4 months old

Wow - our twins are 4 months old!

Joel

Jeremy

Probably due to all the spit up, our boys aren't as big as I thought they would be at 4 months. Joel measured in at 12 lbs 14 oz (15th %-tile), was 24 in long (20th %-tile) and had a head circumference of 40 cm (7th %-tile). Jeremy weighed in at 13 lbs (also 15th %-tile), was 23 in long (less than 5th %-tile) and had a circumference of 40.5 cm (15th %-tile). Jacob was 12 lbs 12 oz at 4 months old, so they are right about the size he was, although at their 2 month appointment they were each over a pound bigger than Jacob was at 2 months.

Even though our boys are still spitting up like crazy, we think we have the pain of their reflux under control. Too bad they are both already teething!!! We noticed that they were both chewing on their hands a lot and I really thought I was imagining it when I thought I saw 2 little spots on each of their lower gums where their first teeth would come through. But the nurse confirmed it on Thursday - those little teeth are fighting to come through.

These babies are nice and fussy while they are teething (oh joy!!). Lately they love for us to rub their gums and infant Tylenol is like a good friend right now. When I first thought they were teething I didn't want the teeth to come through yet - babies just look so much different once they start getting teeth and lose their gummy smiles. But now I just want those teeth to make an appearance so these babies can be happier. It must be no fun to be a baby. Jacob didn't get his first teeth until 9 months, so I can't believe those little teeth look like they could pop through any day.

We have started putting the babies to bed a little earlier some nights (early as in between 8:30 and 9 instead of between 10:30 and 11). We haven't fed them in the middle of the night for well over a month now. Sometimes when we put them down early, one or both of them get a little restless around 5am, but they still don't eat until about 6:30am or 7am. I am super grateful for babies who sleep pretty well at night. I have to admit though - I am really looking forward to a 7pm bedtime for the twins, but I have no plans of doing that until I feel pretty certain that they will still make it until after 6am before needing to eat again.

As far as other developmental milestones that the babies have hit - they are learning to laugh, but haven't really started belly laughing yet. Each baby has rolled over from tummy to back, but it isn't something either has mastered yet so sometimes they don't stay on their tummies for long while other times they get all upset and can't figure out how to move into a more comfortable position. To be honest, we don't put them on their tummies or lay them on their backs as much as we would if they didn't spit up so much.

Tummy Time X 2

The babies are still pretty random when they sleep during the day and when they are awake, but if they stay awake the whole time between feedings we know that they will struggle to stay awake to finish the bottle. I know that one thing that will make them a little easier is when they have a more predictable awake/sleep pattern for the day with a couple good naps.

After church Sunday naps on the couch

2 smiles

Watching us eat dinner

Surviving

Things are a little rough at our house most days.

Jacob

At 2 and a half years old, Jacob still isn't talking. I can get him to say "Mama" and "Dada", but he doesn't call me or Justin anything. If he wants us he just whines. I think when I tell some people that Jacob doesn't talk they think I mean he doesn't speak in sentences like kids his age should because that is usually followed up with them asking me what words he says. He has 1 word: "sit". He says it usually when he sees a dog, even though we always tell him that it is a dog or a doggie.

We had him evaluated and his hearing is fine, but he is super sensitive to sounds and covers his ears a lot. Because he can't talk (and I'm pretty sure that he knows he should be able to) he gets frustrated very easily and he bangs his head on the floor or the wall when something isn't going his way - something that is really hard to see when it is the tile floor. :( I posted a few months ago with pictures of what he had done to his head when he was mad here.

We have been working with Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) pretty much since the beginning of the year and he has been making progress, but of course it feels like he isn't making nearly enough progress to get him to where he needs to be. They told us initially that he had sensory issues, but they didn't really explain what that meant. After doing some of our own research we learned that this is a big deal. You can learn about Sensory Processing Disorder here and here. Of course Jacob doesn't have all the different sensory problems, but it was nice to finally know why he wouldn't eat food (as opposed to drinking his meals) until he was 15 months old and why he is such a picky eater as well as some of the other problems that Jacob has.

The babies

Our babies are not "easy" babies. They have problems with reflux, they spit-up LOTS (and sometimes they even have projectile vomiting, I am taking Jeremy to a pediatric gastroenterologist in a couple weeks), and they have painful gas. As I mentioned to the pediatrician - when babies come in twos like this, aren't they supposed to be a little easier on mommy? They have limited time during the day when they are happy and willing to be put down on a playmat or put in a swing. And since there are 2 of them and they have an older brother who has a myriad of developmental problems, life is pretty difficult around our house.

The babies love to be held, so anytime people come over they want to hold babies and it is heaven for our little guys. As long as they aren't spitting up or having bad gas, this makes it seem like they are easy babies when other people are here.

When it is just me here with all 3 kids, Jacob gets almost completely ignored. Poor kid. Luckily there have only been a couple times when I have had to be here by myself all day. I have a helper who comes everyday to help me with the babies until the afternoon. Once she leaves I have about 3-4 hours before Justin is home from work which sometimes goes pretty well, but sometimes I am pulling out my hair by the time he finally walks in the door. Having a helper has actually done wonders for Jacob since he is able to get a little attention while the helper is here. It is also the only reason the house isn't a complete and total wreck - only a partial wreck.

