Archive for the ‘Posted by Bekki’ Category
Cold Turkey
The boys are no longer being swaddled (except in dire circumstances, like a major freakout) as of this morning. Yesterday and today, I’ve found them magically out of the Miracle Blankets, and they’re basically wrapped around their necks. Kind of scary. So executive decision, no swaddles for sleeping.
They seem to be ok, but not totally contented while napping. I have no idea what the night will be like, but LOOK, it’s Friday, which means Adam can deal with any crazy wake up. Heh heh.
I have to put socks on Will’s hands. (skip this next bit if you’re squeemish) There was an episode of House a couple weeks ago where a woman had an itch on her head that would not go away, and she kept scratching ans scratching until she scratched right through her skull. Gross. Well, after Will had managed to get his hands free yesterday morning, that’s basically what he started to do. Poor thing was clawing at the side of his head and left some deep scratches. A little neosporine, and they look way better. But even with ultra short fingernails and a heavy coating of both hydrocortisone and Aquaphor, he was still itchy enough to do some damage. So now he’s suffering the indignity of wearing socks on his hands. Adam want to get little baby boxing gloves.
10 Pounds
No, not the name of a new Will Smith movie. That’s how much the boys have each grown (more or less) since they were born. We had our four month well-baby visit today (um, yeah, bad mom made the appointment a week and a half late. Oops), and the boys are following their growth curve VERY well. Andy clocked in at 15 lbs, 3 oz and 25.5 inches, while Will measured 17 lbs, 1.5 oz and 26.5 inches. Interestingly enough, apparently Andy’s head has caught up with Will, since they now both have the same head size. All is well, health wise, and the boys checked out perfect. They seem to be hitting most, if not all, of the developmental milestones which is great considering how early they were.
Poor things had a rough time with the shots, and have been both very cranky and very sleepy this afternoon. They literally slept right through their afternoon feed, and downed their whole bottles without even waking up!
No real answers to my naptime woes, other than that they’ll eventually get older and nap longer than 45 minutes. I’ve sort of relegated myself to this, and am trying not to dwell on the whole thing. We’ll see how long my new attitude lasts. I’m giving it about 14 hours from now when I’m trying to get them to nap again.
Big project for the weekend is to switch out their current clothes for the next size up. They still fit into a lot of the seperates, but the PJs are really tight. The boys, Will in particular, are just really long (75% and 90% each). We’re also visiting a friend to introduce the babies to her husband. He hasn’t had a lot of baby experience, and needs to get some ASAP, if you know what I mean.
Mission Accomplished
They slept apart, and apparently either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Andy was again sideways in his crib. That kid is a mover and a shaker.
Update, 10:10 am: I was trying to quiet them back down to sleep after ANOTHER 45 minute nap this morning. I left the room for less than 5 minutes to see if they would be quiet. They weren’t, so I went back in. Andy had managed to do an almost complete 180 in that short time. Motion activated camera anyone?
7-11
Andy has taken to scooching around the crib at night. I’m not 100% sure how he does it–we think he probably twists his legs and pushed off the side rails. We are still swaddling them while they sleep, so I imagine he looks like a little inchworm moving around. I’m halfway tempted to put in a night vision camera, just so I can find out.
The two start out right next to each other (like an 11) and then somehow Andy twists around so they end up looking like a 7 (their heads make up the point). The first time this happened, I was in there because Will was making noise, and I honestly didn’t think Andy was in the crib. It was really dark, and he just wasn’t there. I had a minute of frantic patting around until I found him.
I think this might signify the end of sharing a crib. Sigh. They grow up so fast.
Update: We now have photographic evidence.
10,800,000
Or approximately how many seconds the boys have been alive as of 9:32/34 this morning. That’s four months and two days. Adam yelled at me for not updating on the boys in a while, but it’s been a rough week, and I was a little strapped for time.
First some fun milestones:
1) Andy has rolled over, front to back, about a dozen times. They are deliberate actions and sometimes he gets this little smile right before he flips. It’s like you can read his mind…”I know how to escape from this!” Three of the rolls happened within seconds of me putting down the video camera, after waiting five minutes, because obviously he wasn’t in the mood to roll over.
2) They both have really started to figure out toys. Will is SO funny with them. On the exersaucer, there’s kind of a slot machine toy (three little wheels that spin, and each makes a different noise). The first few times in there, Will would just flail around and randomly hit the wheels. Now, he guns for them and can actually spin each wheel individually. Andy is starting to figure it out too, but he’d rather rub his head against the green dragon toy attached to the exersaucer.
3) They really like Baby Einstein. Now, I know that the APA says no TV until 2, but let’s be honest, that was not going to happen in this house. And 15 minutes of Baby Einstein, twice a week, while I give the other one a bath is not going to hurt them. The nightly hockey games….well, we won’t talk about that. Let’s just say I’m not winning any Mother of the Year awards, and they’re getting really good at craning their necks around to see the TV when we’re trying to feed them.
So, what happened last week? It was awful. They went from taking horrible naps to being up at all hours of the night. When babies don’t sleep during the day, it catches up to them at night, so we had two cranky, overtired, overstimulated babies. For a couple nights, they wouldn’t sleep for more than 2 hours in a row (more like 1.5), but they were off schedule from each other, so I was basically up every 45-60 minutes with one of them. It’s sort of a toss up, get up more often or try to put two crying babies back to sleep at the same time. I’m not sure which is worse.
