Julie and Brayden Update: 2 Months

I am stealing this idea from another twin mom blogger, Mandy at The Fabulous Baby Striblings - tracking certain things each month in an update to see how my little ones are progressing.  One of my biggest regrets in mommyhood so far is not taking an official "One Month" picture (although we did take tons of pictures) so we're a little behind.  We'll catch up for sure though. :-)

Feedings:  Babies are drinking about 4 ounces of milk, about every three hours (with the exception of our recent overnight improvements).  We do one formula bottle every night as well, and mamma is still exclusively pumping every four hours.  We've just started adding one tablespoon of rice cereal to our midnight bottle which seems to be helping extend the midnight hour just a bit.  We've given up on overcoming the frequent spitups and don't really bother with the Zantac since it didn't seem to help, nor do the babies seem to be in pain.  The doctor's perspective is that the breast milk is probably worth it to hang in there and keep our "spitty babies."

Daytime: The babies still spend most of the day snoozing away, but will sit contently in the swing, or in the bunny chair on the kitchen table for stretches of time.  Brayden especially loves the "play gym" on the floor where he can look in the mirror and kick the whale hanging by his feet.  Julie enjoys tummy time, although we need to work at finding more time for this.  A favorite game we play is "buzzy bee" where I pretend the bee is buzzing and lands on them.  Julie loves to follow my fingers!  Favorite toys include the Swing, the Play Gym, the crib animation toy, the Winkle and the Glow Seahorses.  We typically feed around Midnight, 5 am, 9 am, noon, 3, 6, and 9.  As the picture shows, Julie still sleeps a LOT.  Probably around 15+ hours a day?  It's great to catch her when she's awake though. :-)

Nighttime:  We're finally getting a good stretch overnight where we get five+ solid hours of sleep.  The babies don't like to sleep in their cribs - at all - and so we're co-sleeping with one sleeping with Grammy in the guest room, and one in our bed.  Hopefully we'll be making some improvements here soon.  Our biggest problem is that because the babies won't sleep in their cribs, we can't put them to bed until we're in bed -which means midnight (especially since I have to pump as well).  If we'd move their bedtime back to, say - 10:00, we'd be back to feeding at 3 am.  It may not be the best plan of action, but this is "working" for the time being.

Schedule:  There really is no schedule.  This is rough and certainly not a recommendation to any other parents out there...  Yes, I realize to some, this looks like a wild mess - but, for us, it's the best choice for the moment.
5-6 a.m.: Bottle then back to sleep(Dan feeds whoever is in our bed, Grammy feeds whoever is in her bed, Heather pumps)
9ish am: Bottle then back to sleep
11ish am: Wake Up, change, and start the day.  Typically the babies spend some awake time here until their next bottle.
Noonish: Bottle
3ish: Bottle then typically some more sleep
6ish: Bottle
9ish: Bottle - then colicky crying time
11:30: Get ready for bed, then bottle
12:30 a.m.: Feed and Sleep

Outings and Events:  So far we have ventured out on numerous occasions to the doctors office, multiple trips to Target, a visit to TJ Maxx, the scrapbooking store and the craft stores (Grammy's favorite).  Brayden has had two "lunch dates," once with my former co-workers at Buffalo Wild Wings, and once with Grammy and her friend Charlene.  We've also all gone out to visit Great-Pap at Aunt Kim's House and Great-Nanny at the Assisted Living facility.  One of our most memorable experiences was Julie's diaper explosion at the Scrapbook store that left us on the ground with a blanket, and ended in her spending the rest of the afternoon pantsless.  What an adventure!
 We do try to make frequent outings out of the house (for our sanity and mom's practice), but those are pretty difficult maneuvers.  Typically, I pump, we dress the babies, then feed the babies, and by now - an hour and a half has gone by and it'll quickly be time to pump again.  I'll try to pump again right before we leave to extend the time we're able to be away.  This typically works, except when babies spit all over their outfits and need changed again before we leave, and have empty tummies that need re-fed.  There have been days, we just give up and stay home.

Milestones:  The babies are both right on track for their milestones according to the doctor.  Julie has an exceptionally strong neck, and can turn from side to side while on her tummy.  Both are pretty strong overall!  Brayden's great at following things with his eyes.  Both babies have begun smiling a lot the past few weeks and are generally very pleasant during the day.  They've also begun "talking" to things like the birds hanging above their bunny seat and swing, the crib animation, themselves in the mirror and family.

We're so enjoying this special time!