A day of little things

First things first, congratulations to Bleeding Tulip!  Another infertility blogger becomes a parenting blogger!  Please welcome her new little girl into the world.

Around here, we've reached a milestone - I'm removing the newborn inserts from the car seats.  Probably should have done that a month ago, but ya know, life stuff.  We may be breaking out the 3-6m sized clothing this week too.  Yeah, I know.  They are almost 7 months old and still itty bitty.  I hope they enjoy it while they can.  With genes like ours, they'll never be tall, but they are likely to be oversized.  I hope I do better with my children in that department than I've done for myself.  It's weird to watch these little girls with most of the skills of a 6 month old in these miniature bodies.

Some cuteness - when I dance with them, they are starting to wiggle and dance on their own a little bit now.  Tra-la-la boomdeyay makes Charlotte giggle.  Charlotte is starting to sit up but Tina wants to skip sitting and tries to stand instead.  Looking forward to them reliably sitting up on their own.

On the solid food front, we gave meat our first taste today.  I figure going from fruits and veggies to meat is a major taste change, so I gave them a puree of sweet potato and turkey.  I know they like sweet potato so I figured that would make for an easier transition.  I think they liked it!


Last night was a rough night.  Tina must be having some more teething pain even though her first 2 teeth have broken through.  She was just screaming last night.  We did our best to alleviate the pain and got her settled a couple of times, but then she reached the point where she just wanted to be held.  Once the Tylenol kicked in and we were pretty sure she wasn't actually hurting anymore, we went back to the cry it out method.  At first, I was going in to rock and soothe her, but the moment we put her back in the crib, the screaming started again.  That was our indication that she was crying because she wanted attention, not because she was hurting.  The rocking and soothing was only delaying her going to sleep so we suffered through until she finally dropped off.

We have a new morning routine around here on days that K works.  He gets up a half hour early and takes a shower.  Then he wakes me up so I can pump while he does random chores and is available in case the girls wake up.  Then he goes to work and if I'm lucky, I go back to bed.  This way, when the girls wake up, I'm not desperate to pump while trying to get them fed.  Most days, they seem to wake up right around the time that K is pulling out of the driveway so I don't get the chance to go back to sleep.  This morning, we were hoping they would sleep a couple of extra hours since they were up late last night.  I went back to sleep for about an hour before they woke me up.  They woke me up at that point in the sleep cycle where if you wake up, you just feel like crap.

I've got a headache, a general body ache, and I'm really dehydrated.  I'm trying to get a lot of water in me, but that doesn't seem to be happening as much as I'd like.  I don't think I'm sick, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm changing my tune on that one tomorrow.

In making my coffee, the bag sprung a leak and my entire utensil drawer got a coating of fresh coffee grounds.  Brilliant.

Charlotte is being crabby today.  I'm not sure what her issue is.  And Tina seems to just be tired.  She's taken a 2 1/2 hour nap which is really unusual for her.  I wonder if they are feeling the same kind of crappy that I'm feeling.

Ok, Tina seems to finally be awake now that Charlotte is down for another nap.  Swell.  An out of sync day.  This'll be fun.

Equal but different

I think this is going to be the challenge pretty much the rest of my life.  Making sure things for the girls are always equal, but different.

Ok, so yes, I have a lot of pictures of my girls in matching jammies.  I get matching outfits for a couple of reasons -

1)  It looks adorable in pictures.  Makes everyone go awwwwwww.
2)  I'm a very visual person.  If outfits clash or there's too much going on in pictures, I have trouble focusing. Matching outfits means everything is coordinated so I can focus on my girls faces.
3)  When I find something I think is cute, I have an excuse to buy 2 of it so if one is in the laundry, I have another one.
4)  They don't care yet.
5)  There are only so many jammie styles on the store shelves.
6)  I don't want pictures where one girl is wearing something cute and the other one is in something schlubby.  That's just asking for claims of favoritism in the future.

I'm kind of afraid that Charlotte will keep growing a little faster than Tina, dooming Tina to a life of hand-me-downs that started out as Charlottes.  Oh well, I've got years to worry about that.

So far, the equal but different thing has presented two specific challenges - their baby books and their outfits for their first Christmas pictures.

I originally bought 2 very different dresses for their Christmas pictures because I thought they would go together.  But when the one with the ruffly skirt got here, it didn't look nearly as dressy and put together as the trapeze dress looked.  Also, it was a little too small and really difficult to get on either of the girls because there was no elastic where the skirt started, it was a firm circle that hardly fit over the shoulders or the butt, depending on which way I was trying to pull the damned thing on.  They were just too different and I disliked one.  I didn't want one of the girls looking at these first pictures a few years from now and getting upset because she was stuck in the ugly dress.

So I got the same dress, but in the other color option available.  It was a good choice.  Equal, but different.

The baby books were one hell of a challenge.  It seemed like every brand had a boy choice and a girl choice and that was it.  Any different covers meant something else substantially different about the book like the size, or the kinds of pages inside.  That just doesn't work.  And everything else I found was just blank scrapbooks that would expect me to create baby books out of thin air.  I'm willing to do my part here, but at least give me some questions and other prompting so I have a clue as to what to write in a baby book!

So finally, with the girls over 6 months old, I finally bought their baby books.  I was running an errand that happened to be next to a Hallmark store.  I went in looking for ornaments that would allow me to put pictures of the girls in them (we'll have a tree next year) and I was able to find 2 styles of girl baby books that weren't so gag me cute, and being made by the same company, they had the same pages inside.  Yay!!!

Ok, so I do like one better than the other, but I'll never reveal which one.

In reality, this blog was meant to take the place of baby books.  But then I thought about how I was interested in sentimental things when I was in grade school and gee, I don't think the things I've written in the blog will be appropriate for an 8 year old.  K and I will fill these out, bit by bit, as we have time.  I'll write the "about Daddy" stuff and he'll write the "about Mommy" stuff.

Here's the real reason we're procrastinating - our handwriting su-u-ucks!  Both of us.  We print scribble like first graders.  But we do think it's important that there be samples of our handwriting somewhere in the universe and this seems to be an appropriate place for it.  I just don't want the books to be ugly because of my horrible hands.  I type so much faster than my hands will let me write that when I'm writing, I often skip letters or entire words because my hands don't keep up.  I have to scratch things out and rewrite them all the time.  I don't want their memory books filled with ugliness and I just know that my handwriting ruin the darned things.

Page 1 asks for reactions to finding out about the pregnancy and various thoughts and activities during the pregnancy.  Crap.  My first reaction when I saw both of them on that first ultrasound - "They're back!"  Yeah.  Not sure I can write that thought down because it kind of forces one to ask questions that lead to ugly stories.  Activities during the pregnancy - Getting to know the triage team at the ER!  Probably not what Hallmark had a mind.

It might take a while to actually get working on these things.

The end of the world

How are y'all doing?  Expecting to see tomorrow or hiding out in a bomb shelter somewhere?

It's fitting that the supposed end of the world should come on the 2nd anniversary of the days my world ended.  We all end up with some sort of tragedy in our lives, and I had this hope that the decades of bipolar disorder I endured would be mine.  No such luck.

