well, the latest and greatest in our house is that we are currently sleep training the girls. this means we are trying to get them to sleep through the night. at one point they were doing so well- going down at 630 and sleeping until anytime between 2-4am. however, right around thanksgiving everything seemed to fall apart and we are still trying to get it back together again. hannah kate began rolling over from her back to her stomach and i came in one day to find her arms still tucked in ther swaddle blanket and she was on her belly screaming because she couldn't get her arms under her to push herself away from the mattress. that's when we decided they could no longer sleep with their arms swaddled because I am so afraid of SIDS and I felt like they needed to be able to use their arms and hands to make sure they can push up away from the mattress if they faceplant when they roll over. well, this didn't go over so well with them...they screamed like someone was torturing them when we put them down without their arms swaddled. this went on for about a week and we were doing the graduated cry-it-out so we would progressively let them cry longer and longer before we would go into their room and comfort them. once they went to bed it only lasted until around midnight so i would just feed again to quiet their crying. this put them in a bad pattern of wanting 2 nighttime feeds and making for one very tired mama. which brings us to christmas- pretty bad. we went first to my father's house in ky and then to patrick's family's christmas in ohio. they were pretty miserable about 90% of the time and were all out of sorts being away from home so there was lots more crying and lots more wake-ups in the night. when we got back both girls starting running fevers and so we had another new fun episode to tackle. once they got over their fevers we started trying to make them sleep a little longer through the night until hopefully they sleep through the night without any wake-ups. they are now at a 230am feeding time again and actually slept until then last night (if they wake up before then they don't get a meal...mom's too tired to keep this schedule of multiple nightly feedings up). when they went back down around 315 they slept again until 720 and i ended up with almost 9 hours of sleep...i seriously can't remember the last time i had that much sleep in a night and think it might have been around a year ago before i ever got pregnant (sleep didn't come easily for me during those 8+ months). so that's our sleep training saga in a nutshell. hopefully it will continue to get better and better and we will have many more nights of good sleep in the near future. We are very hopeful that next year's Christmas will be more funny and full of happy memories :)
since i feel like i just wrote about some negative stuff i want to highlight some of the joys of motherhood to twins:
*it is so fun to see how they each have such distinct but different personalities! Charlotte is so laid back and go with the flow (like Patrick) whereas Hannah Kate is a little more high strung (like me) and likes to stick to a schedule and be in her normal environment with her normal routine. Hannah Kate is so playful and gives the biggest smiles at any given moment while Charlotte is more of a studier, always looking at things intently for several minutes before deciding to play. She loves to study her hands for several minutes at a time.
*It's so wonderful to see 4 little eyes looking at you like you are their hero when they are eating (we are now doing bottles...a whole other story that I will post about later). And when we place them on the changing table after a meal they are so happy and just want to play and flirt!
This is how I found them one morning (HK on the left completely upside down from how I put her to bed). They soon got their own beds since HK was also rolling over onto Charlotte and waking her up!
Oh yah, we got a new car...a minivan! I never thought I'd be a minivan mom but I absolutely love this car! It's got so much room for all of our stuff :)
This sums up Christmas! Yes, that's poop all the way down Hannah Kate's leg. My dad was holding and feeding her when this happened.
Uncle Kyle came to visit and Charlotte was so fascinated by him...he had her laughing so hard the whole time he was there!
Hannah Kate has begun sleeping like this...our little Ms. Hollywood!
And sometimes she just hangs out like that as well :)
Can you tell who dressed Charlotte?
Hannah Kate with her Happy New Year hat on (thanks Granny).
This is as close as we came to bringing in the new year in style! Charlotte (L) & Hannah Kate (R)
The girls playing and HK laughing
A funny picture of Ellie helping me fold diapers and feeling quite staticky!
Oh My Goodness. I love those little girls. Miss you! Sorry Christmas was a little hectic!
ReplyDeleteHey girl! I am so glad that you are keeping a blog. I think you already know this but that is my kids' baby book. The boys love to look through the blog books that I had done. That was the easiest way for me to update their stages in life with pictures and very easy to turn into a book.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe the girls are 4 months already...it flies by. Cherish all of these moments even the sleepless/crying nights because the girls will be running around before you know it. I will say that I cannot believe you are doing cloth diapers but I'm not surprised:-) you will feel like a new woman once they start sleeping through the night. I cannot wait to meet these little girls. Braden and Reed can teach them all sorts of things, especially how to be mischievous!
Love ya and miss ya!!