3 months, 1 week - Starting to Get Traction

This napping routine has been difficult still to master, especially since Tina has been having a hard time embracing it. She's clearly tired, but needs a lot of down-time and reassurance before she'll drift off. By that time, it's "time" to feed again. I've been conflicted as to whether I should wake her up and stay on the routine or - my selfish self - just let her sleep for an hour (any buy myself a deserved reward of some down-time). I spent the better half of the first week emailing the twins group to hear their advise.

Consensus said to just pretend that she'd slept and continue with the routine. She's also still too young to let her fuss and cry unattended (which made me feel better). So, two more difficult days until a break-through yesterday. Not only did she get some sleep during all 3 of her naps (Ava slept through all 3, per usual), but they both gladly went down at their bed time. By 8:30 pm, my mom and I were watching a movie we'd rented from the video store and I was still able to go to bed by 10:30 pm.

So, we're starting to get some "good" days along with the "challenging" ones. We never know what we'll have when the day starts, but we try to be optimistic! We hope that it's just a few weeks more before they get the swing of it and anticipate the naps as much as they do other things.

Tina - Stats and Habits at 3 months

Bettina Louise 3 mos.

Bettina Louise

• AKA: Tina, Spider-Monkey, Betty Lou, This One, That One, The Other One, Nay-Nay Girl, My Baby Baby
• Known For: immense strenght and determination, a bad temper when hungry or tired, the dimple on her left cheek - same as her Aunt Ainsley and 2nd cousin, Holly, looking cute in hats, needing to be swaddled for naps and bed-time, her startling ability to soil a diaper, being a mama's girl
• Favorite Toy/Game: the wooden stick and knob toy held together by an elastic cord - looks like a molecule model - called a Skwish, her silver bar-bell rattle
• 11 lbs+, including Buddah-belly

Ava - Stats and Habits 3 months

Ava 3 months

Ava Angelina

• AKA: Little Lina, Our Bathing Beauty, This One, That One, The Other One, My First Baby, Muppet, Kitty-Cat
• Known For: chatting and babbling to absolutely anything, having her great-grandmother's cow-lick, her laid-back personality
• Favorite Toy/Game: Watching the ducks turn on her mobile, talking and chatting, watching TV or Baby Einstein videos, flirting and making eye contact with people
• 9 lbs. 7 ozs.

3 month Reflections - The "Have To Have's"

At a recent Mother of Twins New and Expecting Moms gathering, an expectant mom asked what we really found useful in the baby items and what wasn't really necessary to put on the registry. Looking back, here's the list I thought of of items that really came in handy for the 0-3 month age:

• Lots of 4 oz. size bottles - we're talking 2 dozen. Keep in mind we've got twins.
• Bottle steam sterilizer and bottle brush - it's like a mini-dishwasher, but only takes 3 minutes for the cycle rather than 40 minutes. I end up doing like 4-5 cycles a day - I use this way more than I expected to. This is a "have-to-have" item.
• Double Snap and Go - In fact, I wished for awhile I also had a single until I realized you could still use the double while folded in half as a single. Genius!
• Breast pump - far more efficient to feed via bottle and you can delegate visitors to help you out.
• Brest pump converter - converts the "Brand A" breast pump do-dads with the "Brand B" bottles - one less thing you have to wash...
• Swing - my kids actually nap in this! Also, the first thing Ava does when she's put inside is to stare up at the little ducks that, when you push another button, rotate around like a mobile. (They love to watch ducks!)
• Jiggle/Bouncy chair - this will give you at least 15 minutes of quiet time.
• Extra bassinet - great for napping time when one kid might wake up the other. Also handy when you want to have a bed nearby to prevent waking them. The longer you have to walk to put their sleeping bodies down, the more likely they're wake up.
• Baby Bjorn - I don't know why I didn't put this on the top of this list! It definitely needs to be there. I have 3 of these things around the house and I've used all of them even though I have only 2 babies. One's in the wash or forgotten in Paul's car or something. You need to have extras of these around.
• Monitor - first of all, encourages you to sleep in your own room (you'll sleep better - I promise!). Second of all, you're able to respond to their whimpers before they turn to cries which wake them up too much.
• Digital Camera - you'll use this nearly every day!!
• Tons of stretchy swaddling blankets and/or swaddlers - they sleep much more soundly in these.
• Large throws for "tummy time" and outdoor picnics
• For mom - slip on shoes!! (no time for laces or buckles), and need to have read all sleep-habit books before the babies are born. Re-read when needed.