During my first pregnancy, I intellectually knew that there was risk, especially with twins, but I didn't really feel that anything could go wrong.  I always knew that I would have trouble conceiving so learning that I would have to do IVF to get pregnant didn't phase me all that much.  So I have to work harder to get pregnant, but once you put the work in, you get the reward, right?  It totally rocked my world when that wasn't the case.

I'm so grateful that I never had to face the reality of my girls being gone, but rather that I can think back on those horrible days 2 years ago as just a painful delay.  I sometimes look at the girls and get all teary eyed.  I'm finally getting that overwhelming love and connection between mother and children that I was so afraid would never get here.

This is me during the Christmas season 2 years ago. Just miserable, plopped on the couch, tissues just out of frame, and a cat trying to make me feel better.  That's the kitty that now belongs to the girls, she guards the nursery door when they are sleeping and insists on hanging out with all of us whenever the girls are awake.

How the picture of my life has changed since then!  For the first time in my life, this Scrooge is thinking about what kind of holiday traditions I want to establish for my family.  No tree or anything this year, but I'm thinking about what to do next year when the girls are able to see Christmas as a day different from other days.  I don't know if I'll get around to writing anything on this, the first Christmas I might actually enjoy, so I'll drop some pictures from our holiday photo session in this post.  Thank you to Sarah at Triskele Photography for these great shots!

Even if today were the last day of the world, I'm good!

The gun controversy

Guns and their use is on the minds of just about every American today, as it has been after each of the mass shootings that have assaulted our media airwaves throughout recent years.  And like every American, I have my own opinions on the subject and have rules in my household that align with my opinions.  But unlike some, I don't believe that everyone should agree with my opinions or live by the rules that I impose upon my own household.

Personally, I'm anti-gun.  I don't like them, there's no place for them in my life, and I do not want gun ownership to be normalized in the eyes of my children.  As they grow up, I will not knowingly allow my children inside of a household that contains a deadly firearm.  Even the most responsible and safety conscious person has a day where they forget to lock their doors, or other accidental mishaps that can endanger my children if there's such an accident regarding gun safety.  I also feel that in order to keep a gun safely locked away from accidental usage kind of defeats the purpose of owning a firearm because it's difficult to get to and use in the type of emergency that the gun is there to protect the owner from in the first place.

However, I do think that hunting is a valid use of a firearm and those who choose to engage in that sport (again, not me) should have the right to do so.  I also believe in the original intentions of the second amendment being to allow the general populace to protect themselves from a corrupt government or from corrupt representatives of authority such as police officers.  The knowledge that the population is capable of rising up and protecting themselves from a corrupt abuse of power is in part what helps keep the powerful from mass destruction.  Ok, so they are still capable of mass destruction, but at least they have to be creative and work hard for it in back room dealings and destroying things financially as opposed to sending in armies to use deadly force to oppress the masses.

But there has to be some means of controlling the amount of destruction that the bad guys are capable of inflicting upon innocent victims.  This is not a subject I'm particularly educated on so I'm really asking questions here.

Aren't there now technologies that will allow people to protect themselves without killing?  I'm thinking along the lines of rubber bullets.  The ability to incapacitate an assailant, perhaps even maim, but without the easy capacity to kill that a standard bullet allows?  Doesn't a rubber bullet do basically the same thing in an altercation that a regular bullet does, but allows someone who is shot to receive medical treatment and eventually walk away?

In terms of hunting, if an animal is shot with a rubber bullet or tased into submission, a hunter might have a license and have gone through a big hullabaloo to obtain a firearm that only allows for 2 deadly bullets so they can approach the subdued and deliver the kill shot.  Bullets would have to be licensed and accounted for, and a hunter could only own a limited number at any given time.

Would bad guys still be able to get their hands on deadly weapons?  Yes, of course.  But the fewer that are circulating among the general populace means the more difficulty in obtaining them.  The guy who steals someones guns and ammunition would get their hands on maiming weapons and have the ability to incapacitate on a massive level, perhaps some would victims would die, but certainly the amount of death would be scaled back.

I don't propose that the problem of weapons being available to bad guys so that the good guys can also have access has a perfect solution.  I don't think we can wipe out the ability for bastards to harm other people.  But is there something that can be done to at least make it harder?  Lessen the destruction?  Since perfect isn't available, I guess I'm just hoping for better.  Maybe some regulations can be put in place to make deadly bullets harder to come by, incapacitating bullets the norm, and the death tolls from these horrible attacks might remain among the single digits instead of the double digits that have become so common.

The day Mama made it better

Today something happened that I've been fantasizing about since it occurred to me that I might want to have a kid some day.  Today, I, the Mama, made it all better.

The girls were just destined to have a crappy day.  They were woken up about 2 hours early in order to go to the doctor and get all sorts of shots with various vaccines.  Over tired, teething, stuck with needles, and then the usual just kind of not feeling very well because new stuff was introduced to the body.

K needed a good nap because he's working the overnight shift tonight.  Charlotte was doing ok in her swing, so he took Tina to bed with him in hopes that snuggles would lead to a more solid nap for her.  And it did, 3 hours!  They only got up because it was time for dinner before K had to go to work!

During that time, Charlotte woke up screaming.  I changed her diaper, offered her a bottle, teething tablets, nothing was making her happy.  She just cried and cried.  After a while, K texted me asking if he needed to come in and help.  I didn't want him to wake up Tina and there really wasn't anything he could do anyway.

So I got Charlotte all snuggled in with me on the couch.  It took her a little time to calm down, but snuggles were what she wanted.  She sucked on her wubba and tucked herself between my arm and breast.  She just snuggled for a long time before eventually falling asleep.  We were on that couch for more than 2 hours just all snuggled.  After dinner, that's what she wanted to do to again and Tina was kind enough to take a long nap in her swing so we could.

I've been waiting so long to be able to do that.  Not that I would want one of my girls unhappy and need me to make it better, but to be able to just sit and snuggle with a baby who wants to snuggle with me, and not having to keep an eye and ear out for the moment when I'd have to get up from the snuggle to tend to the other baby.  Full fledged, non-interrupted cuddle time.

I'm the mama and I made it better.  There are no words to illustrate how long I've waited for this moment and what it means to me.

6 month check up

I feel like I should be making one of those "it gets better" videos for new moms right about now because seriously, it gets better.  If you've been following along, you know I was as miserable as miserable gets during those first couple of months of mommyhood.  Part of me feared I would never like my kids at all because I just saw them as these foreign torture devices.

If I can be that miserable and only a few months later be doing as well as I'm doing now, if you're in the thick of the newborn misery, I hope you can see that it really will get better.  Part of my problem was just not having an idea of when the torture would end.  All I saw ahead of me in life was one torture being replaced by another and life never actually improving.  But really, once they are sleeping in 5+ hour chunks, life starts seeming pretty decent again.  Yes, now we have the misery of teething, soon be dealing with the energy it will take to chase after crawling babies, but the sleep thing - none of the new tortures even come close to how horrible it was when we weren't getting more than an hour of sleep at a time.

