Pink marshmallow & blog makeover

These kids HATE having their nails cut. At least the screaming like I'm killing them has stopped; now we just have the extreme wriggling :)

She decided she'd rather chomp away on my hand

I love her in this pink babygrow - she looks like a marshmallow - all soft and yummy :)

P.S. If anyone's keeping score, I do have a ton of pics of Connor but have to download them and my battery is flat, hence these old pics of Kendra. My stupid camera won't even switch on to download if the battery isn't charged.

P.P.S. I finally "sprung" for a blog makeover - have even paid deposit. I was (unlike-me) spontaneous and now don't know what to tell her to do for me. Ideas for pics, colours????

I was right - they do improve with age

C crawling all over D's sister

Before infertility I would only ever hold babies who were 6 months and older. They somehow felt sturdier and more solid, not like I could do much wrong and break them :)

And now I'm finding that I still enjoy this age with my own babies.

hey! get that camera out of here
Cute but still sassy

At 6 months they started getting seriously cute and it hasn't stopped. They now

• smile ALL the time
• go get their own toys :) as they're more mobile
• they play together, sometimes
• don't cry as much (this is my best - I can't stand the crying)
• crawl all over me
  
• talk to and answer us
  

From 6 - 7 months I have something new written on the wall calendar (which I use in place of a baby book) almost every day.

Rolling, sitting, playing with toes, grabbing spectacles, kissing my cheeks and chin with wet, slobbery goodness, crawling, teeth, etc.

I'm also seeing SO MUCH of D's personality in C it's frightening and cute, all at the same time.

But the absolute best thing ever is the independence.

My goal as a parent has always been (even when I didn't have children) to raise independent, well-adjusted kids.

I LOVE that they can hold their own bottles, that one baby can amuse him/ herself while I change the other's nappy/ clothes, etc. That they can play independently for some time (K more so than C). That they can lay in their cots in the mornings after waking, talking and babbling to themselves without SCREAMING for us.

Look how Zen I am despite their mesh feeders being on the carpet! And my MIL's house is a cat house!!!

It's fabulous.

D and I have been talking about going on holiday. He's a bit reluctant because we're so used to having Nanny V during the week and on the occasional Saturday morning.

When I reminded him that actually, we're not so knackered on Sunday evenings anymore, we realised that it really is getting easier.

Who would have thought?!

Yes, we're still waking about 2 - 3 times at night (total) - it used to be 3 times per baby - but they go down for naps and sleep like a dream. No fighting except if overtired but we're so vigilant we haven't had more than one or two episodes in the last month (C; K doesn't freak out when she's tired)

I can also say that I'm a more confident parent these days. 95% of the time I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

This really is my favourite stage so far! I know it's short-lived until they're properly mobile but for now I'm loving it.


****************************

Nanny V and I took them for their 8-month stats on Monday. I am loving Sister Carla more and more. This time the receptionist with the curly hair wasn't there so Connor didn't bother flirting with any of them.

Connor
Height - 70 cm
Weight - 9.09 kg
Head - 45.5 cm

Kendra
Height - 66 cm
Weight - 6.28 kg
Head - 43.7 cm

In a nutshell, C grew 2 cm and 620 g and K grew 3 cm and 520 g over the last month. I'm very happy with K's growth.

I asked about their feeding - a post for another day but C's off his veg - and also mentioned that he'd started waking before 11 most nights. She said he shouldn't and I should add protein to their supper. Also I should mix his night feeds with one less scoop than you're supposed to. Do that for a month (a MONTH!) and then reduce by another scoop.

I'm hoping he sleeps til after midnight soon because I have no patience for these itsy-bitsy baby steps. She said that if you do it too fast, they rebel and freak out.

Too true - we tried it before. The first night was fine but the second night Connor was like, "what on earth! WHERE is the real deal? I don't want this watered-down stuff! WAAAAAHHHHHH"

Next appointment with both nurse (for vaccinations) and paed (who was in one of our magazines this month!) at 9 months.

What's your favourite stage?

Our new feeding schedule

I've been waiting for the babies to turn 6 months so that I could get more rigid with the schedule.

Some of you are thinking, why 6 months?

I don't have a good answer, only that I'm a wuss and felt sorry for them having Military Mama for their mother.

So we've been going about a week now and here's their new * schedule:

6 am - morning bottle with vitamins (do your babies take vitamins?)

8 am - breakfast - cereal

10 am - bottle - we offer 200 ml (ever since that night when he was starving) and he takes anything from 150 ml

12 pm - lunch - fruit and yoghurt

2 pm - bottle

4 pm - veggies

6 pm - milk

That's the plan anyway and if he's awake, great. If he's sleeping, we don't EVER wake a sleeping baby and wait for him to wake first.

