Oh. My. God. We are on double figures now! Ten months! 1-0.
So finally time has started to go by much faster. The first six months were so slow, a drag, time seemed to stop. Probably because days were so much longer. The twins were having five or six feeds a day, and four of five naps, we were also changing their nappies more often, and they required much more attention. Now they spend much more time on their own, crawling around, playing or laughing at each other. I can physically leave the room for ten minutes and know that they’ll be ok.
So what has been happening in the last month? Let’s have a look.
Feeding.
They are still mostly on mashed food but they are having more and more finger foods each day. They are great at holding pieces of food and vegetables, or bread, or biscuits… I just don’t trust them enough to feed themselves with the spoon. When I’ve let them grab the spoon, the food has gone everywhere except for their mouths. I think before I trust them with the spoons, I’m going to try an experiment that I saw on a website, which is to give them carrot sticks or cucumber sticks and a pureé of some sort (humus, paté, taramasalata, yoghurt, etc) and let them dip in the sauce themselves. I have given them home-made kipper paté before, so I may try that again.
Elisa seems to be better at eating than Eric. Eric tends to play more with the food. If I put peas on their tray, Elisa will pick them up straight away and eat them, whilst Eric likes to push them around or smash them. He eats well if I spoon feed him, though. Elisa is just great. Even my mother in law mentions it every time, saying how much she enjoys watching her eat.
We have completely dropped bottles of milk for lunch and dinner and we’re trying to get them to drink more water. I was feeding them the water in the bottles, but I read somewhere that it is not advisable, especially if you are giving them juice, as it can damage their teeth. So I’ve bought a couple of doily cups, and we’re trying very hard to teach them to drink from them! They understand the process and when they see the cups they get ever so excited and take them to their mouths, but then.. they blow bubbles or spit the water… I don’t know, I think we need to persevere! It’s just difficult to get them to drink much this way and they always get soaked!
Sleeping.
They have been sleeping much better in the last two/three weeks. We put them down at 7 pm and they are normally up between 6 and 6:30. Eleven (and a half) hours straight! Only on a couple of occasions we’ve had to bring one or the other to bed with us. I now understand why some parents choose to co-bed. Babies sleep so much better with us! But it’s a) not convenient as our bed is not that big for FOUR people, b) dangerous, as accidents do happen and I would never forgive myself if something bad happened and c) not good either for building their independence.
Their naps have changed a bit in the last few weeks. They now have one at about 9:00 / 9:30 am for 30-40 minutes and another one at 2:30 which is longer, around one hour (sometimes even longer!). This means that they go without a sleep for 5 or 6 hours! It’s much better for me, if I want to take them somewhere, I know that they’ll be ok rather than me panicking to get them to sleep wherever we are. They have fallen asleep at around 12 a couple of times, if they had had a bad night or a busy morning, which makes it harder to then get them to nap again at 2:30/3:00, but if they need it, they need it!
Development.
Did I say that Elisa would be standing next? Hell yes. It only took a week or so after my last monthly update for BOTH OF THEM to go crazy with the crawling and standing up. Elisa is faster crawling and getting up, but Eric holds his balance a tiny bit better. We have one of those baby first step walkers, and Eric has attempted to push it and “walk” with it a couple of times. Still early days for the whole walking unaided, but it will happen much sooner than we thought!
Their babbling talk is also improving, and they make many more sounds. They say ma-ma now, which is so cute (and it kind of breaks your heart with sweet pain every time) and they also put intonation to their “sentences”, like they are actually talking and telling you stuff. So damn cute.
What else can they do? Their pincer grasp is really good now. Not perfect but really good. They can both clap and wave, and they love peek-a-boo. They are great at holding things and love to throw balls (and other objects) around. They can bang the xylophone and drums (and Jon’s guitar too!). Eric even seems to dance to music!
I haven’t managed to sit them down and get their attention in order to read a book. They still want to steal anything I’m holding and eat it. Not so good if the books are made of normal paper, rather than thicker cardstock. I really want to read books to them, but they have the attention span of Dory in Finding Nemo!
Socialising.
Big big fail from my part here. I have only taken them out once to a soft play centre in the last month! We have been out, obviously. We do leave the house almost everyday. It’s just going to other places with other children. Not happening 🙁 Going to Costa to meet other people is getting harder as the twins want to be more active these days and won’t tolerate just sitting in the pram or in a highchair. We did go to the first birthday party of a couple of twin friends and they had a good time there with other children around. But Eric is still crying when he hears other children cry, so we need to work on that.
My mother in law comes to visit on Wednesdays so I am going to start making a habit of going somewhere every Wednesday and getting her to help. Twins Club, unfortunately, is pretty much out of the question as the times are not good for us. By the time they’ve finished their feed and I’ve got them ready, we would only be at twins club for half an hour or less, and it’s not worth the effort. I will have a look at the children’s centres timetables and see what activities there are in Basingstoke at a more suitable time!
4 out 5 of my NCT friends are back at work now, and the other one has never been really close to the group so I don’t really have a relationship with her. I believe we will all stay in touch and will make a point of meeting up either in the evenings or weekends, but no more meeting for coffee on a Monday morning 🙁
Health.
The issue this month is only Eric’s teething. The poor fella has been teething quite badly for the last week or so. Both his upper incisors are coming out at the same time. You can see them sticking out and he spends the day rubbing his face, ears, and chewing on everything. We give him calpol or nurofen when he’s inconsolable, but try to avoid medicines as much as we can. No doubt Elisa will follow suit and start teething herself soon. Although she was better at dealing with pain when her lower teeth were coming out, so maybe she’ll be better this time again!
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Their first birthday is approaching fast!!
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