Feeding and growing

Written 29 April but never posted as was waiting for photos to be added. Well, enough already, here is the update from then. More to come shortly, you might have to wait for pics!

Since Easter weekend the twins have been growing well.  Even though when we packed the bag on Thursday night the 6lb baby grows fitted pretty perfectly, by the time we headed home on Monday we were grateful that we had put a couple of the bigger ones in! They had just grown that bit too long for the sleep suits in the smaller size!  It was amazing how instantaneous it seemed to be.  They then wore the 7.5lb suits for a few weeks, and this week they have gone up into the 9lb ones.  The 7.5lb vests and clothes still fit nicely, so they must mainly have long legs at the moment!  The 9lb vests are still a bit big for now, as they are not very “rounded”.

We think that Smudge is about to have a growth spurt, as she took a phenomenal amount of feed yesterday and slept loads.  She has been very sleepy today so far, which would indicate that she is gearing up to get bigger, and is taking as many calories on board as possible as well as conserving her energy to grow.  Smidge had a massive weight gain of 400g this week, bringing him to a total of 7lb 7oz.  Smudge is a little further behind at just a shade below 7lb.  She put on 180g, though, which is still a good gain.  It is unfortunate that they are rarely weighed on the same scales, so there is no consistency in the weighings to know exactly how well they have done, but they are consistently getting bigger which is the main thing.

This week they have both tried solids properly for the first time.  Smidge had his baby rice on Thursday evening while Gary was at badminton, and the whole lot disappeared within 10 minutes!  I just made up a portion of 1 tsp rice with 1 tblsp formula, but it is still quite a lot for a first try.  He stuck his fingers in his mouth, then round his ears, and ended up with rice in his hair, but I was pleasantly surprised that we didn’t both end up smothered in it!  Smudge had a go on Friday, but only took about half of what I made up and was far less bothered about it than her brother.  But that is okay.  Smidge has definitely been showing more signs of being ready than Smudge.

I got a day out yesterday as there was Stampin’ Up! Regional training, and so my parents came down Friday night and stayed for the weekend.  It was great for me to have a complete day off, and seeing friends and getting to do a bit of crafting made a big difference.  I definitely felt recharged, and even managed to feed both twins in the early hours without feeling like I was going to keel over! I sent Gary back to bed when he brought Smudge downstairs after I had fed Smidge and was washing up the bottles.  So that was great for him!  It isn’t often that he gets to sleep while I feed them these days!

It was nice to go away for a few days over Easter, but incredible how much STUFF we needed to take with us!  At least we were going somewhere familiar, and there was a cot for the twins and things, so we didn’t have to get a travel cot or anything like that.  And it was really lovely to see Gary’s family as we have not seen some of them for a few years!  Even better was finally being able to introduce them to Smidge and Smudge in person.  They loved it, and lots of people got cuddles!

Getting out and about

We have been to a multiples social group for the last three weeks, called “Multiple Mischief Makers”, and that has been nice.  Especially when things have been tough and we have been able to talk to people that know exactly what we mean!  Last week I was having a really tough time of it, and through talking to the people who run the group we have now been referred for the potential to get some help sometimes through a charity who provide volunteers to help new parents.  And we are going to have a visit from one of the children’s centre volunteers on a weekly basis, so that I can have a chat and Gary can hopefully get some work done.

We started a baby massage course on Friday, and the twins seemed to enjoy that.  We now have to try to practice that with them every day! They also showed us the moves to help with colic/ reflux, as Smudge suffers a bit with the reflux and hopefully this will help her with that.  Again, we just have to make time to work through the moves with her on a regular basis.

The weather over the past couple of weeks or so has been awful, and we have not been able to get out for a walk very much as we were before, so we are hoping for some brighter spells to get out and about in the fresh air.  Not least to go to the library and return the CD that we borrowed on Smudge’s new library card!

What next?

This week we have our first appointment with the consultant since the twins were discharged from the hospital.  We are also seeing the dietician at the same time, so we will discuss how they are doing with their food.  We will look at the next stage with regards to weaning.  Hopefully that will go well, though there is currently no reason to think that it wouldn’t.

We have the next baby massage sessions, and further social interactions planned over the next few weeks.  And Gary and I are trying to book bits for us, such as I am having my hair cut, and Gary is having a massage in a couple of weeks (I had a massage on Thursday and it was wonderful!).