Monday, January 26, 2009

another monday sum-up

here we are at monday again... this is our last few days on the east coast with my parents. auntie laurie flew out and made it safely here to snuggle her (enormous) nephews, and since then we've been paying visits to our grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends, visiting with our folks, and planing our post-return-to-portland life.


max and shoghi, napping at great-grandma & grandpa's house. as with all babies, sleep is the topic of much discussion over here. so far, the boys continue to sleep first at night in their carseats, which i instituted because they (used to) hate being in the car. (fortunately, this has changed, and they now take much better to being put in the car for both short and long rides.) then when they wake, i transfer them into bed with me. this visit has brought no shortage of people telling me horror stories about babies dying in a shared bed, and at the same time, the boys are starting to move and roll a little. what am i going to do when we get home? i'm not sure. i'm considering cribs, which i thought i might get away without. i'd like to be getting better sleep, though, and i'd also like to see shoghi sleeping a little more deeply at night. similarly, it would be good to have somewhere other than their carseats to nap them during the day. we have a really nice twin graco pack and play, but i think they might have just weighted out of it, since they weigh 15 (shoghi) and 16 (max) pounds now, and i believe the weight limit is 30#. anyway, i clearly have some big decisions to make. i'd love to hear some feedback from co-sleeping families, as well as those who have decided to put their twins in seperate cribs.

my dad, multi-tasking with the boys.

i have to admit, the prospect of being apart from my dad during the day, and my parents in general, has me a little nervous! i've had so much help with the boys, since they were born, really, and now is the time when i will be taking over full care of them. laurie doesn't usually get home from work until 8, and of course then she's exhausted (not to mention the babies had better be asleep by then!), so i don't want to be relying on her for so much assistance. this next stage in my life as a solo parent is really going to be interesting...
hopefully it will not be the test i am fearful of.

shoghi and max have both learned not only how to grasp,
but how to transfer from hand to hand and lift objects to their mouths.

this week, max has mastered the kissy noise, and shoghi is spending much of his awake time trying to blow raspberries and make other souds with his lips and tongue.
this involves a lot of drool, and laughter on the part of the observers.

shoghi has had such a great week, with lots and lots of happy, exuberant awake time. he rolls around, squealing and sticking out his tongue. it's very funny and delightful! poor max, on the other hand, seems to be having a harder week. he's been more fussy than usual, and has been spitting up a lot. then again, during the day, max only naps for about 30 minutes at a time, while shoghi goes down for beautiful 1-2 hour naps.

shoghi has taken to holding his own bottle, a very bitter sweet thing for me. although it's helpful, i don't know if i'm ready for my baby to hold his own bottle. as you know, the very fact of giving them bottles is full of emotion for me. my amount of nursing has definitely decreased over this trip. interestingly, i stoped taking the herbs and am now only on motilium (domperidone), and feel like my supply has actually responded positively to this change. when i can pump, i'm getting about 2-3oz at a time. i'm hoping being alone with the boys and not having to isolate myself will mean that i can pump more. i might also start making my own formula. i'm just so sad that i've had to give them so, so much formula over these past nearly six (!!!) months.

the latest, possibly hare-brained, idea i've had is that perhaps getting the boys to eat some rice cereal and progress to solids may mean that i have to give them fewer bottles, and thus will be able to give them a higher percentage of nursing time to bottle feedings. this combined with their great interest and reaching for food lately lead me to introduce them to their first food - organic brown rice cereal (mixed with some probiotics, thanks korin!) last friday night. they both took to it well, and shoghi really seems to love it! last night he ate the whole 2-oz bowl! the photos are on my mom's camera, so i'll try to get those uploaded tonight. we'll see!

so, that's been our week. i can't believe we're about to head back home; it fills me with such mixed emotions. these boys have really transformed my relationship with my parents and larger family, and i can't help but feel terrible about being so far from them. on the other hand, my life in portland is even better than i had dreamed, and i can't wait to get back and really start shaping my daily life with the boys. that's it for now - i'll try to get some more photos up before we leave, and then it will probably be a while before my next post, since i have to get a new computer in order to do so.

love to all!