The last couple of nights, the girls have been sleeping 10+ hours straight at night without waking to eat.  Awesome!!!   (She declared in a Barney Stinson high pitched tone)  Bedtime is now pretty easy and the fussing before falling asleep is minimal.  We are able to count on having 9pm-midnight as couple time and trust that the girls won't need us.  But we have given up on trying to make dinner when K gets home from work in the evening.  Our new pattern is to have a quick snack about the time he gets off of work, have family time with the girls until they are in bed, and then we make dinner for ourselves and eat around 10pm.

They're starting to do the fun stuff that babies do.  They are interested in toys, they kick with excitement when we walk towards them, and they are recognizing each other.  I'm loving that they are now seeking out each other to hold hands.  It's so sweet I just might go into a diabetic coma!

We saw the pediatrician for their 6 month check up today and she's very happy with how the girls are doing. Here are the latest stats -

Christina - 12lbs 11oz, 24.7 inches.  She's on the growth chart!!!  Still below the 5th percentile for weight, but between 5-10% for length.  Woot!


Charlotte - 13lbs 15oz, 25.5 inches.  Also fully on the chart with her length around the 25th percentile and weight between the 5-10%.

Ok, so they're still itty bitty for their age, firmly in the middle of size 3m clothing, but they're on the chart now!

A little "then and now" for you of Tina, the day we brought her home from the hospital versus 2 days ago.







Even more awesome sauce is that they are hitting milestones in line with their actual age of 6 months as opposed to their adjusted age of just under 5 months.  Charlotte was able to sit up for a few seconds when put in the ape pose of kind of leaning on her fists in front of her.  The doctor even said that getting her first 2 teeth already is pretty early.  Yay to surpassing expectations!

Now that their night sleep is pretty well under control, the doctor said it's time to start structuring their naps.  Just like night time sleep, it's time to start putting them down for naps and letting them fuss it out.  Once they go down for a nap, they are to stay down for an hour or until they wake up, whichever comes first.  It's going to be rough on Tina because she favors the 15 minute nap, but once we get over the first couple of days, this is going to revolutionize my life.  I haven't done any pottery in the last year because even when the girls are asleep, I never know if it's for 10 minutes or 2 hours.  Now I not only have permission from the doctor, but am encouraged to keep them in bed for an hour or more at a time, even if that's not what they want to do.  Since the monitor will go out to the pottery studio, once I get a groove going with the naps, I'm going to start going out there and making a mug or two during nap time.

Another nap change - they generally nap in their swings in the living room.  Once they fall asleep, I turn off the swings to let them go into a deep sleep.  Well, they are now far more curious about their surroundings, so being in the middle of the house where all the life action is isn't going to work much longer.  Even once they do fall asleep, they wake up pretty easy unlike newborns who can sleep through anything.  We're going to be moving naps into the nursery.  I think I've avoided doing that because it kind of feels like I'm "putting the kids away" like I would put away a toy when I'm done playing with it.

We're mentally preparing for the girls to start crawling and what that will mean for our household.  We're going to have to section off a portion of the house with a giant play yard and try to keep the cats out of it.  The damned cats are peeing all over the carpet lately even though they check out as healthy when taken to the vet.  So the play yard area is going to have to be floored with those foam alphabet mats that can be sterilized if a cat manages to pee in the kids area.  Grrrrrr.  So much of my day is now dealing with urine.  Cat urine, baby urine, finding time to get rid of my own urine.  Blech.

6 months

The girls are 6 months old today.  It was rough at the beginning but things are pretty swell now.

Last night they slept over 10 hours straight without waking up to eat.  They woke up about a half hour before our alarms were scheduled to go off.  K didn't wake me up when they got up because my shoulder has a muscle spasm going on and I took a muscle relaxant before bed last night.  So when I got up to pump, I walked into the living room to see my husband playing with his two little girls.  It doesn't get much better than that.

It's been almost 2 years since I miscarried.  I kept a vague notion that it wasn't an end, but rather a very sad delay.  I don't know quite how we managed to bitch slap statistics in the face, but I'm so grateful that I never had to give up that delusion.

The girls are each developing at their own rates and in different ways.  Charlotte seems to be the first to reach various coordination milestones while Tina favors communication milestones.  Charlotte was the first to reach and grab, roll over, and she's recently discovered her feet.  Tina was the first to smile, vocalize, and she's still better at blowing raspberries.  Charlotte now has 2 teeth while Tina is still just drooling up a storm without much to show for it.

The latest development is that they like holding hands.  At first it was just a fluke, but now they seem to be doing it on purpose.  Whenever they are near each other, their hands seem to find each other.

 This is getting fun!

The body of a girl half your age

Update on the teething thing - Charlotte's first tooth broke through 2 nights ago.  It's moments like these that I'm glad I'm not nursing.  Even though it's barely poking through, it's sharp!  I guess we need to start brushing her teeth/gums as part of the bedtime routine.  Yeah, we'll get on that soon.


Update on solid foods - Going good!  We've tried rice, oatmeal, peas, sweet potatoes, and tonight we tried green beans.  So far, no adverse reactions which I'm thankful for.  Of course, the poo has had an adverse reaction, stiiiiiiinky!  Tina is more enthusiastic about it, but Charlotte is better at getting the food in her mouth and down her throat.  Tina kind of purses her lips and goes at it like a fish which ends up spattering it around.  Charlotte has figured out how to fold her lips around the spoon so the food stays in.  Tina makes a big mess and Charlotte not only doesn't get much on her to begin with, but she keeps wiping her face with her bib just to make sure she stays relatively clean.  Tina is trying to grab the spoon and help herself.  Both have experimented with trying to shove the spoon down their throats.


The girls are at an awkward spot in terms of size and strength.  They are smack in the middle of 3m clothing, but they have the strength and skills closer to their real age of almost 6 months.  They want to play in bouncy toys, but their feet don't really touch the ground.  I think they also want to move up to the more upright stroller (they are in a carseat carrying stroller now) but the straps are designed for the average size 6 month old and bigger so it's not safe yet.

But where it really gets awkward is bathing.  We have 2 baby bathtubs, the Puj and The First Years .  We've been using the Puj in our kitchen sink and it's been working really well.  But they've kind of outgrown it.  Last night I tried using the First Years tub, but they aren't yet big enough to sit on the toddler side, and they arch their backs and squirm too much to stay on the newborn inclined side.  Tina flopped so much that she ended up with her butt on the toddler side leaning back over the bump that separates it.  While I appreciate that she wants to play in the water, they aren't quite able to sit up on their own yet and are too little to be held in place by the contours of the tub so it gets dangerous.

I think for the next month or so, we'll be going old school.  One parent will strip down and get into the regular bathtub while the other parent hands babies back and forth.  Hopefully after a few more weeks pass, either they'll be firmly sitting up, or they'll be big enough to be held in place within the tub without needing to sit up.  The sink is just the easiest place to bathe them for so many reasons so I'd much rather use the blue tub in the sink for a few minutes of bath rather than getting all naked myself and having bath time be a half hour ordeal.

