forward to the day where we consistently put them to bed and go to get them in the morning :)  I know it'll happen ... eventually!
Next month we're taking our first family vacation and the first plane flight for Luke and Amelia.  We're heading to Tucson to visit Scott's family and some of our friends from when we lived down there.  We're very much looking forward to the family time, sunshine and time away from work and normal life.

The only way to change Luke's diaper these days ...

Or you end up with this .... a lopsided diaper and a baby on the move!

"Grammy?  It's me Amelia!  I'm super excited to fly down to see you!!"