1-2 months with twins, a bit late Opp's

I wrote this when the babies turned 2 months old but forget to post it. Opp's! So much has changed since this time. I'll have to write I new update blog. This was written 11/7/12

1-2 months

Well I had a feeling that blogging would be super hard once I had the babies. The days have really become a blur. I am on the babies schedule so bedtimes don’t really exist for me, I sleep when they sleep. I feed the babies every 2-4 hours and they sleep in between feedings for the most part so my days and nights just kind of meld together. I don’t really know where to start and what to write about.

So let’s just say twinfants are exhausting! I think I wrote that in my last blog. So we used to keep the babies in their Rock-N-Plays (http://www.fisher-price.com/en_US/brands/babygear/products/51903) 24/7. They absolutely love them and so do we. Within the last 2 weeks we decided to start putting the boys in their room and they now sleep in a crib together at night. Surprisingly they are doing great and seem to enjoy sharing a crib. I was a bit concerned how they would do because when we keep them in the rock-n-plays they were apart and so having them sleep together I thought it could go one of two ways,  Good or Bad. Of course it went good considering they shared such a tight space in my belly for 9 months.  (put pic from their first night sleeping together) Here is a picture from the first night they slept together. I walked in their room and found them like this. My heart melted.

So in my last blog I was pretty ashamed to write about how I felt like I didn’t have a connection with the babies and how I felt as if I was their caregiver and not their mother. I was also was having a hard time processing that I had 2 babies. Every time I woke up I would be like OMG I have 2 babies and just stare at them in disbelief. Haha… Well I’m happy to say now that my connection with them is a whole lot stronger. Yayyyyyyyyy!!!! I don’t feel like a horrible person anymore, it really affected me that I felt that way.  I love my babies so much and kiss them every time I pick them up which is like 20+ times a day (each).

I know a lot of people have expressed interest on how I go about my everyday life and if I have help every day or if Billy works from home. So Billy stayed home with me the first 2 weeks. Which was really more like one week with me in the hospital and one week at home. I was so scared when he went back to work and kept thinking how am I going to do this? I’m a super independent person who doesn’t like to ask for help. I like to do most things on my own.   So the answer is No, I don’t have outside help every day, I do it all on my own.  I’m very lucky in that Billy has a flexible work schedule since he has his own business. I’m also thankful that his Mother doesn’t work and comes to watch the boys during the day when I need to go to my doctor appointments. I’m also super grateful that my mother lives next door to me.

So my day goes a little something like this Billy wakes up for work at 7-7:30am around 8-9am the babies will wake up and Billy helps me feed them before he goes off to work. For the most part after we feed them they will go back to sleep and I will sometimes go back to sleep too. After we feed them I will pump because my boobs feel like they are going to explode.  Once I pump I enjoy a cup of coffee which is the highlight of my day. The babies will then sleep till about 12pm and I will tandem feed them and change their diapers. I then will either give them a bath, put them on their play mat or put them down for a nap. From there I will feed them again around 2 or 3pm and again change them. Then put them down and pump, clean the house or stare at the TV and zone out or play on my phone. Hahaha… they then eat again around 5pm, most of the time Billy is home by then and will help me feed them for the rest of the night. We then feed them again at 8pm and again around 12pm, this is the last feeding I have with Billy since he goes to bed right after this feeding. I then will stay up with them if they don’t go right to sleep. I then pump again and go to bed. I will then set my alarm for 4 hours from the time they ate last. For the most part they will wake up between the 3 hour and 4 hour mark.  I then will tandem feed them and change them and put them back to bed. Sometimes they will don’t want to sleep and will cry, so I will rock them to sleep in a rocking chair. It’s hard because now that I sleep back in my bed with Billy if a baby cry’s I feel the need to jump out of bed and tend to him because for one I don’t want the Babies to wake up Billy since he has to work and I also don’t want the baby to wake up the other baby and be stuck with two crying babies. Lucky for me one baby can be screaming at the top of his lungs in the others ear and the other baby won’t even flinch. When this happens I always check on the other baby to make sure he’s okay and still alive because those kids have some powerful lungs. I don’t know how anyone can sleep through that. I then go back to bed and my day starts all over again….in 3 hours.