However, things have been much better in the last couple days. Napping seems to be longer, although they might wake up after 45 minutes, if I leave them alone, they sort of chat themselves back to sleep. They’re only getting up once in the night (Well, twice, if you include the midnight feed, but that’s on Adam’s watch, so I don’t care!). Usually around 4:30 or so, one will wake up. It only takes a minute to get them back down, so not a big deal. The other either sleeps right through, or maybe needs a little patting.
I think there was just a weird combination of things going on. Four months is a big developmental jump, which disrupts sleep. Their eczema was getting worse, so I think they were really itchy too. Plus I still think there’s some early teething going on, since they really like having their gums rubbed. We started using some hydrocortisone cream, as per the doctor, and that has seemed to help their skin a lot. Maybe once they weren’t so itchy, sleep was easier to come by? I don’t know, and I don’t know how long this will last, but luckily I’m not banging my head against a wall anymore. (literally)
Yesterday, in the Lyon House
Except there were two. And they don’t have British accents….yet. Thank goodness for baby crack, oops I mean, teething tablets.
eta: Adam informs me that Stewie, in fact, does not have a British accent. Whatevs. Teething still sucks.
Snapshot, 4:31 PM
Will is finally happy in the new exersaucer. Up until today, his legs have not been long enough to touch the bottom, nor is he round enough to fill up the seat. Although neither of those things has changed, another mom clued me into draping his arms over the front. It worked very well, and he sits, longing to grab the toys around him, but not yet coordinated to do so.
Andy is on my lap, facing his brother. I still can’t tell if they’re aware of each other or not. While they can be coerced into smiling at us, they’ve yet to smile at each other. I’m sure that day isn’t too far. But I still have them look at each other a lot to try and encourage it. Andy is happy on my lap and totally not happy when I try to put him on his tummy. Apparently he’s not in the mood for that type of exertion.
We had a fun time at our PEPS meeting today, although I looked like an idiot, complaining about their crappy naps of late, while they both slept through most of the 2.5 hours. Yeah, the carseat is often a nap enducer, but put those kids in the crib and it’s 45 minute tops. Apparently it’s some sort of developmental thing, dropping their blissful 2 hour naps down to much shorter ones in this 3-6 month period. Just becuase it’s normal, doesn’t make it any more fun to deal with.
Snapshot, 7:34 am
Andy is wide awake, talking to himself. Or maybe to his brother, who is still fast asleep next to him. Or perhaps he’s trying to make contact with the mysterious creatures that dance in a circle hanging over him. Either way, he’s happy. I released him from the confines of the Miracle Blanket, so his little arms are dangerously close to going through the slats in the crib. He lost a sock at some point in the night; it’s tangled up in the blanket somewhere. His coos sound like hoots sometimes, so much so that I think he might be part owl.
They both have slid down the mattress. We elevated one end with a couple phone books in a desperate
attempt to help them breathe. Which has now turned the crib into a baby slide. And because of the crib experiment, I have yet to replace the bumpers, leading to the aforementioned limb escape problem.
Now Andy coughs, but luckily he doesn’t seem bothered by it. The froggy humidifier we bought has helped their poor little noses a lot. We still skipped out on PEPS (the mom/baby group we attend once a week) yesterday. I can’t imagine they are still contagious, but I know we new mothers are particularly protective and I would hate to make any one upset with me.
It sneaks closer and closer to breakfast time. Bottles must be made and heated. The couch must be arranged for two hungry little babes.
When Two Miles Is More Than Two Miles
So, I used to walk a lot. In 2007 I walked all of the darn time. At first, because I was rehabing from my back surgery and then because I figured out to con Adam into another Disney trip, I better have a good scheme, and thus, decided to walk the 1/2 marathon there in January. In the few months leading up to the race, I was walking a good 20-25 miles a week.
So, it being a beautiful day out in the greater Seattle area, and the fact that the boys refused to nap for more than 45 minutes, which was slowly driving me insane, I thought to take them on a walk along with me.
I bundled them up in their carseats, and headed down to the trailhead.
I thought that two miles would be a good goal, considering it was getting close to their afternoon feeding,
and I felt like I could make it back in plenty of time. What I failed to calculate was the fact that I wasn’t just
walking. Oh no, I was walking and pushing roughly 80 pounds of stoller, carseat and baby. It is no wonder it
took me FAR longer than it should have to cover that distance and why my wrists were quite unhappy last
night.
Regardless of the time involved, the walk was awesome, and the boys slept through most of it. I call that a win.
It Must Suck Being a Baby
Poor Will. He’s got a stuffy nose. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the constant use of the heater–which also explains why I get shocked every time I need to adjust a fuzzy blanket. It never occurred to me how uncomfortable a simple stuffy nose would be if you had no control over any part of your body. He can breathe if he’s on his side, with his head slightly elevated. See if you can picture what that looks like, and then guess if there’s any way to accomplish that without me holding him. Yeah, no.
Oh, I tried, bleary eyed, in the dark at 4:30 this morning. Rolled up a blanket and propped him up. The quiet lasted all of 3 minutes, just enough time to crawl back into bed. That’s a particular talent of these two: they seem to have a sixth sense for exactly how long it takes to get comfortable.
I’m pretty sure that’s what the definition of motherhood is: “never getting comfortable.”
Finally I gave up. The poor thing was tired–he wanted to be asleep, he just couldn’t breathe, so out to the couch we went, and now sit. I type this with a grunty little rhino on my lap, more or less peacefully asleep. Andy remains quiet in the crib, although he’ll be awake soon enough.
And I will be making a run to get a humidifier so maybe we can avoid the pre-dawn wake-up call tomorrow!