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| Maddy and Amelia |
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| Look out Luke ... Jack is watching!! |
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| Ooops! ... I guess Scott has truly been initiated to parenthood now. |
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| Happy girl again after her second bath for the evening :) |
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The joys of parenting ...
Since most people reading this are nurses and/or parents I decided to go ahead and post the third picture. It was quite a moment for poor Scott and Amelia! Both the babies love to be carried on Scott's shoulders ... but apparently not right after eating! Amelia lost most of her meal ALL OVER Scott! He and I were laughing so hard we could hardly control ourselves ... meanwhile poor Amelia was not so happy. Poor baby. We quickly cleaned her up after getting a few pictures. We also had Jack and Maddy over to play yesterday. So fun and so busy to have four babies in one room! I love the picture where it looks like Luke and Maddy are holding hands and Jack is keeping tabs on his sister and playing the part of chaperone.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
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.
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.
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| The only way to change Luke's diaper these days ... |
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| Or you end up with this .... a lopsided diaper and a baby on the move! |
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| "Grammy? It's me Amelia! I'm super excited to fly down to see you!!" |
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Happy First Halloween!!
Despite being under the weather, (I'm getting the feeling that it's going to be a long winter of building those immune systems!) Luke and Amelia had a great first Halloween. The day before we stopped by a cute neighborhood party. On Halloween we visited a few neighbors and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house to hand out candy. Scott's mom found me a costume to match Amelia's so of course I had to dress up too :) Last Halloween I was discharged from the hospital after having the cerclage placed. I remember hoping so much and praying so hard that next Halloween we'd be dressing up two sweet babies -- feeling very thankful today.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Two crawling babies?!
They've been SO close for the last month but today both of them actually crawled! I love watching them learn new skills. Luke and Amelia are changing so much every day. I couldn't love them any more.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Don't-turn-your-back-for-a-second!
I think we've entered the don't-turn-your-back-for-a-second stage of parenting which I'm thinking lasts for many more years! No more are the days of leaving the babies on a blanket so I can do a few quick chores :) They are everywhere! The picture of Amelia is where I often find her -- she loves to scoot herself underneath things -- the couch (she gets stuck with her legs under the couch and then gets frustrated and cries) or the table. I was sure that in their car seats the babes would be fine while I ran things back and forth to the car (we were heading to brunch at a friend's house and Scott was working) but Luke managed to grab the loaf of pumpkin bread and had it halfway unwrapped in the 10 seconds I was gone!
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| Amelia's on the move! |
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| "But mom, I'm hungry ... ALWAYS!" |
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| A beautiful tree on our block just because I love fall colors! |
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