CIO, no really this time

Soooooo, we made the mistake that just about every parent makes when they first try the cry it out method. We were too lenient.  By going in and soothing every few minutes (5, then 10, then 15, etc) we trained the girls to fuss longer because they would eventually be rewarded.

A few nights ago, we bit the bullet and did the full on extinction method.  Once we put them down, that was it.  No more visits from us unless they were truly in distress or the time came around for them to be hungry again.

I left the house.  I took my dinner (we often don't get to eat until around 10pm because K gets home shortly before bedtime routine and it just gets put off and put off until the girls are firmly down) and ate out in the pottery studio and entertained my studio cat Buster.  Poor Buster, I wouldn't touch him while pregnant and tend not to have much time for him now that I'm not anymore.  Anyway....

K reports that it took about an hour.  During that time, one would fuss for a few minutes, then fall asleep while the other one took over the fussing duties.  They switched off, one fussing while the other recharged the crying batteries for a few minutes.

The following night, it took 10 minutes of both of them fussing before they both dropped off to sleep forthe night.  The three nights since then, they've pretty much been asleep by the time we get to the other room and get the monitor turned on.

It's been heavenly!  Around 9pm the girls go to sleep and K and I have the evening to ourselves!  Chores get done, a few video games get played, a little nookie gets had, it's just been great to have a couple of hours of the day of being off duty.

We generally expect them to wake for a feeding around 1am, and being night owls, we're able to stay up and take care of that feeding right before we go to bed.  Last night, 1:30am rolled around and we expected the girls up any minute but decided to just go to sleep for however many minutes they wanted to give us.  They gave us until 4:30am!  A solid 7 hour or so sleep!  K fed them while I pumped, back in bed by 5am.  Tina fussed around 7am and our alarm was set for 8am so K could go to work.  So he brought her into our bed and she went right back to sleep on his chest.  When he got up to take a shower, we successfully transferred her fully asleep onto my chest for another half hour and then got the girls up for the first part of their day.  I'm not an advocate of bed sharing or co-sleeping, but damn I really loved dozing with a baby on my chest.

I really believe that we've done the right thing for these two particular babies at the right time.  I think we caught them very near the beginning of their capability to learn how to go to sleep on their own and we taught them rather quickly.  Minimal days of being ready but not yet knowing how to do it.  I fully expect set backs, bad nights, and sleep regressions, but overall I think they've learned and will be happier and healthier children for having been taught.

In that same vein, I'm kind of surprised that Tina has been doing ok with it.  Charlotte is doing a little better with the teething, she doesn't seem to be hurting as much, but she's passed the pain torch on to Tina.  Poor thing.  Yesterday she cried a real pain cry for the first time in I don't know how long.  She was really hurting for a few minutes there and it broke my heart.

She took a nap on my chest on the couch yesterday too.  I wish it could have lasted longer but Charlotte woke up from her nap and, well, that's how it is with twins.  You have to put down the happy sleeping child and tend to the awake but bored or annoyed child.  I'm doing my best to get in lots of cuddles, but it's difficult. K's days off require him to take naps because he has day 1 off, then day 2 has a 6pm-3am shift, then day 3 off before he goes on to work more standard hours for 4 days.  He spends a portion of his days off taking naps so he can function and recover from the overnight shift.  In order to multi-task, we've been having one of the girls take a long nap with him in the afternoon.  They get some cuddles and sleep and I either get one on one time with the other one, or if she naps at the same time, I get a few minutes to myself.

For those of you on the journey a little bit behind me, it seems that it kind of gets easier around 3 months, and around 5 months a lot of things have fallen into place.  Like someone told me once, 12 weeks and 12lbs is when it all clicks.  It took until after 5 months for both of my girls to cross over 12lbs so it took a little longer to click around here I guess, but yes, that seems to be the magic combo.  The girls will be 6 months next week.  But it's always something.  Just when feedings and naps started to regulate, teething started.  But even with the teething, it's getting more fun every day as the girls learn new tricks and I learn a little more about how to play and the logistics of multiples cuddling.

Over the hill

I think we're at the beginning of the end of my pumping.

The girls will be 6 months soon and in the last couple of weeks, their demand has caught up to, and sometimes surpassed, my supply.  It doesn't help that my supply has slightly dropped.  I've gone from averaging around 60oz per day to just under 50oz.

I'm not too worried about it though.  We're now introducing solid foods.  For the time being, it's not for nutrition or meal replacement, we're just learning how to eat from a spoon with about a tablespoon of rice split between the girls per day.  We might try oatmeal tonight, and I've got a few veggie purees ready to to be tasted next week.  As their solid food intake increases, their breast milk intake will decrease.

Initially, the goal was to pump for the first 6 months and then see where we are and decide if we want to continue.  Now that we're coming up on 6 months, it seems kind of silly not to just go ahead and bring it on home to have breast milk for the whole first year.

Now we're dealing with milk management.  Some of the milk in the freezer stash is threatening to get old.  For the last week, we've been thawing part of the freezer stash and replacing it with newer milk.  Rotating out the June and July and freezing the November.

At my record, I had 1,188oz of milk frozen but that's now down to 1,068.  Keeping track of how much comes out and how much goes back in has been a challenge.

I think it's going to be another 2 months of pumping 5 times a day to try to keep up with the girls demand.  Around that time, I'm hoping that the solid foods will start to decrease their milk intake and I'll start seeing that freezer stash build up again.  Once I start putting more in than I'm taking out, that will be my signal that it's time to start weaning off the pump.  I figure it will take about 5 weeks to wean, dropping one pump a day for a week at a time.  So I'm looking at returning my rental pump in January or February, and relying on my less powerful pump for any of my pumping needs beyond that, probably fully stopping in March.  From then on out, we'll just go through the freezer stash until it's gone, and hopefully that will coincide with the time that the girls are on a full solid diet around the 1 year mark.

Of course, if my supply continues to drop, my body might have other plans for us.  In relation to my supply dropping, my weight is creeping back up.  While I haven't stepped on a scale, I suspect I'm now back to pre-IVF-induced-diet-from-hell weight.  My jeans were a bit snug yesterday and I might have to break out the wardrobe I was in before I started all this craziness.  Does that mean I'm back to normal?

In other bodily news, I think I've resprained my ankles again.  I had perpetually sprained ankles for years and did some physical therapy to deal with it a while back.  But now they're feeling like they did before so I'm assuming they are back to being perpetually sprained again.  Pretty sure I've developed carpel tunnel in my right wrist as it's giving me a lot of pain.  And a weird pain on the side of my groin every time I turn at all.  It's stopped me in my tracks a few times.  I'm assuming this all a part of ligaments and tendons and stuff tightening back up.  Maybe the bones of the hips and pelvis are doing some maneuvering to recover from the pregnancy.  I dunno.  I'm just kind of a sore, achy, ouchy mess.

Driving myself crazy

Before I get into it, I feel the need to state that things are a lot better than they were a few months ago and I'm feeling much more bonded to the girls than I was at first.  Silly lovely dovey things are coming out of my mouth much to my surprise.  Like a few days ago when I heard myself say "I just love that smile!  I wish I could bottle that smile and pour it on my pancakes!"

