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.