5 months and their first cold

They're 5 months old today.  Yay!

And the girls have their first common cold.  Boooooo!

For a couple of days I've been thinking that Charlotte sounded a little congested and has been a little on the tired side.  This morning she woke up a little early and we brought her to bed with us for about an hour before we all got up to start our day.  We don't allow the babies in our bed very often but sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do.  After K left for work, I saw some green goop on her right eye, it was tearing up a bit and her face was a little red.  So off to the doctor we went!

Nothing to worry about.  They are now old enough that a cold isn't really cause for alarm.  As long as she doesn't spike a fever several days from now (which would indicate an ear infection that she doesn't currently have), a little bit of a fever and general illness is no big thing.  The doctor said it's almost guaranteed that Tina will get it too and right on cue she sneezed and coughed.  Today is day 1 or 2 and I was told that the roughest days will be 3-5, so we have that to look forward to.

Today was also the day to do weight checks to make sure that just breast milk (without the Neosure) is enough for them.  Charlotte's goal weight for today was 12lbs 4oz and she measured in at 12lbs 11.5oz.  Woot!  I'm sure Tina has also surpassed her weight goal of 11lbs 8oz, but I haven't double checked that yet.

Update on the whole sleeping thing - they have yet to test my resolve on crying it out.  Ever since we decided we were going to go for it, the last 3 nights they've gone to sleep really well.  Bed time routine has been pretty easy, taking about a half hour to take care of both kids (K has been home most nights to help) and the song I've been singing at bedtime now seems to have the trigger effect I was hoping to install.  When rocking Tina, halfway through the second time singing the song, she'll yawn and start to snuggle in.  After the third round, I put her in the crib, turn on the soothing mobile and that's pretty much it.  Charlotte is usually the first one to get her song and be put in the crib watching the mobile and the last few nights, by the time the mobile turns off after we've left the room, they're out with little to no drama.

This has been awesome, but instead of sleeping 8-10 hours like they were for a little while, they've started waking up every 4-5 hours to eat.  Growth spurt I guess.  In the past, K has been doing all of the night feedings and letting me sleep a solid night, but...

My milk supply is starting to go down.  Months ago, I was averaging about 60oz a day.  I started pumping less often because that was just so much, and for the last little while, I've been averaging about 50-55oz a day.  In the last 2 weeks, the girls have started eating about 50-55oz a day between the two of them and my supply is now solidly about 50oz per day.  In the last week, we've used up 54oz of the freezer stash and the last bag I froze was Nov 1.

This is no big deal, with what I'm producing and what we have frozen, we should still make it through the first year just fine.  But, I dunno, I guess breast milk production for women can be like penis size to men.  I've got plenty to get the job done, but I'd still like to be really impressive about it.  For a few days, I'm going to pump more often and get up when the girls get up to pump in the middle of the night.  So far, this hasn't increased production at all, I'm still lucky to get 50oz.  If I don't see an increase in the next few days, I'm going to go back to my approximately every 4 hour schedule and sleeping through the night.  It's stupid to spend more time connected to the pump if I'm not going to get anything from it.