Summer Fun

First boat ride: (It was a short one lasting about 3 minutes from the dock to my Aunt N & Uncle D's island where they have a cabin)


Uncle J (my brother), his fiance, Aunt T, and the boys sitting around the campfire:


The boys & Auntie K:


Celebrating Uncle J's birthday:


The boys trying out the Rainforest Jumperoo:



And so it begins ... Silas pulling Liam's hair:

Let me clarify ...

I think there is a big misunderstanding about Weissbluth by some people ... his book primarily focuses on the concept that the quality and duration of daytime sleep (naps) affects nighttime sleep and ultimately affects the baby's demeanor. In his book Weissbluth provides several strategies for helping your baby to get all the sleep they need. Although he does mention cyring it out (CIO) as one technique, it is not the only one (nor is it the preferred one). However, most of the techniques involve some crying. For some people the name Weissbluth means CIO and that simply is not the case. I would recommend reading his book to get a better understanding. I share this because I don't want people to assume I'm placing my 4 month old twins (who are age adjusted 3 months I should add) in their cribs to CIO. I (we) are using techniques that involve some crying, but we are also comforting and reassuring the boys after a set amount of time (graduated extinction).

I also want to explain and clarify that I'm not sleep training in an attempt to get more night sleep for myself (I'm fine with the 1-2 night feedings) or to get a schedule that allows me more freedom. I'm sleep training because most of the sleep experts will tell you that by 12-16wks post due date babies should be taking 2-3 daytime naps, which should occur in their beds and not in a swing, car, stroller, etc. Up until now my boys have been allowed to take their naps wherever they happened to be (swing, bouncy, floor, car, stroller) and I need to change that. I accept responsibility for this major problem and should've done something about it sooner. Since I didn't I'm now stuck trying to fix it. The focus of my sleep training centers around the morning nap and getting the boys to take all of their naps (no matter how short or long) in their cribs. Even though they've both slept in their cribs since they came home from the hospital at 12 days of age and haven't had a problem with it, they are seriously fighting napping in their cribs.

I LOVE rocking my boys to sleep and in fact do that every night when my husband is home to take one baby to rock. When you have twins and are the only care provider during the day it means you can't always tend to each baby's needs immediately nor can you be the one to soothe them to sleep when they are simultaneously showing signs of sleepiness at the same time. Twins make some things that singleton moms take for granted logistically impossible.

I'm trying out different nap time soothing rituals (if you twin moms have suggestions please share!), but right now I put both boys on the floor on a soft blanket, give each a pacifier, rub their backs/bellies, and softly talk/sing/read to them. After about 10 minutes of soothing I put them into their respective cribs with a lovey and their pacifiers. I am usually able to alternate between the cribs providing additional soothing/comforting/replacing of pacifiers as needed (although there are times when both boys meltdown at once). The boys seem to fall to sleep using this technique, but then wake relatively shortly after. So I repeat the process until they are sleeping once again. Today I kept repeating and repeating and repeating the comforting and reassuring for Liam, but nothing seemed to help. Once Liam became wired and overtired it was nearly impossible to soothe him and then he basically refused to nap for the rest of the day, which only added to his overtired fussy state. While trying to get Liam to calm down Silas started crying, but fortunately after 5 minutes of crying fell back to sleep on his own.

I will admit today felt like a complete disaster. I'm certain I did more crying today than my boys did, so suffice it to say this isn't easy for me. But I keep reminding myself that I'm doing this to eliminate having overtired, cranky babies and eventually to help my boys learn to soothe themselves to sleep (when they are old enough to do that ... I've read by 6mo they can do that?!). I plan to return to teaching in the fall and want to ensure that I have happy, well rested, good sleepers by that point. I don't think it's fair to ask or expect my mom who will be caring for them 2days/wk and the nanny who will care for them the other 3day/wk to deal with what I'm currently dealing with. So, I'm hoping in a few weeks I have two happy, healthy little boys who go down well for their naps and continue to sleep well at night.