I feel like everything people have told me prior to having kids is totally true. As in you won’t sleep, have time to eat or even eat a hot meal, take a shower, have time to yourself and the list goes on.  Parenthood definitely has changed my life. Prior to kids I would have never ever been seen outside of my house without make-up. Now I don’t even care, I go out in PJ’s with no make-up and curly hair (My hairs curly, I used to straighten it every day).  I now understand how woman “let themselves go” fashion wise.  You put your kids first and make sure their put together before you are.

I wrote about breast feeding in my last blog. Since the boys were preemies they were not strong enough to breast feed. So I pump and Bottle feed them. Which I still do in order to keep them on a tight schedule. That and simply I do not produce enough milk to feed 2 babies. So I pump and we supplement with formula.  We mix it up half and half unless I’ve pumped enough to feed them all breast milk. We like to feed them all formula at night so that it fills them up more and they sleep longer. That also helps me pump and refrigerate my milk so that I can feed them all breast milk during the day.  I am happy that the boys are now strong enough to latch, which is comforting but OMG breast feeding is sooooo painful. I had no idea, you would think those little guys had teeth or something. Hehe…

There are things that have come along with breast feeding that I would have never imagined that I’d go through or experience. Such as breast infections called Mastitis as well as clogged ducts.  The first time I got Mastitis I thought I had the flu.  It was the first time I got a babysitter and went out for the day.  I didn’t pump for 8 hours and wore an underwire bra, which is a HUGE no no while breastfeeding. Lesson learned!!!   I will never wear an underwire bra while breastfeeding. I had a temp of 101-103.8, it was absolutely horrible. On top of that my boobs were super red and the pain was absolutely unbearable, unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Then again this week I wore a tube top to bed with a built in bra and woke up with a clogged duct which is pretty much everything I just explained without the nasty fever.   I feel like my boobs totally hold me back, in that I can’t be out to long without having to pump. I’ve had to change my diet because certain foods affect the babies in a negative way. Which means no more fruit juice, spicy foods or chocolate. Which unfortunately for me are all of my favorite things. 

Lots of ladies have asked me how I lost all my baby weight so fast. It took about 6 weeks for me to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight.  My answer is simple all I do is breastfeed/pump, pick up babies and clean the house all day, with an occasional stroll around the neighborhood. To be honest I only gained about 35 pounds during my pregnancy. After the babies were delivered I was 20 pounds lighter from that alone, which left me with 15 pounds to shed. After I had the babies I still looked super pregnant . I was bummed when all my friends asked me how long it would take for my stomach to go down. I wanted to tell them to piss off because I’d just had two freaking babies. Lucky for me the weight really did fall right off. The more I pumped the faster my uterus shrank and my stomach went down. I’m a pretty healthy eater. I’m a vegetarian and I don’t eat greasy or fast food.  Today I tried to work out my abs (with approval of my doctor), I found my incision from the C-section is not healed, OUCH! So my plan is to do cardio for now until I’m full healed.

I’ve found myself getting hooked on a lot of TV shows. The weirdest one yet is Breaking Amish, it’s so ridiculous how those Amish kids were so sheltered before moving to New York City.  I’ve learned so much about their culture. Other shows I’m hooked on are The Chew, Long Island Medium, SOA, Paranormal Witness, New Girl, Ben and Kate, Ghost Adventures, The Walking Dead, The Doctors, Dr Oz, and The Ellen Show. Yes I watch way too much TV. I can’t wait for Biggest Loser to start up now that Julian is back ß What a dork I am, I stopped watching when she left.

