The twins at eight months

First of all, a little announcement: This is the 100th post on the blog! Wow, it sounds crazy… one hundred posts! It’s been a while since our family journey started… And now to the real subject. The twins are eight months old today!

 

Feeding.

We are properly weaning now. After a bit of a false start in which I panicked because I didn’t know what I was doing, now I think I have it a bit under control. They drink between 600 and 700ml of milk a day, which is enough for them in order not to have to take any extra vitamins or anything, and they also have three solid food meals a day.

The very first feed in the morning (around 7am) is just a full bottle of milk. Then breakfast at around 9:30-10:00, where they eat some porridge or muesli or banana and yoghurt plus some toast and a biscotti, and a bit of milk (approx. 100ml). Then we have lunch at around 1pm; this mainly consists of a purée of  meat and vegetables, sometimes they’ll have pasta too, and a dessert like fromage frais or some fruit. I may give them some rice cake or something properly solid to chew on. And we finish lunch with a bit of milk (around 80ml). Then comes what I call “merienda” (in Spain, “merienda” is a snack that you have between lunch and dinner. It’s normally a small sandwich and a hot drink, or a piece of cake). We give the twins just fresh fruit and vegetables at this time, and some water (at around 3:30-4:00pm). So far they’ve tried quite a variety! Avocado, banana, mango, oranges, tomatoes, cucumber, watermelon, etc. I think the most successful one is oranges. They both love them! And finally, they have another full bottle before bed time (6:30pm). Actually, they have a bottle and a bit. We decided to try given them approximately 350ml in two bottles before bed so they would be properly full and that might encourage sleeping better (I’ll explain in the “sleep” section) and so far it is working!

The purées that they have are quite smooth. I’ve tried a couple of times to introduce lumpier stuff but they are not so keen. I tried again today at lunch and they were a bit better about it, so I need to persevere!

They eat very well, however I haven’t weighed them for a while so I am unsure if they’re eating enough and putting on weight. We’ll find out next week!

 

Sleeping.

Unfortunately we have had a bad patch in the last 3 weeks or so. I believe it’s because of teething pains, but they’ve taken it in turns to wake up and need cuddles every single night for the last 3 weeks. Last night was good, thank god, because it was starting to affect both Jon and me. It was getting silly though, especially with Eric. Elisa will settle with a dummy and unless she’s in real pain a dummy is all it takes to send her back to sleep. Eric, on the other hand, does not take dummies and will not settle back to sleep unless you cuddle him for a very long time. He also settles if you cradle him on his bouncy chair, however I do not like him sleeping for the rest of the night on the bouncy chair.

Their naps are getting a tiny bit more regular, I think. They still sleep for short periods in the morning, but I think they are making their afternoon nap a bit longer and only sleeping once. I need to keep an eye and see if I can find a pattern and stick with it. It would make my life so much easier!

 

Development.

This month I have noticed so many development changes in them! It’s like suddenly they are in turbo boost and are so aware of everything. Elisa is trying to crawl and I am convinced that she’ll be the first one to do it very soon. She will reach for things and attempt to stand up as well. She’s still in the very early stages of this development, but she’s trying so hard! Eric, however, is a tiny bit lazy and will not try to reach for things or try to stand up.

As I just said, they are so aware of everything now. They have a “knowing” look in their eyes and they interact much better with us now. They also interact with each other, however I am not happy to report that they are not getting on very well! Elisa feels the need to steal every single toy that Eric happens to be playing with, and she’s a tough cookie; she’ll push him to the ground if she needs to. We’ve had quite a few tears over toys already…

They are not “talking” yet. I mean, they make lots of noises, but they still have not put syllables together. Jon and I keep saying “ma-ma” and “da-da” or “pa-pa” to them, but they have not said it yet. In a couple of occasions we’ve noticed that when they’re tired and crying they may utter a “ma”-like sound, but not “ma-ma” yet…

One of the cutest things that they do now is they lift their arms towards me when they want to be held. When I noticed it for the first time my heart melted! Nevertheless, this lifting thing is killing my back and I’ve got an appointment with the chiropodist to see if he can fix me!

 

Socialising.

My new year resolution is to take them out more often and I am still determined to do this! However destiny has not been on my side in the last week and I had to cancel two outings. I need to find a better way to work around their feeds. We’ve only fed them once on the go since we started weaning and to be fair it wasn’t that bad, but that’s because Jon was there with me. If I had had to do it on my own, it wouldn’t have been pretty.

So yeah, I want to host more people in my house as well. This way the twins are happy in their own environment but are having the added benefit of having friends around. The problem is that I am not a very good host and I think people know this and this is why nobody ever comes, hahaha… My problem is that I forget to offer drinks. I am not a tea drinker myself and I can go by most of the day on just one or two glasses of water, so when people come I just sit down and talk. No host material here 🙂

In other “social” news, two of my NCT friends are pregnant again! They are both due in September, which means they will have a one and a half year old kid and a baby at the same time! I have always said that having twins is tough but I believe that having a baby and a toddler has to be even harder!

 

Health.

I was supposed to go and weigh the babies on Wednesday morning at the Community Centre, however another appointment made me had to skip this. I will have to go into the Library in town next Tuesday. So I haven’t weighed them since before Christmas (by the way, their weights then were: Eric 8.14 and Elisa 7.71kg)

The main “health” issue that we have at the moment (and have had for a little bit) is teething. Until now teething was just uncomfortable for them (mainly Eric. Elisa’s pain threshold seems to be higher). In the last few weeks though, the pain has got a bit uncontrollable and we’ve had to administer quite a few doses of calpol and ibuprofen. At least we have teeth to show for it! Until a couple of weeks ago we had all the symptoms but no teeth. Now at lest we can see them. They both have the two bottom ones, although they are not fully out yet. I must say that I have found the task of photographing them quite impossible!

Weaning has also led to a bit of constipation. Their poos have changed a lot in the last 3/4 weeks. Whilst they used to be on the runny side, now they are quite hard, more adult-like. But this hurts them and you can see that they struggle sometimes to get the poo out.

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And this is it for now. These little rascals keep me on my toes all day but funnily enough I am actually looking forward to them crawling and starting to climb things (I may regret having said that!). Really looking forward to the spring and a break of the crappy weather. Being able to open to doors into the garden and just playing outside… it’s going to be brilliant! But still a few months to go… Other challenges will come first.

I know I am biased because they are MY children, however I must say that they are both gorgeous! Elisa is getting prettier by the day (she was not a pretty newborn, I know that) and Eric is simply beautiful. So proud of them!