The twins at six months

The twins just turned six months old a few days ago, and here is a recount of their lives in the last 4 weeks!

Feeding

The little porkies are taking around 240ml / 8.5oz quite constantly. Elisa especially has increased her quantities. She used to struggle to drink more than 180ml and now she consistently drinks over 220 on most feeds. She is getting so big! Unfortunately, they’re still feeding every three hours during the day but their routine has settled: they wake up at around 6 am and we get them up between 6:30 and 7:00am, which ties very well with the remaining feeds until we reach the last feed of the day at around 6:30-7:00pm.

As they have already turned 6 months old, we have started very seriously considering weaning soon. They tick most boxes that the NHS recommends before starting, and I’ve noticed that Eric is more ready than Elisa, but I would say that we still need to wait a week or two more (we bought the high chairs the other day and they’re being delivered tomorrow!). We have decided that we are going to try baby led weaning (BLW) instead of traditional (purées) despite the fact that it is more messy! (although the recommendation is a mixture of both and probably is what we’ll end up doing)

We have given Eric a couple pieces of carrot here and there and he hasn’t thought much of it. We also gave him a few pieces of roasted belly of pork and that he did like! He actually cried when we took the pieces of his mouth. He didn’t chew or swallow the pieces, but he sucked the hell out of them! So sweet… The latest foods they’ve tried are banana and avocado. Banana was a hit with Eric but not with Elisa. Avocado was a hit with both of them!

Sleeping

We’re getting much better in this respect. Eric still sleeps through the night 9 out 10 times and Elisa is getting there too. We very rarely have to feed them in the middle of the night now (VERY rarely), although I must say that we’ve had a couple of challenging nights recently, with both of them waking up and crying a lot, and taking us a long time to get them back to sleep!

To be honest, we’re quite happy with their schedule now, getting up at 6:30 is hard, but makes the timing for the feeds much better than if we got up at 8 and then had a feed at 5pm.

They nap during the day as well, although Eric rarely naps for longer than 15-20 minutes. Elisa, on the other hand, could sleep for 90 minutes straight if I let her (I don’t let her… otherwise their schedule would be completely out of sync). I believe their naps should become longer but less quantities during the day. So rather than having four 30 minute naps a day, they will be having 2 naps of one hour each.. one in the morning and one in the afternoon.. but to be honest, I haven’t seen any signs of that yet.

Development

They are still on size 3 nappies (Size 3 go up to 9 kilos), so no changes there.
Since the last update, we’ve been lent a Jumperoo and Elisa loves it! You should see her face every time she goes on it. Eric likes it as well, but not as much. He will not jump so much, but spend the time sitting on it and looking at all the toys around it. Elisa jumps until she falls asleep. It’s so funny! So she falls asleep on it and when you go to lift her off, she wakes up and starts jumping again! Hilarious 🙂

Speech-wise, they still “talk” a lot, but they haven’t moved much from where they were last month. Elisa’s favourite “word” is “Ahhh” and Eric seems to utter something that resembles “Hello” (something like “eooo”), but they make lots of other noises. We are going to a class run by one of the children centres called “Boogie Mites” which is centred around songs and actions (clapping, touching parts of their bodies, etc). So far I’ve been to two lessons, although I considered giving it up after the first class. I do not like the teacher at all. And having twins (from my point of view) makes these classes a bit challenging unless there’s someone there helping you. On the first class I was sitting right next to the teacher and she saw me struggling a bit trying to keep both kids contented, and she didn’t offer to help! I didn’t really want to ask in case it goes against “her rules” or something, but I found it frustrating that she then picked a doll to do the song’s actions when there was one real baby lying there just looking around because I had my hands full with the other one. On the second lesson I kept away from her on the other side of the room and I enjoyed it better.

Yesterday I went clothes shopping for the twins. I needed bigger clothes for Eric, so I bought quite a few 6-9 months old outfits, suitable for winter too, as it is suddenly very cold! I keep the heating on most of the day so they don’t get cold, but they still feel cool most of the time (especially their hands and feet). Hopefully with thicker clothes they’ll keep warmer during the day! I also bought two snowsuits in GAP, but the only size they had for snowsuits was 6-12 months, which means that the outfits are massive! Eric will grow into it soon enough, but Elisa gets lost inside it! So funny…

Socialising

I had a rough patch for a couple of weeks when I didn’t really want to go out or see anyone. Baby Blues v2.0 I believe. I think I was finding it a bit too hard but I was also resenting other mums with just the one baby who were complaining of how hard they were finding it all…… so I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone else. But I am much better now and I’ve started going out again.

Health

They were weighed last week and they are both progressing very well. Eric is now 7.57kg / 16lb 68oz and Elisa is 7.05kg / 15lb 54oz. Very healthy weights, maintaining their percentiles. They are actually much bigger now than another of the NCT babies born two weeks before them (and full term too!)
Unfortunately, they have both been a tiny bit poorly lately. Nothing bad, but they’ve had a bit of chesty cough which made them quite uncomfortable. On top of that, they are both teething and it’s making Eric’s life a misery. Elisa is coping better but Eric requires bonjela and/or calpol almost every day. Sometimes nothing works and you just have to hold him for quite a while to settle him (and remember, he is 7.5 kilos!)

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All in all, we’re very happy with the way they are progressing, although I can’t wait for the teething to get better someone. If at least I could see one tooth as proof of what is going on! Also, I am looking forward to them sitting up so they can play a bit more independently. At the moment they either sit on their bouncy chairs, do tummy time (and they turn on the spot, but nothing else) or lie down on their backs.