Sleep Training - Naps

Okay, please forgive me if this post is disjointed and confusing. I'm having a pretty rough day and looking for people to share their experiences with me. What I'm NOT looking for is people to judge me or tell me what to do (trust me when I say I have enough of that going on IRL). For several weeks now the boys have been more or less STTN. They go to bed rather easily with very little soothing between 6:30-7:30pm and sleep until 1-2am when they awake for a night feeding after which they return to sleep until I get them out of their cribs around 6am. Before the boys arrived both J and I read Weissbluth's books Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins and agreed with all that he had to say. If you don't know about Weissbluth's sleep philosophy google it and you'll get a quick overview, but I will mention that it does involve allowing the babies to cry some. Weissbluth's philosophy, which says "sleep begets sleep", is based on good, sound data and a baby's biological sleep rhythms, which I can truly appreciate and respect.

Weissbluth says that babies between the ages of 12-16 wks will start to have organized day sleep and recommends starting nap training at this point. He says that if babies don't sleep well during the day they won't sleep well at night and we didn't want our great nighttime sleepers to turn to bad nighttime sleepers. Therefore, we (I) started nap training this week. Monday (day 1) wasn't the best with the nap training, but it wasn't all that bad either. Tuesday was great--not a lot of crying and really good naps. Yesterday was horrible with crying, me giving in and very little daytime sleep, which resulted in a huge disruption to the boy's night sleep (i.e., they were up on and off from 2am on). Now today they are extremely overtired and the sleep training for naps has been horribly exhausting and emotional for me. The boys have cried a lot and I've cried right along with them. Although I logically know I'm doing this for their benefit (and mine in the long run), I feel like I deserve the worst mother of the year award.

I'd love for your experiences with sleep and sleep training.

4 months old

Liam and Silas had their 4 month appointment this week and both boys are doing great according the pediatrician. Developmentally they are where they should be and are growing well.



Liam: 13 lbs 14oz, 22.8 in


Silas: 14 lbs 11oz, 23.86 in


Liam is really strong and holds his head up well, but Silas doesn't do as good of a job. The pedi told us to do more tummy time with Silas and that he'd get it. The pedi gave us the go ahead to start solids in the next 1-2 months. She indicated that we can start with rice cereal if we want, but that it's also okay to introduce fruits and vegetables too. I think I'm going to wait a little longer to start solids, particularly because the boys are only 3 months adjusted. I've read the new data suggests that waiting until 6 months might be best to reduce the risk of allergies. Although I won't wait until 6 months adjusted, I do plan to at least wait until 4 months adjusted (end of June).

Next week I'm going to start some sleep training with the boys for naptime(using Dr. Weissbluth's methods). I need to get them napping in their cribs and want to ensure that by 16wks (adjusted) they have regular daytime naps. Right now they nap whenever and unfortunately do a lot of cat napping. They are doing great with organized night sleep, so I don't want the lack of good daytime sleep to disrupt their habits at night. This is why I think the sleep training is so important. I'm sure it will be a struggle at first, but I'm hoping after a couple of weeks the boys go down for naps that match their natural biological rhythms (e.g., 9am, 1pm). If you have experience with sleep training, I'd love to hear about it.

Both boys enjoy playtime as you can see in the photos below.

A mixed bag of stuff

I need to apologize for not posting very often. Yes, I'm busy, but I do have a little bit of time to post in the evenings when the boys are in bed. The truth is that I just don't know what to say most of the time. I'm unsure of where to take this blog. I started it as a way to cope with my grief over Myles' death, continued it to chronicle my infertility journey, and now have been sharing my two bundles of joy. I'm fine with keeping the blog as is and using it as I have been doing despite feeling a bit uneasy reveling in my mommyhood when so many of my blogreaders (likely former blogreaders) are still struggling with infertility. I did after all start this blog as a mother (albeit a babyloss mamma) and didn't start out blogging about infertility. I do think that I should modify my blog title somewhat, especially if I'm going to blog about motherhood and our family. I'd love suggestions if anyone has any ... what do you think I should do with this blog and what could I do to modify the title to better reflect my current blog material?