The Boys had their first Halloween last week. Billy picked out their costumes. The Boys were Chewbacca and Yoda. They were sooooo adorable.  On Halloween Billy, the Twins, my Mom and Myself went to Billy’s parents house and had app’s and dinner with his family. It was a lot of fun.  We then put them in the stroller and walked them to Billy’s family friend’s houses in the neighborhood to show them off.  I can’t wait till they are old enough to actually go trick or treating.

This week the Twins turned 2 months old. It really blows my mind how fast time has gone by. They have grown so much. They’ve almost doubled their weight since we brought them home. I’m very greatful to have in extended leave for my maternity leave. Lucky for me I don’t have to go back to work till February.  Woo Hoo! At that time the boys will be 5 months old and will hopefully be sleeping through the night. I feel that at that time they will be old enough that I wont feel as guilty going back to work. I’m just really sad that I will be away from them for 10+ hours a day. Billy tried talking to me about when we should start looking in to babysitters and I lost it and started balling. I’m going to be such a mess when that time comes. I get sad leaving them, it’s gotten a lot better. The first couple of weeks I refused to leave them.  The first time I did I had an anxiety attack. The 2^nd time I went to go to the drug store I cried and freaked out and couldn’t even wait for them to fill my prescription before coming home. Which was retarded of me because I had Billy’s Mom come over and babysit which totally defeated the propose by coming right back home. Baby steps for this Mama I guess. Now I’m like peace out babies Mama needs a brake. Haha…

Here are some pictures from the last few months :)

 Halloween

 The Giant's won the world series 

 1 month old vs. 2 months

 1 day old vs. 2 months

 rocking two babies at once

 4 1/2 pounds

 their arms were the size of my finger

 back when they could both fit on my chest

Weston, i must have went out that that day cause i had make-up on

 Wyatt 

tiny little Weston

soooo cute

 2 1/2 days of diapers

sooooo cute

 1st bath

 4 pound babies

 great Grandma and Grandpa

 1 month family photo

 2 month family photo

    

Life With Twins

Life with Twins!

So my last post was about my birth story and how the BIG DAY went. The past few weeks have been a blur. The Twins are 3 weeks old now. My friend Jessika has twins and told me if I don’t document everything with Pictures and Video I will totally forget this time in their life. Mainly because with twins you’re so sleep deprived that you’re running on Auto pilot most of the time. Boy ain’t that the truth. I think it’s like that for all new parents, but more so with twins. Exhausted doesn’t even begin to describe the level of tired I feel. There is no word that I have found yet to describe it.  Billy’s parents just gave us a nice camcorder, Yay!!! I can’t wait to shoot video and make movies on Billy’s Mac with iMovie.

So this is my stomach over the past few weeks. It’s gone down a lot. After I had the babies I still looked super pregnant. Mainly because my uterus was so stretched out and hadn’t gone down yet.  Right now I’m 3 pounds away from my pre-baby weight. Woo hoo!!! The more I pump the more my uterus shrinks and my stomach goes down. The weight has just fallen off. Besides holding babies and doing a ton of squats just to pick up or put down the babies that’s about as much exercise as I get. I think pumping helps to.  I hear you burn 500+ calories a day pumping and breast feeding alone.

So my babies are soooo cute!!!  I think they are cuter in person.  Pictures don’t do them any justice. They are Identical twins. At times they look exactly alike and then at times they look nothing alike, it’s really weird. Weston is still about a half pound lighter then Wyatt. Wyatt’s face is a lot fuller. I think once Weston catches up with Wyatt they will look more alike. 

At the hospital right after they were born the nurses did their normal tests after they were delivered. They inspected every part of their bodies to see if they had any differences like freckles or birthmarks and they found that they did not. They told us their Super Identical. At the time they were born they were about the same weight Weston was 5.5oz and Wyatt was 5.6oz. Before they were born I was like, “Oh I will totally be able to tell them apart.” Then the first time I saw them in the recovery room I thought, “OMG!!!! They look exactly the same. How am I going to do this???” It didn’t help that I was drugged up on pain killers. It took me a good 2 weeks to be able to tell them apart. I refused to take off their ankle bracelets in fear that I would pull an Uncle Jessie on Full House and Mix up my babies. Hahaha… I think it’s easier right now cause Weston is so much smaller than his brother.

Here is a picture from the hospital when the babies were the same weight. As you can see they totally look identical here. With their skinny little faces. 

This picture was taken a few days ago. Wyatt (L) is gaining weight no problem and his cheeks are filling out, as to where Weston (R) still has a skinny little face.  

Right now we have the babies on a schedule. As of this week we feed them every 2 ½ - 3 hours during the day and every 3 ½ to 4 hours at night (or pretty much whenever they wake up) we are on their schedule. Before this week we were feeding them every 2 ½ hours during the day and every 3 hours at night.  The doctor is really pushing these feeding schedules so that we can get them back to their birth weight. He gave us a goal that we must get them to gain 1 ounce a day. Our 2^nd week we totally met our goal. Last week Weston hit his birth weight and as of Tuesday was 5.6 pounds YAY! Wyatt also gained 5 ounces and was 5.0 pounds. Since Wyatt is still under his birth weight we had to bring him back to the doctor this past Tuesday to see if he’s up, we totally met our goal and he was exactly his birth weight of 5.5 oz.  We have been feeding him the same amount as his brother, which is 60-70ml a feeding. Which is about 2 ounces. Their bottles are soooo tiny. The doctor said full term babies drink 2 ounces at birth (60ml). So we are there, Yay! As of September 29th they were 39 weeks (if I were still pregnant). They will be considered full term babies on October 6^th which if I was having one baby would have been my official due date.

Tandem Feeding

 Weston (Left) Wyatt (Right)

So I’m super scatter brained so I’m hoping I’m not writing about things that are off topic or backwards. Life with twins is great but so tiring. I still have a hard time believing that they are mine. I think with your first child it’s so new and different that it takes longer to sink in. So this may sound bad but I will be totally honest. I don’t know if this happens to other new parents but it’s weird because I haven’t felt like I have a strong connection with them. I just feel like I take care of them. This feeling changes everyday though and as the days pass I do fall more and more in love with them and a bit more connected then the last. As soon as I had them I went next door to my mom’s house and told her this. I felt so bad like I was a bad parent that I didn’t have this amazing connection. She assured me that it’s totally normal and to give it time and it will soon come. I still feel like a bad mother because of this, I’m hoping I’m not the only one. Maybe this is something new mom’s don’t talk about cause their ashamed? I don’t know. But one thing I do know is I love them so much and I give them my all 24/7.  Billy and I are their slaves and will do whatever it takes to keep them happy. We try to give them the best of the best; cribs, toys, strollers, etc.  We want to be great parents and try really hard to be just that. I know with time we will get there.

The babies in one of their Rock-n-play's, seconds later they were both crying and not liking being squished together in one. 

So let’s see life with Twins…………..Like I said is beyond exhausting. But I love that they have each other. Once they are old enough to interact and play together it will be so awesome and a lot easier.  Every Morning goes something like this. Their schedule gets them up around 7-8am we feed them, change them and normally in the morning they will not go back to sleep right away. If they do, then awesome, that means I get to go back to sleep too, Score! If not and they stay awake I do morning play time. We have 2 baby Einstein activity mats and I will lay them down on them and let them stare in awe of the flashing lights and hanging toys. I will also put them on their sides facing each other so they can interact together. It’s sooooo adorable to see them baby talk and coo at each other.

Stretch Marks!!! I know a lot of the girls wanted to know if I had gotten any stretch marks because at the time I was pregnant I had ZERO that I could see. Well once I had the babies I still looked fully pregnant because my uterus was sooo stretched out having twins that it still made my tummy look huge. All my girlfriend asked, Whoa how long is it going to take for that to go down. I wanted to say Ummm I just had “TWINS” LAY OFF!!! I didn’t really hid my belly though because I really didn’t care that I still looked pregnant. But after about one week my stomach went down some and Surprise Surprise Stretch Marks!!! Haha… I got a few light colored marks on a small part of the lower left side of my stomach right next to my kidney scar. I’m super excited that that’s all I got. Yay!!!  As of right now It’s been 3 weeks and my stomach has gone down so much. Your uterus shrinks every time you breast feed or pump. So the more you do it the faster your tummy goes down.

Breast Feeding! Well when pregnant my plan was to breast feed. I thought, oh it will be so easy to breast feed, just hold them up to the nip and I’m all good. Ummm NOT!!!! Breast feeding is really hard and not only that but producing milk is hard too! I worked with lactating consultants, nurses and doctors multiple times a day everyday when I was in the hospital. They all said the same thing. Since my babies are preemie they are not strong enough to latch let alone suck hard enough to express milk from my teet :-P This was frustrating. So what I do is pump and bottle feed which works out great cause we can feed them at the same time and get them on a tight feeding schedule.  Then last week the worst thing ever happened, my milk supply cut itself in half and at times even less than half. This was Horrible because they are now eating more and doctor’s orders were that we needed to get them to gain an ounce a day. So we have to supplement with formula and mix it with breast milk. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if the formula didn’t upset their little tummies. They got super gassy and it gave them really bad poops.  (we just switched formula and it’s helped their little bellies a lot)

So I asked around and spoke with the Doctor on what I could do to increase my supply. So I now am drinking Mothers Milk tea, More Water, trying to remember to eat more, and from time to time I will drink a Guinness. I’ve began pumping every 4 hours and within the last few days I’ve noticed that my supply is picking up. Pumping is really no fun. I feel like a milking cow and when I don’t pump a lot of milk its super depressing. If I had one baby there would be no problem at all, I’d have plenty.  But the fact is I’m feeding two babies, so when there is not enough it makes it super frustrating and I feel like a failure.

Here is a little look in to what it sounds and looks like when both babies are not very happy. 

A few of my all time favorite baby things right now are the boys Rock-N-Play’s, I recommend them to any new mother. They are great for traveling too. These are all the boys will sleep in right now. They are great to because the bottoms are rounded and so when we have long fussy nights I can rock them in their Rock-N-Play’s.

Also my other favorite thing is baby music. Our friend Matt came over with music called Rock-A-Bye’s and what they are are super mellow baby lulabys of rock artists like Nine inch nails, Metallica, Bob Marley, Nirvana, the Beatles, Aerosmith, Dave Mathews and the list goes on. The boys love them and listen to them to go to sleep every night. I love them to and they also help me go to sleep every night haha… Check out the website http://www.rockabyebabymusic.com/?nav2=false .  They also have a Pandora station called Rockabye Baby!

Other things I love are WubbaNub’s http://www.wubbanub.com/index.html. They are little stuffed animals attached to soothie pacifiers.  They are supposed to be good for your child’s motor skills. But they’re great because you will never lose their pacifiers again. The boys love to hold on to the little stuffed animals that are just their size, as they suck on the pacifier. Not to mention it’s so darn cute. You can find these little guys at The Learning Center stores.

Oh and I really loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the stretchy swaddling blanket’s.  I don’t know what brands they are but the 40x40 stretchy blankets are great for swaddling our little guys. We have nice bigger blankets but they’re too big for the boys right now.

And our life saver right now is Gripe Water. The Boys have a lot of gas and when their little tummy’s get upset we give them Gripe water and it gives them instant relief and before we know it they’re burping and farting within seconds/minutes. It’s pretty crazy to here a 5 pound baby fart louder than you, hahaha… The only thing I hate about it is that it’s like black iodine color and stains clothes.  It’s tastes good though like sugar, the babies will go from screaming crying to happy and asleep in minutes. I think this is a must for babies with Colic, in my opinion.