I Think We're There

They had been sleeping about 10 to 10 1/2 hours a night. This week, it's been closer to 11 hours. Woo Hoo!!! Tuesday and Wednesday morning were the start. We've been getting them to bed around 9:00pm, and they slept until 8:00am. And on Tuesday, we even had to wake them at 8:15 actually, but they were taking Tylenol from the shots. So, I didn't know if that had anything to do with it. Well, we stopped the Tylenol mid to late afternoon on Wednesday, and they still slept until 8am on Thursday morning and this morning. In fact, today I woke them up at 8 to eat so that Mike could see them just before he left for work.

We might be able to get them to sleep even longer than 11 hours, but I'm good with this for now. I like our schedule. If they were to sleep longer, it would mean pushing bedtime up, which would mean Mike wouldn't get to see them as much when he gets home from work. So, I'm happy with this.

And several posts ago, I mentioned trying to get down to 5 bottles. I've done that too. I think we're on week two of that. I just forgot to let you all know, and I know you were dying to find out!!! HA!!! I'm sure most of this isn't interesting anymore. I'll try to keep the pictures coming then so you don't die of boredom when you check the blog. :-)

Doctor Stats and More Pictures

Kaitlyn is now 21 1/2 inches which puts her in the 20th percentile. Her weight was 10-3 which is 45th percentile, so she's catching up on weight. I'd like to see her get a bit taller too though.

Nicole is 22 1/2 inches (1 inch taller than sister) which puts her in the 60th percentile. Go Nicole!!! Her weight is 10-12 and is the 50th percentile. For the longest time, she was about exactly a pound bigger than Kaitlyn, but not anymore.

And we cried when we got our shots, and mommy shed a few tiny tears. Nothing major. We've taken our Tylenol and done just fine over the past two days. No major melt downs, no major fevers, no interruptions in our night time sleeping patterns. (I've been giving them Tylenol every 4-6 hours, even at night I've crept in there and shot some in their mouth, so I don't know if that's why or if they just didn't have bad reactions??? It hasn't been bad at all though. That still doesn't mean that I'm going to be OK for the 4 and 6 month appts when they do this all over again, but maybe my rationale mind will remember this experience and realize it's not that bad.)

Above: Kaitlyn found her thumb. :-)
Below: Nicole

Below: Nicole on left, Kaitlyn on right

Above: Kaitlyn chillin' in the tub.

Below: Nicole looking rather worried in the bath. How strange because both sister and I LOVE bath time. We calm down and relax.

Finally Some Pictures

Haven't downloaded the camera in a while. Apologies. Here are some photos from the month of August. I'll publish some more tomorrow too. I think the blogger only lets you do 5 at a time, and I have plenty more for another post. So, check back tomorrow too.

L to R: Nicole, Mike, Kaitlyn
L to R: Kaitlyn, Alyson (hey, I'm on maternity leave, give my hair a break!), Nicole

L to R: Nicole and Kaitlyn

Minnie and Kaitlyn on the boat!!! Yes, we went boating at only 2 months old. It was so much fun.

Nicole and Daisy, also on the boat. Boy we had a good time.

I'm Not Cut Out for This

Who thinks about shots when they become a parent? Probably nobody, but they should. (kidding obviously, but this stinks) My girls have thier 2 month appt on Monday, and I knew this appt included shots. Stupid me asked how many shots they were going to get when the lady called to confirm their appts today. She said FOUR EACH!!!! Oh my goodness. I'm going to break down in tears...I just know it. Luckily Mike will be able to go with me to this appt. I knew it was a 'shot' appt so I made sure to have him take the afternoon off.

I'm going to stress about this all weekend too, and all day Monday, since the appt isn't until 3pm. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is it too late? Yep, I guess so. I'm already a parent with two beautiful children. But I really don't want them to get stuck four times each. :-( I was thinking maybe two shots each...certainly not FOUR!!! Pray for us on Monday. Or should I say, pray for me. I'm probably going to have a worse day than either of them. :-(

For Jeana

What do you mean you don't know why you bother? I'm not mad or anything and I read all of my comments and appreciate them. :-) Frankly, I just love that you comment. :-) You're absolutely right that they'll probably be unpredictable at times (many times). And you know what, they'll probably be as opposite as we are. HA!!! One will be routine and organized and the other will be go with the flow, so they'll be great friends to each other.

Even if my personality was more go with the flow, I think I'd have to give organization a shot with twins though. Everything I've read says that you've got to be on your game with twins. I can't just let them eat when they feel like it because what if they both feel like eating at different times? I'd do nothing all day but feed babies. Heck, I already feel like I do that all day. I didn't eliminate that bottle I was talking about, so they still eat 6 times a day. That's every 3 hours, or sometimes even closer together when I'm trying to make their schedule work out because they slept late. It's quite irritating to always look at the clock and realize, AH...I've only got X more minutes before I have to do this all over again. But, hey, I love them and this is a great job to have!

Oh....I had to wake them up this morning at 8am to eat!!! Woo Hoo!!!

I need to post some more pictures, huh? It's been a while. I apologize. I'll get on that for the next post.