We are loving our new house and feel so at home here. I was worried that this new place wouldn't feel like our home, but this is the home where we will raise our boys and it feels perfect! The extra space is definitely a huge asset with two babies and all their gear. I'm absolutely in love with my kitchen--the large island and huge walk-in pantry are wonderful! I also love having a huge walk-in closet to house all of my clothes. In our previous house I had to utilize portable closets in my basement to store off-season clothing and then change it out each season (huge pain!). The big front porch on this house is our favorite place to sit at night after we put the boys to bed. My parents bought us two wooden rocking chairs, so we can rock, relax, and listen to the birds sing. Another feature that I suprisingly enjoy quite a bit is the 2nd floor laundry, which was our contracter's suggestion--this means I don't have to haul clothes baskets up and down steps. With two babies I do a ton of laundry, so that's saving me a lot of wasted energy. We still have to put our yard in and do the landscaping, but we're waiting until the fall to put in the grass and we plan to do the landscaping next spring.

Kitchen/dining room:

Living room:

Family room upstairs above the garage (this will become the boys' playroom):

Nursery:


Both Liam and Silas are doing great! We have their 4 month peds appointment next week. It's hard to believe that the boys are almost 4 months old already! Liam is doing great on his acid refluxs meds and is actually a very different baby. He is able to eat 4-6 oz of formula at a time and doesn't cry while he's eating it. Silas continues to do well on the meds too. Both boys go to bed without any problems by 7pm--we bathe them, feed them, and cuddle/rock them (we do this because we like it nt because the boys need it.) The boys wake around 1-2am to feed, immediately fall back to sleep, and don't wake again until around 5am. J does the night feeding and I get up with them at 5am. Most days the boys will play a little after the 5am feeding and then will go back to sleep for another 1-2 hours.

Liam is definitely the needier of the two babies and I'm thankful that Silas is so laid back and patient. I swear Liam cries out of jealousy when I'm holding Silas! Both boys are getting stronger during tummy time and have pretty good head control. They are very happy, smiley babies who grow more adorable by the day. Liam has suddenly become quite interested in holding things ... he regularly grabs and holds skinny rattles, his pacifier and Bright Starts Lots of Links. Liam puts everything and anything he gets ahold of (e.g., fingers, toys, Silas' hand, burp cloths) into his mouth. He also drools a ton, which is why I seriously think he might already be teething. Silas isn't as interested in putting things in his mouth and doesn't drool, so clearly he isn't teething. Silas will grab and hold toys if I put them right next to his hand, but he doesn't seem to be as interested as Liam. Silas appears to be close to rolling over and I wonder every day if I'm going to come into the nursery and find him on his stomach in the crib.

I received a Flip Video Camcorder(digital HD) for Mother's Day from my boys, so one of these days I'll upload a video of them doing something cute. It seems like I record them doing something every day because they seem so adorable not to. Until I figure out how to get a video on here I'll leave you with a few pictures of the boys.


Me and my boys on Mother's Day:

This is what our normal mornings look like (ignore my bedhead and pjs):

Hey all, it is me "K"

Hey gang, long time no talk! Niki and I were talking and decided I should give you guys an update! I AM DOING EXCELLENT! Baseball season has begun at our home and I LOVE IT! Nothing better then seeing my two boys having fun on the ball field! I had a great Mother's Day and got the most special gift from Niki, J, Liam and Silas, a wonderful photo book she made on shutterfly. It was 90 pages long, and was filled with stories, poems and photos about our journey, it was perfect! I cried, sobbed and bawled like a baby! I can't stop showing people, and am so thrilled I'll have this for my whole life to help me remember our journey (it already seems like those two sweet little boys were born so LONG ago)!

On Thursday, I got to hang with the boys all afternoon while Niki joined her mom for some time out and about! I LOVED IT! We snuggled, hugged, talked and played. They are two of the sweetest little souls I've ever met and I'm so grateful Niki and J are getting to enjoy them! Many people have, in a round about way, questioned if I "miss" them. Of course I miss them, but under no circumstance do I wish they lived with me or were "mine". I grew these two boys strong so Niki and J could enjoy them their whole lives long! I haven't once regretted my decision or wished it to turn out any differently...our journey has been perfect! When I look at Liam and Silas with their mom and dad I feel bliss! It all happened just as I imagined it and to be quite honest, I feel lucky to have been a part of something so amazing!

I hope this message finds you all content! Enjoy the summer weather and keep smiling!

Photos

K and the boys:


Liam smiling:


Silas smiling: