Reese and Ryan turned 10 weeks old yesterday. I can't believe how quickly the last two and a half months have gone. After counting down my life in two week waits and weeks between ultrasounds, my days and weeks are just flying. In fact, I literally just wrote out a check that was sent back to me because I dated it for 2010. Clearly I have major mommy-brain. I've lost all track of time and space.
Everyday the twins do something new and amazing, I can't believe how quickly they are learning and developing into little people. Each day gets a little easier and a little more fun. Don't get me wrong, there are still a lot of moments where two babies are screaming like banshees and I'm scratching my head wondering what I signed on for. But overall, life is as good as it gets.
I realized I've asked for a lot of advice over the last few weeks, but never followed the advice up with how things turned out. So here's a brief update on all things Sprout-related.
Scheduling
After reading everyone's advice and spending a few more days fighting the kids to get them down for naps, up for wake time and everything in between, I gave up on trying to schedule them. I also stopped waking them up to eat both at night and during the day. This was somewhere around 4 weeks of age.
Now at 10 weeks old, they go to bed somewhere between 10 and 11 p.m. I usually feed them before I put them down. They sleep until 3 or 4 a.m., go back down again and sleep until 7-8 a.m. and *usually* they go back down one more time until between 9-11 a.m.
During the day I feed them as soon as they wake up from a nap. I usually try to play with them if they are awake, but if they're sleepy right after they eat, I don't fight it. They sleep when they're tired and I let them. I never let them sleep more than three hours at a time during the day, but that rarely ever happens.
As it shakes out they eat about 8 times in a 24 hour period, most of the feedings happen between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. They both are excellent sleepers and Reese's disposition has improved tenfold!
Crib Transitioning
I banned the babies from our bed at around 3 weeks old. Unfortunately Joe's grandpa passed away that next week and we spent 5 days away from home during which time there was a lot of cosleeping going on. When we got home they were still in our bed until things normalized for them (and us).
I banned them again at 5 weeks.
We started the transition out of our room by letting them fall asleep in our bed and then once they were asleep moving them into their crib. Then when they woke up to eat I would nurse them and put them right back in their crib.
Eventually it just turned into wake to eat - back to crib. To help with the transition we introduced a space heater (their room has the worst heat/cooling of all the rooms in our house because of the way the duct work is set up) and started playing ocean waves (we got an iPod sound dock for their room at Home Goods and I leave the waves playing all night long). Adding those things to the nursery definitely helped signify nighttime sleep.
After about a week we were able to just put them in their cribs at the beginning of the night to fall asleep. Now 3+ weeks later we can put them in their cribs and they just go to bed. Very cool.
Colic
Reese was diagnosed as having colic at her one month well baby. Around 8 weeks she suddenly stopped fussing as much. From what I read, colic normally disappears between month 3 and 4, so I'm left wondering if she ever really had colic. Honestly, the timing of her new leaf is awfully coincidental with when I stopped waking her up from naps to eat.
I don't really think she ever had colic, I think she was just really pissed off that I was waking her up all of the time and I think she was overtired. I mean, if someone woke me up every time I fell asleep, I'd be pissed off too. And let me tell you that kid LOVES to sleep. Sleeping beauty.
Breastfeeding
I'm still plugging right along. Just when I was ready to quit, Joe came down with a 24-hour (nasty) stomach bug, which I then caught. I nursed the twins right through it and neither of them got sick. That was enough incentive to stick with breastfeeding a bit longer.
Nursing is much, much easier now. It's still an awful pain in the ass when we do long outings or day trips, with all of the pumping and toting of bottles, etc. But it's not painful anymore and I rarely have issues pertaining to oversupply or latch or that sort of thing.
I plan to reevaluate how long I want to nurse for once they hit 4 months and the weather warms up. But, for now, things are good status quo.
Reflux
Both babies have been diagnosed with GI reflux. At first I tried to remedy the situation with liquid probiotics, and while that helped with (some of) the discomfort, the babies were still projectile vomiting two hours after eating. So we started them on Tagamet about a week and a half ago and all is well with the world again.
Ryan sleeps with a wedge, Reese hasn't needed one. Both babies are gaining beautifully. In fact, Reese weighed 8 lbs, 14 oz at her check this week and Ryan weighed 10 lbs, 2 oz.
Baby Carriers
We ended up keeping one of our Baby Bjorns because Joe likes it and felt comfortable using it. I ordered the Beco Gemini and I find it to be much more comfortable than the Bjorn for longer carries. It's a bit awkward when you are walking up stairs or inclines with the baby strapped to you because of the placement of their legs, but overall it's much more comfortable than the Bjorn and I like its versatility.
I think that about covers the gamut of all the things I asked for help on over the last two months. Thank you for all of the advice and recommendations so far. You are wonderful!