I know quite a few people with twins and everyone has told me that the first 6 months is definitely the hardest. I honestly feel like things would be WAY easier to handle if Jacob were either older, or if we had had twins first. Even if Jacob didn't have all the developmental problems that he has and just was a regular 2 yr old with regular tantrums, this would be lots better. Or if the babies didn't have whatever digestive problems they seem to have. But seriously the combination of it all I sometimes feel will be sending me to the loony bin soon.

One day at a time, right? I bet you're all wishing you lived at our house.

Not so little anymore

**I plan to have a few posts in the next few days (if babies and toddler cooperate), so if you haven't checked out the blog for a little while keep scrolling down. :) **

The babies are growing!!! I know they are still a lot smaller than other babies their age, but check out how big they are next to the outfits they wore home from the hospital.

Jeremy's foot next to the little bitty sock

Jeremy next to the little bitty outfit

Joel's foot next to the little bitty sock

Joel next to the little bitty outfit

Jacob on the hour

**I plan to have a few posts in the next few days (if babies and toddler cooperate), so if you haven't checked out the blog for a little while keep scrolling down. :) **

Here's a little documentation on a day in the life of Jacob. Someone that Justin and I know from Tallahassee has done this with her son and I thought it was neat and finally got around to doing it with Jacob.

8am - wake up (yeah, he slept a little late this day)

9am - breakfast (not such a fan of the homemade blueberry muffins)

10am - watching some tv while we feed babies

11am - reading a book

noon - helping mommy do some shopping

1pm - lunch time

2pm - time for a nap (nap time is rapidly becoming just quiet time)

3pm - Quiet time over (Jacob is pretty happy about that)

4pm - Playtime (while I feed babies)

5pm - Playtime outside (this didn't last long since it got up to 100 yesterday)

6pm - Dinner (Yum - hotdog)

7pm - Bath time

Jacob was sound asleep before 8pm, but here is he at 7:20pm telling Daddy and his brothers goodnight

3 months old

Joel on the left, Jeremy on the right

I'm pretty sure I said this a month ago, but if so I'll say again. In some ways the time is flying by and I can't believe the twins are already 3 months old. In other ways, this has been the longest 3 months of my life.

Jeremy

Joel

The boys are getting so big. Although they didn't have check-ups this month, each of them has more than doubled their birth weight, but Joel is definitely still bigger than Jeremy. I guess we'll have to wait until next month to find out just how much bigger.

In the last month these boys are really starting to develop their personalities. For instance, they both love attention. In fact sometimes all you have to do to make Joel happy is to sit down next to him and talk to him. Jeremy usually needs to be picked up to show him that you really are paying attention to him.

Joel hates it when his diaper gets too wet and neither can really stand it when they are messy. They both give great smiles and the way they smile is totally different from each other. When Jeremy starts to smile, it seems like the sides of his mouth start to curl up first before his whole face catches on to it. For Joel, he has a hard time just smiling. When he smiles he likes to either talk or laugh at the same time.

Both babies are really on the move, even though they don't go anywhere yet. Sometimes they make it really difficult to feed them because they don't want to just stay still and eat. They both really like bath time, but Jeremy makes it very difficult to bathe him the way he tries to move around in the tub.

Jeremy all smiles after his bath

Joel's deer in the headlights look after his bath

At night they both eat sometime between 6pm and 7pm and I think that they would actually prefer to usually go to bed after this feeding, but neither Justin nor I want to have to wake up in the middle of the night so instead we keep them up and maybe just let them doze a little and feed them one last time between 9pm and 10pm. We have been doing this for a few weeks now and they typically sleep really well until after 5am. They start moving around anytime between 5am and 6am, but sometimes they just want to be held and sleep a little longer. They typically have their first feeding sometime between 6:30am and 7am.

We had Jacob sleep in our room until he was 6 months old, but we have already moved the twins out of our room and into the nursery. They seem to have become really light sleepers and it was so hard to tip-toe around the room as we got ready for bed and for the next day when they were sleeping. I think we all sleep better with them in their own room. And I'm not paranoid about something happening to them in their sleep because they still aren't sleeping alone like Jacob did.

Last month I told about how fussy our babies were. After a week on Zantac without much improvement, they were moved to Prevacid. They are doing a lot better on Prevacid, but it causes A LOT of spit-up. So much so that I have about 30 burp cloths for the babies and enough clothes to last them about 10 days before I would need to do their laundry. But I end up having to do their laundry about every 3-4 days because I run out of clean burp cloths. In fact, about once a day Jeremy will have a massive spit up that would actually be categorized as throw up instead. Poor kid. This last week (so after they were 3 months since I am behind on their update) they started displaying some of the same symptoms they had before and we upped their dosage of the Prevacid just in the last couple days. Hopefully we will see another reversal on those symptoms soon.

There's actually quite a bit more that I could say about how life is around our house these days, but I think I will save that for another post. Another post that I will hopefully write in the next few days.

Joel's amused, Jacob not so much, Jeremy's just mad

Our hair is out of control!

Jeremy was giving me some great smiles

Joel didn't feel like smiling

Just chilling in Jacob's chair