What you Don't Need:

• Stuffed Animals!!
• Too many toys. My girls just started responding to toys within the last couple of weeks. You wonder why you have all these things dangling from your car seats and play mats until they're nearly 3 months old.

Hopefully, this will help you shop for new expecting moms or for yourself, if you're in that category....

Week 12 - Brilliant Benchmarks

I have been wondering how to figure out a napping schedule forever! They have this night routine down pretty good, now, but it's the day time when we need some more stability and a bit of rescuing.

I've posed the question at my New Mom's group and heard that you just find it. Rather vague and un-action oriented advise. One day, the girls will just show you what routine they need. I also written my Mom of Twins group email listserve to see what suggestions they would have since I haven't been "finding" their routine on my own. I desperately want to develop day time napping since I can tell they are overly tired and thus incredibly fussy from noon to about 7pm. I tried the suggestions that came back over the email....which all basically said the same thing: put them down around 9am, noon, and 3pm and see what happens.

Ava and Bettina were happily playing and chattering with me at 9 am the next morning, so it was hard to stop, but I tried it and put them both down in the crib just after 9am. Two sets of eyes stared up at me completely wide awake. I reassured myself that we would try this and walked away convinced I'd have to run back 5 minutes later to their whimpering complaints. Amazingly, within 15 minutes, I had 2 sleeping babies and about 45 minutes of free time!! Elated, I cleaned a load of bottles, put in a load of wash, made the bed and dared to take a shower. Suddenly impressed with myself and my girls, I tried the noon nap as well. Ava napped well after watching ducks dance around her swing. Tina didn't go down as solidly, but did get good quiet time/rest. A 4 o'clock nap also worked well. Why didn't I try this earlier?? This makes having kids so much easier!! You bet I'll try it every day going forward!

The other brilliant benchmark was during their "morning exercises" or, as their grandmother likes to call it, their "boot camp." Just after their nap, when their in a relatively good mood, we practice our "tummy time," which is supposed to build up their neck and back muscles for crawling. Tina doesn't much like tummy time and gets frustrated soon. This week, her frustration motivated her to move around in all the right ways to actually roll over! It came as a big surprise to us. Grandma put her down on her tummy, walked back to the couch, and looked to find she'd already rolled over onto her back. Unsure she did it on her own, we tried it again and watched her roll over a second time all on her own. We will have to be careful where we place her now so she doesn't roll off the furniture. Very exciting progress!!

We are also excited as their 3-month anniversary (can you call it a birthday??) is next week. We have yet to figure out how or if we will do much to celebrate the "big" day. Funny how the months don't match up with the weeks. You'd think that 12 weeks would amount to 3 months, but the months are actually a bit longer. Pretty soon, Tina will be out of her 0-3 month clothes and I'll have to bring some 3-6 mo. clothes out from the garage. I think Ava will still be in them for a bit longer.

Week 11 - All Through the Night

The girls' first (of many, I'm sure) visit to the Picture People - Week 11

One of the first things I yearned for, as a new mom, was that the girls would finally learn to use a pacifier. Tina learned how to comfort herself with one first at about week 6. I was forever grateful that Ava picked it up just before our plane ride to Washington and became quite skilled during our vacation.

I've started to regret that I encouraged and wished them this new skill. Now, whenever their pacifier pops out, it interrupts their slumber and their naps are forever peppered with whimpers and cries until someone comes to help them reconnect with their new-found comfort source. Just after they learned the pacifier, I learned another wish... When will they learn to put it back in themselves! Or, even better, when will they find their thumbs (their thumbs being harder to mis-place)? I may end up regretting this wish as well...

Once they have fallen asleep, though, it seems that we are making quite a bit of progress. This week, Tina gave us that ultimate gift - she slept all through the night! I'll qualify that by saying she went down at 10:30 pm and slept until 6:30 am. Quite amazing!! Ava is still waking up at least once - usually around 3:30 am - and sometimes still twice, but we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel - the promise that so many parents of older twins have assured: you will eventually get a full-night's rest.

One thing we've found, however, is that it's wise to have bottles prepared in advance of Bettina's awakening. Once she's awake, she's very hungry and must be fed right away! Best to have already poured and prepped the bottle; her patience is thin! A small price to pay for 8 hours of sleep.