Where the hell did that come from?  I'm actually pretty self conscience about acting all ooey gooey.  I'm embarrassed to have anyone hear me sing to the girls.  Not because my voice sucks, I actually have a good singing voice, but because the lovey dovey stuff is so not the persona that I've come to associate with myself.

But anyway, that's kind of an aside.  The driving myself crazy is this overwhelming feeling of being judged and never measuring up.

One of my major mental issues with being infertile and then a miscarriage mama is this overall feeling of the universe deciding that I'm unfit and then denying me children.  Being denied by an adoption agency, the doctors refusing to do a fresh round of IVF until I lost weight, etc etc.  I've just had so many deliveries of the message that my motherhood is dependent on whether others deem me worthy or not.

It's a fear I still carry.  Over the summer when we had the windows open in the house, I feared that the neighbors who didn't realize there were two babies here might call CPS because they often hear a baby crying and might suspect me of neglect.  My fear runs so deep that I've even worked out what I would do if someone knocked on the door claiming to be CPS.  I wouldn't open the door to random strangers claiming to have the authority to take my kids from me (that seems like a fear tactic that an ax murderer might use to gain access to your house), but I would tell them that I would only allow them in if escorted by my father (a retired federal judge who would act as my legal council) or a uniformed police officer.  How sick is it that I'm so scared of something that will never happen that I actually have a game plan?

Yesterday at Thanksgiving dinner, Charlotte was having a rough time due to the teething.  The girls were also both massively overtired because they hardly napped at all during the day.  I really wanted to show them off, but ultimately they had to spend the dinner in their stroller in my parents room with the lights off because they needed to sleep and that seemed to be the best way to make that happen.  The whole time, I felt damned if I do, damned if I don't.  I had an internal need to be with them because I almost felt like I was shutting them away for the sake of convenience.  But I also had pressure, both internal and external, to leave them alone because they needed to sleep and they were just fine.

But it was after I ate that really demonstrated how I'm driving myself, and probably everyone around me, absolutely nuts.  Charlotte was crying because her mouth hurt.  Everyone knew what her problem was, everyone understood that there's only so much adults can do to help a baby, but I just felt like everyone was watching me completely fail at mothering my baby.  And I hardly touched Tina because she was being social so others were holding her the whole time.

Everyone is trying to remind me that once you try everything you know to help a hurting baby, sometimes the only thing you can do is to put them somewhere safe, like in their crib, and let them cry for a little bit.  Intellectually, I agree.  Especially since I get myself so worked up when I hear a baby crying that my own tension only makes things worse for the baby.

But when the time comes, I almost feel like I have to try until I'm to the point of bursting before I allow either of us to just chill out by allowing her to cry for a little bit.  Like there's some universal mommy judge overlooking me all the time and if I don't do things right, it's going to take one or both of my babies away.  Whenever I try to tell myself how ridiculous that is, my brain snaps back with "it happened the last time" (referring to losing my girls 2 years ago).

K is on my back about taking care of myself.  That it's not only ok to let the girls cry when they are hurting (again, after doing everything I can to soothe the hurt), but it's what's best for the family as a whole.  That if I make myself stress out to the breaking point, I'm not only forcing myself to suffer, but they are picking up on that stress and it's not fun for them either.

I can predict the comments already.  "I could never allow my baby to cry all alone in her crib."  "How awful, ignoring this helpless little creatures cries because you don't want to listen to it!!!"  "Babies cry because they need you to do something for them.  How could you possibly consider just allowing them to cry!?!"

Welcome to the universal "they".  That's what I hear every time I can't please one of the girls.  That "they" are judging me and if I can't figure it out soon and make it all better, "they" will somehow declare me unfit and my babies will go away.

I wish I could somehow understand that the girls are unconditionally mine.  Intellectually, I got it, but emotionally, it's just not sinking in.  I just can't shake this feeling and fear that my parenthood is contingent upon others approval.

Charlotte is teething

The title says it all, poor thing.  We can't feel the tooth ourselves, but she's showing all other signs.

She's generally ok during the day, sometimes showing some signs of discomfort and chewing on her hands a lot, but once evening rolls around, she'll shriek and it's obvious she's in pain.  She's chomping on our fingers a lot.  Those seem to be her favorite teething soothers.

I have a bunch of the standard chew toys in the fridge, but most of them are too big for her to get into her mouth well enough to really soothe her gums.

Sometimes she's just kind of chewing on the nipple of her bottle instead of really eating so I thought I'd be all ingenious and make bottle chew toys for her.  I took a bunch of the bottles that we had previously rejected for feeding, filled the nipples with breast milk, and then froze them upside down in an ice cube tray to catch drips.  Yeaaaaaaah, she didn't like that.  She recognized the bottle as a feeding instrument and got irritated that milk wasn't coming out.  She didn't catch on that she was meant to just chew on the nipple.  Oh well.  The best laid plans....

I took all the little nipple shaped breast milk ice cubes and put them in a baggie so I can wrap them in a cloth and let her chew on that.  She does like the rags that I dipped in breast milk and then froze.  Some of them have half a dose of baby Tylenol mixed in.

I read that baby orajel isn't a good idea because it numbs the throat and dulls the gag reflex.  Too bad, because it seemed to help before I read that.  K smeared half the recommended dose around the base of a pacifier because it wasn't sticking to her gums when he tried to apply it per the directions.  I'm not throwing the stuff out, but I'll only use it as a last resort if she's in real pain and we can't find anything else to help her.  If we use it, she'll sleep in her car seat so that if she spits up, it will either dribble out, or back down into her tummy as opposed to having spit up sitting in her throat choking her.

I'm not sure what else to do for her.  I'm open to ideas knowing that I'll be dealing with this for a while and with 2 kids.  What doesn't work today might work tomorrow so I'd love to collect an arsenal of ideas.

Sleep training, morning edition and rice from a spoon

What are you looking at?  Nuthin, I'm just chillin in my
awesome blue, yet girly jammies!

Sleep training is going really well.  Last night was a little rough because I allowed them to get overtired during the day (I forgot to turn off the swing for a particularly long nap) but it wasn't pure torture for anybody.

This morning, I woke up at 9:30 needing to pump (it had been over 9 hours) and got myself all hooked up.  2 minutes in, I see little open eyes on the monitor.  All I can think is "oh crap.  Well, Mama's gotta pump, I think we're all gonna just have to suffer for a half hour or so."

Charlotte, denying the camera
her smile as usual.

But we didn't!  They quietly babbled with each other and the mobile until I finished.  I got the milk distributed into bottles and by the time I was ready to go get them, they were asleep again!  It's 10:30am now.  This is awesome!  I've made myself some coffee, warmed up a cinnamon roll and I'm eating my breakfast, bottles at the ready, watching them sleep on the monitor.  I'm assuming one or both will wake up again any minute, but until that happens, a leisurely breakfast for me!