8 comments:

  1. I'm so going to have to come down when you get back down to PDX and get settled. Been too long since I've been down there.

    For co-sleeping
    http://www.nd.edu/~jmckenn1/lab/faq.html

    There are even links to articles and studies on the web page.

    For me and Marsh when it was just me and Marsh I had the bed pushed up against the wall. I rolled several towels up lengthwise and stuffed them in the crack (so he's have no chance of falling in and getting stuck). Plus I had a low bed and put pillows on the ground beside me *just in case*. But I was generally on the outside and he'd be between me and the wall. Worked for us for the first 2 years of his life.

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  2. Holy cow! I can't believe they're so huge!!

    My twins sleep in a crib together. They are 5 months old, 3 months corrected. We have another crib and will plan to use it only if needed - if and when they start bopping each other in the head or whatnot... I figure that will probably happen at some time. But we'll put the cribs next to each other so they can see and hear each other.

    I was very surprised at how easy it was to transition ours to the crib. And to stop swaddling. It's just a matter of me getting up the guts to try new things!

    You will do just fine on your own! While I get help for an hour or so in the evening and all weekend, I take care of these little ones from the time they wake to the time they go to bed every day. You'll get into a groove. There will definitely be some stressful moments, though! But you're an awesome mama!!

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  3. Oh, by the way... no offense to Johanna - everyone finds different things that work... but I've heard it can be dangerous to have the mattress up against the wall because the baby can roll and get trapped in the small space between mattress and wall. I've heard it's best to put the mattress on the floor with nothing on either side. (Or maybe some pillows in case someone rolls off...?) They also make sleep positioners made for baby to stay in the bed.

    Good luck!

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  4. naking so being short sorry - co-sleeping great for kids hard for mama. what about a side car situation? my friend Stacie at http://twinkies.bastetweb.com/ may have more partical advice. as for solids, thats excatly how i got my oldest off formula. i'll trade mashed avacado and probiotics with a little mama milk over formula any day!!

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  5. i forgot to say, if rolling over or smoothering your babe is the worry, remember in plenty of cultures it is the norm!

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  6. We have out two in seperate cribs. they just don't sleep properly in their car seat/bassinet beds...they're good for napping but not deep sleep.

    Our twins don't sleep with us in bed except maybe once a week or so, if they wake up after a nightmare, or what is more and more common, one will wake up and start chatting and she'll wake her sister up in the middle of the night.

    So far so good, tho I did notice once or twice when Ive been VERY tired, i have dropped off to sleep forgetting I had a baby next to me. Nothing happenned but I think if you're truly EXHAUSTED its best not to sleep with them...anyway thats just me!

    are you still breastfeeding then? me too (they're 4 months). Some days better than others for breastmilk. Yeah its sad when they drink too much formula, I get sad too, I love breastfeeding now Im not so tired as the first month

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  7. Both babies sleep with us, and have since birth. One sleeps between us and one sleeps in the side-carred cosleeper (I took the bassinet topper off when they started crawling and pulling up). Honestly, with my babies nursing as much as they do at night, it's the only workable solution. I'll probably night wean them at a year and then possibly move them into cribs but probably not. When we lived at our old house we had a queen sized futon pushed up against our King sized bed. I'd just pulled whichever one was screaming at me into bed, nursed them, and then put them back down there when I was done. That was ideal!

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  8. Hey Celeste,

    Leilani passed this link on to me last week. I am so excited and happy for you. The boys are adorable! If possible, please get in touch with me to send me your new address - I would love to send something for the boys. Also, thanks for inspiring me to start my own blog. My sister (myspringsnow) has been on blogspot for awhile and I've been meaning to start one up as well but haven't had the energy or passion to do so. I look forward to keeping up with your news!

    Jen (from Viriva)

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