Three months. Although sometimes it feels more like one year! I honestly can’t believe they were born only three months ago. The antenatal and postnatal visits to hospital feel like an eternity away!
Feeding:
They have upped the quantities a bit since the last update. Eric is on 170ml (but finishing the whole bottle most of the time) and Elisa is on 150ml (but she averages 125/130ml most of the time). Also, they’re sleeping more through the night so they’ve dropped a full feed in the middle of the night. To compensate a bit, we’re feeding them “hungrier baby” formula in their last feed of the evening before they’re put down. This hasn’t made a huge difference so far, as they still wake up for a feed at around 3 or 4. But at least we believe that they’re getting more nutrients like this.
Also, they are on size 2 teats now. You’re supposed to change the size every three months, and we’ve changed them now. They struggled a tiny bit with them on the first few days, as it looks like they are sucking a bit more air in than with number 1s and they need burping more often again. But the plus side is that they are finishing the bottles on around 20 minutes, rather than 30-35 mins.
Rather than buying new teats, we modified the existing ones. Jon will be explaining the process on a different post, so I won’t spoil the ending 🙂
Sleeping.
I wrote about their new routine only a few days ago, and not much has changed. They’re still being put down to sleep at about 7:30 and sleeping through till 3 or 4am. I wonder when they’ll sleep completely through! Although I must say that doing just one feed at night is not a problem at all, as both Jon and I are getting 8 hours sleep, with just one break in the middle.
The routine is working, however, some days it can be a bit of a struggle. I think they’re going through a growth spurt at the moment and they ger hungry sooner than we anticipate. So, for instance, if we think that their next feed is at 19:30, we start the process at around 19:10, by freshening up their cot, preparing the bottles, getting bibs and muslins ready, running the bath, etc. However, in the last few days they’ve started kicking and screaming for the feed much sooner than expected, making the process stressful rather than calming…
We can only keep on going and improve the routine!
Development.
Eric is on size 2 nappies and Elisa on size 1. The nappies that we are using on Eric at the moment are unbranded ones that we were given. They are quite different to Pampers but they do the job. However, since they are sleeping more through the night, I notice that these unbranded nappies get much wetter and fuller, and I’m unsure how they’ll affect Eric’s skin. We’ll be running out soon and I’ve already bought Pampers ones.
Their poos are now less regular than they used to be in the first few weeks. And stinkier! They used to poo pretty much several times a day, and now they’re pooing every two or three days. And when they do… oh, my… they completely fill their nappies, and we’ve had several leaks…
We try to sit them on their bumbo seats for a bit everyday. Elisa loves it, but Eric is not so happy about it (at the same time, Eric is happy to do tummy time, but Elisa won’t tolerate it). Elisa is super curious and absolutely adores to look and stare at everything. Eric is more chilled out in this respect and, whilst he does look around, you can tell that he doesn’t have that curiosity gleam in his eyes like Elisa does.
They both have started uttering their first “word” sounds. Some days they are more vocal than other days, but surely they say “ah” and “gu”. Sooner than we think they’ll be “talking” all the time!
They also have discovered their feet and they kick all the time! I try to put soft and noisy toys at their feet so they feel that stuff happens when they kick. I need to get one of those piano style vertical toys… I hear they’re great fun!
As I said above, they’re going through a growth spurt at the moment, and it’s really visible on Eric who suddenly does not fit in 0-3 month clothes! I had to make an emergency trip to town yesterday to get some 3-6month sleepsuits for him (Sale on Primark at the moment – 6 sleepsuits, £6). I will write more about this subject soon…
And the most important bit of their development is that they are properly smiling now! Not all the time, but they do respond to our cues. They both smile a lot in the mornings specially. When we’re giving them the first nappy/clothes change of the day in the morning, they’re really happy and reactive to our cues. It makes the whole thing so much better. One can have had a bad day, but when they look at you in the eye and smile at you, all your problems disappear instantly.
Socialising.
We still go out very regularly for walks around the estate. We now have a Costa coffee and have become regular customers! It will become my meeting point with friends who want to come and visit, when the house is very untidy 🙂
Still meet up with the NCT girls quite often, but because of holidays and other illnesses, we haven’t met in the last couple of weeks. Now I am also meeting other twins mums outside the twin club, as their twins are roughly the same age as mine (between 8 weeks and 20 weeks) and we’re more comfortable meeting in a more neutral place – The twins club is fantastic for toddlers but a bit less so for small babies. Still, it is great meeting with them, because they fully understand what I go through and you get better and more relevant advice.
Health.
I’ve already told you about Eric’s results for his hearing test, and about their first set of immunisations… so won’t go over that ground again. They have their second set of immunisations next week and I’m not particularly looking forward to that.
I took them to their first weigh in clinic a couple of weeks ago and that was quite interesting! Until now they had been weighed by the health visitor or by the doctor during their routine check up, but I am on my own in that respect now, so it’s up to me to take them to be weighed once a month. I took them to the weekly clinic at the Discovery Centre in Festival Place, simply because I know where it is, I know where to park, and then you’re in town if you decide to stay a while and meet someone. There are lots of weigh in clinics in Basingstoke, but apart from the one in the Rooksdown Community Centre, I have no idea where the others are, so I decided to save me the hassle of turning up somewhere unknown (and getting lost on my way there). I didn’t go to the one in Rooksdown because that one only takes place once a month, on the third Thursday of the month (Wednesday or Thursday, not sure), but because of the last time that they had been weighed was so long ago I decided to not wait until the end of the month.
They are putting on weight nicely, and Eric was 5.3kg and Elisa 4.3kg at the time of their last weigh. Hopefully they’re still putting on weight! Slowly but surely.
And, as far as I know, there aren’t any other issues with their health! Fingers crossed it stays like this!
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And this is it for now. More updates soon!