I think it's because they aren't scared when they wake up in the crib anymore.  Yes, they're hungry.  It's been about 6 hours since they've eaten.  But they aren't waking up and just freaking out so if I can't get to them immediately, they can go back to sleep if they aren't just starving.  Before, if they woke up, there was no doubt about it, we needed to get to them before they got majorly upset.  This is so much better.

Oh, random funny conversation K and I had last night.  I knew the girls bed time was going to be off because their nap was at a weird time and Charlotte was kind of falling asleep at the bottle.  K asked if we should skip their bath and do the short version of bedtime routine.  I said "I'm not sure, she might be all alert in a few minutes.  We'll play it by ear."  To which he responded "Did I just hear what I think I just heard coming out of your mouth???  Every time I say the words 'play it by ear' you growl at me!"  "Well Honey, usually when you say it to me, it's when I'm asking you for information I need to create a specific schedule!  Besides, in the last 5 months, I've learned A LOT about how to play it by ear."  So there's a little indication of how my personality is changing since becoming a mom of multiples.

Tina, totally hamming it up,
as usual

The pediatrician told us a month ago we could start introducing some solids.  I'm not real gung ho on it.  While they are on breast milk, I know they are getting the right balance of nutrition, everything they need and nothing they don't.  Once we start substituting milk for foods at feedings, we have to start thinking about balance and making sure they get everything they need.  It's a challenge I'm not real excited about taking on. I've certainly never figured it out for myself but I'll be a better person for them than I am for me so in the upcoming months, it's something I'm going to have to finally learn about.

Yesterday was just an experiment.  We have some rice flakes from one of the many hand me down bags I've received over the last year and it doesn't expire for quite some time, so I opted to start with that since I've already got it.  The girls haven't really shown any interest in our food so I don't feel a real need to start introducing it.  But on the other hand, they are now eating approximately what I produce every day, if not a little bit more.  In the last 2 weeks, we've had to thaw out 60oz of my frozen stash and that's making me a bit nervous.  My thinking is that if we start adding a little bit of rice, perhaps they won't need quite as much milk per day.

Onto the experiment!  I mixed up about an ounce of the stuff according to the directions.  It was a 1:4 ratio of rice flakes to my fluid of choice (breast milk).  I got a little spoon, and off we went!  This experiment was not about getting rice into their bodies, it was simply about seeing if they could figure out what I wanted them to do when I brought a spoon to their lips.

Tina was a bit fussy in general but seemed to enjoy herself.  I didn't trim that video like I did for Charlotte because she scared the cat which I thought was funny.  Charlotte isn't sure what to think, but I got a good smile of hers on camera, something she does not like to give me very often, so I'm happy.  Yes, proof that she does often smile even though every picture of her comes out looking contemplative!

I tried adding a teaspoon of rice to Charlotte's 5oz bottle, but even though I was using the tricut playtex nipple designed to let rice flow through, and even though it was hardly any compared to the amount of fluid, it kept getting stuck.  It usually takes her between 5-10 minutes to eat, this time it took over 40 with me occasionally squeezing the nipple and pressing on the drop in bag to help add pressure to the milk from the other side.  I made up a bottle for Tina with 2oz of breast milk and 1/4 tsp of the rice (I had the rest of her bottle set aside so yes, she did eat a full bottle), put in a level 2 Dr. Brown nipple on her bottle and she was able to suck it down really easy.  It's possible that the difference was that Tina's bottle was warmed up and stirred more, whereas Charlotte's bottle was straight from the tap so it may not have been quiet as warm.  Maybe the rice didn't dissolve as well in Charlotte's bottle as it did in Tina's.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Wow, I'm almost done with my coffee and they still aren't up yet.  On another day, I might actually get them up, but since they've had that mild cold, I'm thinking I'll just let them sleep all they want.  Maybe I'll get that video done that's due in a couple of hours.  Is this what it feels like to have time to accomplish things?

Bed time and babysitting

My parents come over to babysit every Monday from 5:30-9:30pm.  K and I are free to do whatever we want with that time.  Last night, I had my monthly moms of multiples meeting so I went there and K borrowed my parents van to pick up a second glider for the nursery and to enjoy a quiet dinner with a book.

We're very grateful to have this weekly reprieve.  But since we've started doing a proper bed time, it's not quite as easy as it used to be.

Before, when we were just flailing all over the place, it was no problem to let my parents do some of that flailing for a few hours.  But now that we have a bed time routine, flailing has some consequences.  We have two versions of the bed time routine, the real one, and the abbreviated version that's necessary when there's only me here to do it.  I tried to tell my mother about the abbreviated bed time routine, and I got the answer I usually get when I try to tell her something about her babysitting time - they'll be alive when you get back.  Okey dokey!  I tried!

K beat me home and told me quite the story when I got there.  Apparently he walked in to find Tina asleep on my mom so she couldn't move, and dad walking around desperately soothing Charlotte.  Yes, Dad got to experience the Charlotte Screetch.  Even though he had recently fed her, he decided to give her another full bottle.  When she finished, she gave the full bottle right back to him.  "How do you calm her down without the endless walking?!"  You don't ignore the mommy when she's trying to give advice before she leaves, that's how!

Had I not been dismissed, they would have known that the girls get tired somewhere between 7:30-8:30pm and if they would have taken them into the nursery to rock them while Mom sang the lullaby (our voices are almost identical and I use the same lullaby she sang to me every day of my life), the girls probably would have been asleep in their crib within a few minutes and they never would have had to experience the screetch.

I'm not one of those anal retentive types who insists that you care for my babies the exact same way that I do.  I know the girls won't burst into flames if you use desitan instead of coconut oil when you change their diaper.  I just generally don't care if things are slightly different for the girls for a few hours a week.  Caveat - I know my parents will listen when it comes to real health and safety issues like if one of them develops an allergy or something.  Mom can be dismissive sometimes, but she's not dangerously stubborn or anything.

Oh well.  Maybe they'll let me finish my spiel next time.  I emailed them a bit of snarky "you ignored me, how'd that work out for ya?" and what the girls expect for bed time now that we have some routine.  I'm curious to see if they pay attention next week.

PS - at the meeting, the sleep expert was there again.  I talked to her briefly about how we've been doing sleep training and she says she thinks we're right on track.  What we're doing (a gentle CIO) is age appropriate according to the signs the girls have displayed and they are responding really well.  We had one kind of rough night, which in hindsight really wasn't bad at all, and it's been really easy ever since.  They've learned that after the bed time routine, it's time to sleep, and both are going to sleep pretty quickly.  Our cry it out tolerance hasn't been tested a second time, which is good because I don't think I could do it a second time.

Cry it out controversy

Wow, so many comments because we let our girls cry for a bit!  I've been called ignorant, cruel, and probably a few other things behind my back.  But I'm soldiering on, every day making new decisions based on what feels right at the time.

The 45 minutes seems to really be sticking out to some people so I offer these comments on that - about a half hour in, we also decided (like many of my commenters) that they weren't just fussing anymore, they needed something.  We determined that they needed to be fed.  But it took some time to warm the bottles and get the burp cloths and stuff needed to feed them.