Last thing: Moms, I have a question for you. Kaitlyn had her first diaper rash last week. Unfortunately, it came at a time where I had just run out of dipers and wipes and switched kinds of both. (We bought several different kinds to try to see what we like.) Anyway, so I don't know if the rash is more attributable to diapers or wipes or neither. What do you all think? Is the diaper or the wipe more important for a baby's skin?

Now What?

Ok, the morning that the slept until 7:50....the evening before, we actually ventured out for dinner and the girls didn't sleep much at all. So, they kind of missed their last nap of the day, which is typically only and hour and a half anyway, but still. Did they sleep so late because they were tired, or is it just related to how much they got in that last bottle of the night?

I also told you I was going to use the 7:50 rise and shine as an opportunity to drop a bottle. I did that and they only slept until 6:15 the next morning and I held them off until 7 to feed. Now, that's not bad and it had been about normal for them actually. The 7:50 was really unusual thus far, so I was still happy with 7am. I guess dropping a feeding didn't mess them up too bad, but with them being up at 7 yesterday, I went back to my 6 bottles in a day.

This morning, they didn't wake up until 7:30. The problem is...I still don't know if it's the number of bottles that gets them to sleep BECAUSE they pretty much missed 2 naps yesterday. I had lunch with family and they didn't sleep at the restaurant, and even after we fed them at the restuarant, they didn't go to sleep after that either because we were leaving the restaurant and they were in car seats, etc. Basically, they were in and out for about a 4 hour stretch (they sleep in the car, but when I get home and the car stops and I jostle them around to get them in the house, they wake up). So, again, were they super tired last night or was it that I went back to 6 bottles?

Today, I'm going to go back to only 5 bottles and I'm going to try to do more activities with them after each bottle to make their naps a bit shorter and see what happens.

7:50am, Are You Kidding???

Well, this post heads us in a different direction. Not ONE peep until 7:50 this morning. My body woke me up between 6 and 7 expecting to hear a crying baby. Not the case. WOW!!!

So, I've taken this opportunity to see what happens if I eliminate a bottle. They were eating 6 times a day. Since they slept an hour later, I'm trying to space out their mid morning bottle and their afternoon bottle by an additional hour each and see what happens. Then, they'll be back on schedule for 3:30, 6:30, and 9:30. I'm just going to increase the amount of formula for the their bottles to compensate so they still eat enough today. I hope this doesn't ruin the progress we're making in the mornings though. I'd rather keep the 7am wake up (and hey, maybe even 8 now) if it means they still need 6 bottles. Of course I'd have more time to get other things done if they were only eating 5 times, but it's not worth it.

I'll let you know how tonight/tomorrow morning goes. Gotta run...it's 3:30 and that's feeding time, and Nicole knows it (she just started crying). :-)

5:30am, Are You Kidding?

Nicole is up. I'm resisting temptation to go in there though because I know she's capable of making it until 6am. I'm about to go give her a paci though and try to quiet her a bit so she doesn't wake Kaitlyn. It's not like she's screaming bloody murder or anything, she's just fussing (medium to loudly I'd say).

OK, done. She had broken her swaddle too, so I re-swaddled her. We'll see how long she's quiet. She woke up at 5:15 last night too. What's going on? Not only will I not give in until 6am, but I'd really like to try to go for 6:30 soon and then eventually 7 and so on, so that by the time I go back to work, it's more like 8am. We'll see.

Anyway, we had professional photos taken last night. They turned out SO cute. They send you a link to your photos about 24 hours later, so I'll definitely post it when I receive it. Now, here's where having twins, again, hits your pocket book. Any parent of two kids can tell you that you can't just get the photos of them both, and you can't just get the photos of them individually. NO, you've got to get Nicole on her own, Kaitlyn on her own, and the two of them together. Ouch. Yep, I spent more than I had anticipated, but I got a few large framed photos too which is where the price added up. Plus, with this place, you leave with your photos right then and there, including the framed ones. I'm going to have fun today putting the smaller ones in frames (I think I have a few frames lying around with nothing in them or I'll swap out older pictures).

Well, here I sit at 7:00am and still no feeding. I only went back in one more time to give her a paci again. She must be back to sleep, which is great for her...not so great for mom who was assuming we'd feed at 6 and has been up this whole time. I even went down at 5:45 and got bottles ready. Oh well. I'd rather me be up a few mornings if it means a break through in her sleep patterns. I see a nap in my future!!!!

In the meantime, I've been browsing for home security systems. It's funny how I've changed since being a parent. I mean, an alarm is always a good idea, but after hearing about that Dr's family in Connecticut and now having kids of my own, I want an alarm. Anybody have one that might want to comment and tell me about it? I don't want to spend a fortune (on install or the montly monitoring). I just want to feel more secure.

Definite Progress

We did the last feeding yesterday at 9:30pm, so they were probably in bed at 10pm. They didn't wake up until 5:45 in the morning. Yeah girls. :-) They're just over 6 weeks old, and I'd say that's pretty darn close to sleeping through the night.

We interviewed a few nannies today too. We'll hopefully find someone soon. We liked both the girls we met today. It's strange to think that you're picking someone to help raise your kids, but that's, unfortunately, just what we're doing. Sucks that we're not all millionaires and able to stay at home and raise our own kids, huh, ladies?