(Apologies for how long it’s taken me to post this! I think I will skip “the twins at 13 months” at this rate…)
We made it! The first big milestone is done and dusted… The twins turned one last week!
Let’s see how the last month has gone…
Feeding.
Big news! We are now fully on cows milk, no more formula! Also, on a related topic, we are not sterilising any more. We were told that the main reason for sterilising is because formula tends to grow bacteria in the bottle teats easily, but since we’re not on formula any more, sterilising is something from the past…
We started by mixing formula with cows milk about a week before their birthday. And I am glad that I did it like this, because it took Elisa a few days to get used to it, as she would sick up almost every night after her night bottle. It was a tiny bit worrying because she hadn’t brought up any milk for a long time and I thought she might be intolerant! But, only a few days later she started to get better and now she’s totally fine with it.
We have pretty much finished with mashed food (although I do keep a few jars in stock for emergencies). They eat what we eat, and sometimes I even cook just for them and I just have a snack! Eric is going through a phase ( I hope it IS a phase!) in which he eats a bit and then throws all the food to the floor. If I spoon feed him, he’ll eat most of it, but if I put his food on the tray he just plays with it and throws it on the floor.
I am a bit worried about this because Eric lost a bit of weight recently (more about this on the “health” section) and if he keeps throwing his food he might keep losing weight! I do try to make up for it by giving him yoghurt and more pudding, and juices for drink, but I don’t want him to think that he can get away with that forever. So, as I said, I really hope it’s just phase that will pass soon!
Elisa, well… Elisa eats beautifully, as always.
Sleeping.
We were having problems putting them to bed, as they were full of energy after their bottle. So we have slightly changed our routine, to include more active play after dinner (to tired them out). We now don’t get them into the bath until around 19:15 / 19:30, and they don’t have their bottle until around 20:00. They are going to bed much easily now.
They are also sleeping well. Eric had a few bad nights in the last couple of weeks (because of health) and Elisa has ended up on out bed as well a few times lately (because of health too), but apart from that, they’re doing ok.
The naps are the same as well, I don’t think they’ll be dropping their morning nap anytime soon. I think Eric could sometimes do without the morning one, however Elisa still needs it. She becomes very cranky and everything makes her cry if she doesn’t get her nap. In a couple of occasions, when they’ve woken up a bit later than normal, putting them to nap in the morning has been “interesting”, but if they wake up at the normal time (at around 7 am) then they still need their 9:30 nap.
In the next few weeks/months I am going to try to push the morning nap a bit later and see if we can shift the nap to just have one during the day, at noon. It would make things so much easier for me! However, I don’t think they’re ready. Not for another few months still.
Development.
They are not walking yet, but oh my, they are so close! They both stand pretty well by now. They stand and give a couple of steps before stumbling, but they are really trying! (UPDATE: Eric can now give about 5 or 6 steps before falling… He’s going to be the first one to properly walk!!)
Their other favourite thing to do is climbing. They climb onto everything. And they are clever babies! They have learnt to use thing to prop them up and help them climb. Eric especially likes to use me as a stepping ladder. He loves being on the sofa and running from one side to the other on the sofa, but he can’t get up there on his own, so if I am sitting on the floor he’ll come to me pretending to give me a hug but what he then does is climb on me! They also use toys and books as props. They are so clever! They have mastered climbing the stairs too, and they can do one step with one leg at a time, if you know what I mean… At the beginning they would stop with both feet on each step, but know they have learnt a much faster way to go up!
They are babbling a lot now. They have always been quite noisy and talkative, but they are really making lots of noises now. Mama and Dada are very distinguishable and they say those words to both of us. And they understand a lot! And what makes me even happier is that they seems to understand commands both in English and Spanish! I must admit that I am not speaking as much Spanish as I should to them, but they are understanding much of what I say to them. They respond positively to both “Pásame la pelota” and “Pass me the ball”. Same with “Ven aqui” and “come here”. And many others.
I took them to the Health Visitor for their 12 month review, and it was a mixed feeling visit. She had sent me a questionnaire that I had to fill in before the appointment, but the questionnaire sat on my kitchen table until 15 minutes before the appointment. So in a rush I tried to fill it in, and I did what I could. Unfortunately, I didn’t read the instructions and I did it all wrong. The questionnaire consisted of several exercises that I had to carry out with each child BEFORE answering. I obviously didn’t carry out the exercises so a lot of my answers were wrong. For example, one of the questions was something like: Does your baby put two toys, one after another, into a box? And I answered “not yet” simply because I had never seen the twins do that before. But when I was at the appointment and I explained to the health visitor what I have just told you, she gave Elisa two toys to put in a box and she did it! The problem is we didn’t retake all exercises to see if my answers were correct, so the twins were evaluated on not very accurate answers.
At the end of the day it does not matter at all though, because all children develop at their own pace and just because they could not do some of those exercises at that particular moment in time does not mean anything at all. I am happy with their development and I don’t need anyone else to tell me otherwise. If I had any concerns, I would have taken them to a professional any way.
Socialising.
A lot of socialising in the last month, yes! More birthday parties (all my NCT friends had birthdays in the last month), more soft play, visiting friends and visitors to the house! The kids are fine around people… it may take them 5 or 10 minutes to warm up but after that they are comfortable with anyone, which is handy because I would have hated having kids that don’t want to be more than 2 metres away from mum.
We have also been taking them (weather permitting) to the playground. They love the swings and they cry when we remove them! They just don’t want to be in the pushchair and get very cranky when they’ve been on it for more than half an hour. They just want to crawl, explore, pick things up from the floor, etc.
Health.
Unfortunately we have had quite a bad spell in this respect. First Eric had a bad ear infection which ended up in A&E on a Sunday afternoon, after two days of non stop crying and very high temperatures. We were seen after “only” waiting for an hour and a half and the doctor who saw us was very thorough (which is always very reassuring!). We were given antibiotics and sent home. Giving Eric the antibiotics was quite an adventure. He would not have it on its own (although it smelt nice!) so we ended up mixing it with petit filous, which worked fine.. but he would then have three petit filous a day! (normally they only have one, maybe two max)
He got better eventually, however, he lost some weight because of it. When I took the kids to the 12 month check up with the health visitor, they were measured and weighed, and he had lost around 400 grams from the previous time that I weighed them (only one or two weeks before). It upset me a bit, because I had always been so proud of their positive development… they have always gone up on the percentile scale, so him losing so much weight so suddenly was a bit disheartening. I haven’t weighed him again (I should have taken him today….) but I am sure he has recovered what he lost.
They had their 12 month immunisations last week and unfortunately we think they did not sit very well with Elisa. She’s been quite poorly since the day after she got the vaccines. Horrible cough, tons of flem and mucus, cracked voice and fever. We know it is not viral otherwise all of us would have caught it… We really think it was something to do with the vaccines. It has taken her a whole week to get better… I took her to the GP on Monday without an appointment and (long story short) we weren’t seen after waiting there for what it seemed an eternity.
Otherwise, we haven’t had any teething lately, which is a relieve, as it would have been the last drop! It’s been bad enough like this.
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