The main problem we are trying to fix is the whole over tired thing.  The long rocking and cuddling is partly to blame for them getting over tired and once that happens, we're all just screwed.  So we're trying to cut down the bed time routine so it doesn't take so long that when we see the tired cues, we can get them to bed before they catch their second wind and start moving into the over tired range.  We're also trying to create a bed time routine that's brief and can be done with just one parent because sometimes there's only one of us available.

As for the comment that insomnia isn't a learned thing - I have no clue as to whether or not training them as babies will prevent that problem in the future.  But if insomnia sucks for me as an adult, I can only imagine that it sucks for a baby too.  So I'm trying to train them to go to sleep quickly after being put to bed so they aren't dealing with it.  If that carries over into their older selves, all the better.

Here's what happened last night.

8:30pm - we start seeing tired cues.  It's been a while since either girl had eaten so we did a feeding and prepared to start bed time routine.

8:45ish - both girls are falling asleep at their bottles.  We're having to twist the nipples and stuff to keep them awake enough to eat.  We decide to skip the bath and do an abbreviated bed time routine since the bath would add an extra 10 or 15 minutes and these girls are ready to sleep now.

9:00pm - The girls have had a brief massage with lotion in the crib, one song, swaddled, turned on the mobile and we left.

9:01pm - we turn on the baby monitor to see 2 sleeping babies.

9:30pm - well, that was fun, they're awake.  Start 5 minute wait.  Someone had mentioned yesterday that lying down while sick might be putting pressure on their nasal passages and it might be uncomfortable or even cause an ear infection.  We decide that they might generally feel better if they sleep in their car seats so they are sitting up a little bit and to keep everything draining properly.  We also have a cool mist humidifier going for them.

Just a note about the whole "sick" thing.  It's so mild I'm not even sure they have a full cold.  Charlotte's poos are still a little green which indicates she is fighting something, but they don't have a fever and other than the eye goop for about 24 hours and a few coughs or sneezes, they really aren't showing any signs of really being sick.  We are acting as though they are because better safe than sorry.

9:35pm - put them in their car seats and put those in the crib.  They seem pretty good so we turn on the mobile and leave again.

Fussing.  I tell K that while CIO felt right the night before, I'm not sure it feels right tonight.  He asks what I want to do.  I tell him I want to do what he tells me to do.  He says "Ok than, it's another 4 and a half minutes before we go in."

9:45pm - We go in.  Charlotte is quietly fussing and easily soothed, Tina is having a meltdown.  I attempt to soothe with song and a hand on the chest but give up and take her out of the car seat and rock her for about 3-5 minutes until she's quiet but still very much awake.

We exit a few minutes before 10pm and there's more fussing.  But it's not meltdown levels, just fussing.  Start the 15 minute timer.

10:10pm - We go in and sing but leave them in their seats.  Turn on the mobile, and out we go.  K and I get ready for bed because K is getting the first migraine he's had in a decade and isn't doing so hot.

10:30pm - They have now been asleep long enough that we officially mark it in Baby ESP and go to sleep ourselves.

4:50am - They are awake so K feeds them while I pump.  Everybody back to bed with no drama.

9:30am - I wake up because I'm simply done sleeping.  I haven't felt that in forever!

10am - Both girls are awake, happy and we start our day which included a breakfast with some extended family even though we got there shortly before the extended family had to leave.  I'm a night owl mom with twins in a morning person family.  I'm just glad we got there with enough time to say hi to everyone before some had to leave!  Charlotte naps the whole time, Tina is lively for a bit (not real happy about it), takes a 20 minute nap, and then parties with my original nuclear family (my brother showed up!  That never happens!) for about an hour before we all break it up.

Now that we've started this, I'm finding that Tina actually prefers napping in the crib instead of her swing.  This afternoon, I took her into the nursery, turned on the white noise machine, rocked her for one song, swaddled her, put the mobile on and walked away.  Much to my surprise, zero fussing and asleep by the time I turned the monitor on in the other room.  She was so awake when I put her down I thought there was no way in heck I was going to get away with just one song, but apparently I did!  Yay!  And her afternoon naps in the crib seem to be lasting about an hour which is an improvement over the 15-20 minute naps I was getting last week.

Charlotte is just generally a good sleeper, she doesn't fight the drowsies much which is why I have so many more comments about Tina.

Folks, I have no idea if we're successfully training them, if they just hit the right age to sleep well, or what.  I'm just doing my best every night to survive at the time while teaching for the future.  My version of crying it out might not be what the books advise, or even worthwhile, I don't know.  What I know is that my girls are learning to go to sleep pretty well, we're pretty much all sleeping through the night, and that every night we'll do our best to understand the current situation and respond to it accordingly.

A few minutes ago, Tina started fussing from her nap.  I thought it was wake up time so I quickly wrote that last paragraph and went to check on her.  She had soothed herself back to sleep.  She's never done that before that I know of.  Awesome!

Cry it out was finally tested

Ever since we decided that we were going to try the cry it out method, the girls have been falling asleep really easily and didn't put us to the test until last night.  A couple of things before I get to a recounting of how it went.

Charlotte has a cold, but it's really mild.  Other than seeming a bit tired, a little bit of goop in her eye, a day of green poo, and the occasional cough or sneeze, she's fine.  Doesn't even really have a booger situation happening which is awesome.  But yesterday she refused to nap.  I tried a lot of different things but any time I would put her down anywhere, she would screetch.  I had her cuddled up on the couch with me for about an hour and she would go back and forth between content and screetching.  I texted K about what was happening because I was frustrated and needed to complain, and because I like to warn him if he's likely to come home to an unpleasant household.  He texted me back that while it may be time consuming, a lot of cuddles might be the only answer.

This has been a bit of a point of contention around here.  At night, I rock and cuddle the girls, but not for very long.  I'm really trying to put them down when they are still awake like I've been taught by the books and by the sleep expert.  But when I get frustrated and walk away, K will cuddle until they are fully asleep.  I sent K the following email because I communicate better when I write than when I talk.

I think you're under the impression that I'm either cold, lazy, or both.  I'm not.  I'm trying to teach the girls something they need to learn.

Hours of cuddles to fall asleep are like feeding tubes to eating.  A feeding tube will get the job done, but they needed to learn how to suck and swallow so they could eat for the rest of their lives without it.  There are reasons why learning this skill are vital.   

1)  During the day, there's just me.  I physically can't spend an hour rocking and cuddling one girl to sleep because the other gets ignored.  If they are ready for a nap at the same time, one would simply get an hour overtired and we'd all be totally screwed.  Tina just went through an entire awake cycle where after eating and her diaper change, she was stuck alone on her playmat so I could do the bedtime routine with Charlotte (minus the bath) in a desperate bid to get her to finally fall asleep after 4 hours of fighting it.  By the time I finally got Charlotte down to the point that I could walk away, Tina was ready for her next nap.  Fortunately she's cooperating and calmly swinging while I pump, but what if I had to spend an hour with Tina now to get her to sleep?  By the time I did, Charlotte would be awake again.  And that's an hour of lost mommy interaction time that she just experienced. 