I'm so glad I asked the paed about their sleep times because now I don't stress if they only sleep 3 hours.

For Kendra, it's the exact same story except she goes every 3 hours between feeds and doesn't get lunch yet, only cereal and veggies. And she has a bottle of 140 ml except for her 6pm bottle when I do 175 ml as she seems to like to drink a lot before bed. Of course, she also doesn't take her entire bottle all of the time.

I got the * schedule from Sleep Sense. You'll be happy to know I finally finished Baby Sense and Sleep Sense.

(their old schedule was totally on demand - we'd feed them with milk every 3 hours and put the solids in anywhere we could find a gap)

I can't seem to find any correlation between the amount of milk they drink and the length of time they sleep. Some days they seem to have very little and yet only wake once or twice and other times they have the same amount and wake more. Very confusing so I've stopped worrying about it. I could obsess more and do spreadsheets and stuff but I'm holding myself back on purpose.

Or is this only true for my babies?

Now, for the 6-month pics.





When all these shenanigans happen while I'm trying to get a good 6-month photo, I give up and take one where the subjects actually sit still.

P.S. When I got these stuffed animals I cried because they were bigger than the babies!

P.P.S. This is my post for the 30-minute SteadyMom blog challenge

6-month check-up (corrected age 4 months)

So the babies are 6 months old - I can't believe it!

Tried to make an appointment earlier this week and was HORRIFIED when told that the fabulous Dr R (their paed from NICU days) has left the practice.

I then investigated further (phoned my friend, M) and found that Dr R wanted a job that didn't require her to be on call, seeing as she's about 28 weeks pregnant and has a 20-month old little girl too. Our hospital doesn't allow that - all doctors have to be on call - so she then looked for another job.

Huge sadness as we LOVE Dr R.

Note to self - will have to hook up on Facebook.

Anyway, lots of issues with receptionists but finally managed to get an appt for the afternoon with Dr S, whose practice it is.

We arrived bang on time, armed with babies and my list of questions. I always come prepared as I'm not prepared to shell out R1000 and not get every single question answered.

Was prepared to hate him.... because of appointment-setting issues but the man was VERY nice.

He even played with Kendra and Connor and really took his time checking them over.

Now here's the stuff I live for, the stats :)

Kendra

Now weighs 5,18 kg (11 lbs) (and is finally in Pampers 2), is 62,4 cm tall and has a head circumference of 42 cm.

Previously she was at 60% of her expected weight and she is now at 80% of her expected weight and on the 10th percentile. Moving up her growth curve very nicely.

Yayyy - we are very happy. The cereal is working and we started her veggies today too. Such a minute amount as she is not a food lover like her brother.

Developmentally she's doing fine. That's all the detail I have! Amazing - I am not at all freaked out by these things, only the sleep.

Connor

Weighs 7,68 kg (17 lbs) and is 67 cm tall. D didn't write down the head circumference as I was working hard to keep Connor from crying too much.

Don't know what on earth got into these kids - they were freaking out and screaming. And he was very gentle with them because I was right there. I am rougher with them.

Again, Connor is on 50-something percentile for age 6 months, and for his corrected age, is way ahead of the pack. He is a big boy. There is now a 2,5 kg difference in their weights.

Developmentally, he's at age 5 months. That's all I heard. It's better than their corrected age of 4 months, so am happy.

Dr S was very happy that he's on cereal and veggies and said I can start experimenting with fruits, yoghurt, rougher textures, etc.

Knowing me, it will take forever to get there :) I don't like to mess with a good thing.

So we continue as we have been doing. Next appointment at 9 months.

P.S. Connor has his first tooth! Poor baby was so calm and placid - the little tooth arrived with no fanfare. On Wed he started moaning a little bit when we tried to give him his bottle. Had a look in his mouth, fully expecting to see red gums and instead, a little white tooth. Too cute.

P.P.S. On Wed night Kendra only woke twice and Connor only woke once. Maybe they can sense that we're going to let them "cry it out" :)

P.P.P.S. I asked how much they should be sleeping in a 24-hour period at this age - 13 - 14 hours, 10 at night and the rest during the day. The doctor says they probably will still wake once a night until 9 months! Kendra might wake twice because of hunger - any more than this means they're waking for "other than hunger" reasons. So Connor sleeps a lot, but honestly, he goes crazy if he doesn't sleep after 90 - 120 minutes.