2)  At the moment, it's safe to allow one to be ignored for a while, but pretty soon, within a matter of weeks, they are going to be mobile and the only way to keep one safe while tending to the other one will be to strap her to something. [Editors note - I was referring to a swing.  I don't strap them to a desk or tree or anything.]  I don't want my kids basically strapped down or caged in a playpen all the time because someone needs me to cuddle them for an hour.  They HAVE to be able to fall asleep within a reasonable time frame for their own well-being.

3)  Insomnia is torture.  I don't think you've ever been an insomniac so I don't think you really understand this.  I don't know how to fall asleep.  It's a skill I never properly learned.  It's not just a matter of not getting a lot of sleep because it takes forever to fall asleep, but the falling asleep process itself can be awful.  I don't want the girls to have to experience that night after night.  If we program their physical rhythms now to understand that when you lie down to go to bed, you quickly fall asleep, insomnia will be a torture they won't have to experience much in their lives.  You don't know how lucky you are to be able to simply lie down and be asleep within a few minutes.

I want the girls to learn how to lie down and drift off to sleep of their own accord.  It's a skill I don't have and it sucks not having it.  And it affects every aspect of our day and the amount of time they can spend with us learning and playing.  Every time we give in and pick them up and rock them to sleep, we are teaching them that they are incapable of falling asleep without our help or by just lying down in the crib.  When they fall asleep, it must be in the crib so they learn that when they lie down, they can fall asleep.  Ok, so rock and cuddle until the stress is gone and they are in a mental place to be able to fall asleep, but the falling asleep itself needs to be in the crib.

I do want cuddles even if it seems like I don't.  I can't wait until they are old enough to snuggle in bed with me for bedtime stories as part of their bedtime routine.  Or crawling into bed so we can all watch Saturday cartoons together.  Or wanting to cuddle on the couch when they don't feel good.  But now is not the time to overindulge myself because my desire for cuddles would undo the teaching of the vital lesson they need to learn. 

Please stop making me feel like I have to defend myself when I don't want to do endless cuddles at night. I will be a cuddler, I love the mornings with Charlotte when she wakes up an hour early and will cuddle with me before the family gets up.  [Editors note - the last few mornings, Charlotte has been waking up but it's not time for her to eat or anything so I've been dozing with her in our bed while K gets ready for work.  I'm somewhat anti-cosleeping or bedsharing due to the dangers that have been pounded into my head, but when K is still around to keep an eye on us and she's wearing her Snuza alarm, well, I've been bending the rule a bit while she's not feeling good.]  But I won't sacrifice teaching them what they need to learn in order to get those cuddles for myself or by using endless cuddles to make falling asleep for one night a little easier.   

We need to bite the bullet, soon, and go through a rough week where we don't allow them to fall asleep while being rocked or cuddled, but only by lying down and drifting off on their own.

So after reading this, he apologized and said he didn't realize he was making me feel like I had to defend myself.  I really have been feeling like he must think I'm just a cold bitch or something because I get frustrated when cuddles take too long.  But after reading this, we got on the same page and committed to trying cry it out and to putting them down while still awake enough to be aware of their surroundings so they know they are in the crib when they do drift off to sleep.

And now, here's how last night went.  All times are approximate.

Tina

7pm - Bottle.  They aren't eating as much right now because they don't feel very well and don't have a major appetite.  We've been making 3oz bottles instead of the usual 4.5 or 5.5oz bottles so we're not throwing milk down the drain.

7:30 - I see a yawn and they are slowing down.  Time to start bedtime routine.

7:45 - Bedtime routine of bath, calming lotion massage, lullaby and cuddles, then in the crib with the soothing mobile lights.

8:00 - Asleep

Charlotte

7:55 - Wakes up from the 2.5 hour nap that I finally got her to take.

8pm - Bottle.

9pm - Gets tired really fast so we skip the bath but do the rest of the bedtime routine and put her down.

Tina woke up shortly before Charlotte fell asleep.  We cuddle Tina, sing her the bedtime lullaby and put her back down.  After only 20 minutes, Charlotte also woke up.  

Starting about 9:30pm, here we go.

Screaming babies, wait 5 minutes, go in and soothe them in the crib, sing lullaby twice, turn the mobile back on and leave.  Wait 10 minutes, repeat process.  Wait 15 minutes, repeat process.  We did not successfully soothe them mind you, but rather we limited our contact to hands on the chest in the crib for comfort and only 2 songs and then leave whether they were soothed or not. Reason being, I don't want them to learn that if they pitch a fit, it will be rewarded with endless attention.  Once they are down for bed, that's it.  Limited soothing.  

15 more minutes go by and K says "that's 15, let's go." and I tell him no.  If we continue to go in every 15 minutes, they will learn that if they scream for 15 minutes, they'll be rewarded.  It's time to teach them they won't be rewarded.  We grit our teeth and sit.  I start considering caving and asking if we're doing the right thing, is this really teaching them what they need to learn and K holds strong and says yes, this is the way to teach them.  No we aren't teaching them bad things, this is good.

We let them scream for I'm not sure, about 45 minutes to an hour.  By now, it's about 3 hours since they've eaten and we determine that they're crossing over from angry to hungry and we can't expect them to fall asleep hungry.  Besides, I wanted to double check that Charlotte wasn't crying herself into having a snotty nose that would make breathing difficult.  

11pm - diaper change (in the crib) and a bottle (also in the crib).  Sing the lullaby once, turn on the mobile, and leave.  Trying to show them that we'll be there for their needs, but not their wants during the night.  Also gave them a dose of Tylenol in case they were achy from being sick and because I know I always have a headache when I've been crying.  We only picked them up to burp them, didn't interact or look them in the eye, we just facilitated their eating.

About 10 minutes of quiet fussing and then asleep.  By 11:20, we were convinced they were solidly down and I started the sleep clock in BabyESP.  

Success!!!!!

We were prepared to go all night, only going in to feed and change diapers every 3 hours.  And I seriously thought it was going to be an all night thing.  But it wasn't!  It succeeded so much faster than I expected!

Both slept about 5.5 hours before they woke up K and he fed them and Charlotte woke me up about 8:45 this morning, very happy and lively with no sign of being sick.  Big smiles when I went to get her up.  She is now taking a nap and Tina is still asleep (it's shortly after 11am) which seems to be the pattern.  I've got a bottle warming because Tina should be up any minute now.

A month ago, I was totally against the cry it out method.  At the time, they weren't ready for it.  Some might say they are still too young, but they've demonstrated that they are learning and that the night time crying is somewhat for manipulation.  Tina will stop and practically pass out the moment she's picked up.  That's why we've decided now is the right time.  Anything we do now is what they are going to learn and unlearning a bad habit is harder than starting off with a good one.  While it's not fun, I think we're doing the right thing.  That it worked as quickly as it did last night (didn't feel like it at the time) further convinces me that this is the right thing at the right time and it should create good habits much faster than I thought it would.  Hopefully, we aren't going to have a week of sleepless nights like I anticipated.  

I see open eyeballs on the baby monitor.  Time to get Tina up and starting her day!