Randoms 3.27

[dke2010]

Yay, @feegan! The process of moving is no fun but your new place sounds great. Here's to cooperative kiddos!

[mc13]

That's so exciting @feegan!

We close on our house Friday afternoon!! We're giving ourselves 3 weeks to get some work done (paint, redoing the hardwoods, laying some flooring in the family room and basement) before we move in. I'm so not looking forward to packing and moving with 3 little ones. The good thing though is that it's only 8 minutes down the road!

[requiressnacks]

GL with your move, @feegan!

[requiressnacks]

I feel like a zombie today after my weekend with 2 babies suffering from their first daycare colds. They are SO CONGESTED and miserable and I feel like there's nothing I can do to help them. Sorry doc, but a humidifier and the Nose Frida aren't cutting it. Also, we went from almost STTN to at least 4 wakeups per night and 2 full feeds, additional.

Someone please tell me this will get better. They got sent home from DC on Thursday and are still miserable.

And selfishly, so am I....

[mustloveerica]

Hi ladies!

DH went back to work today so in solo parenting for the first time. It's going ok so far. E is having rough nights lately. Witching hour? Growth spurt? We normally do quiet time starting at 8 then bedtime feed at 9 and put the girls in their rock n plays for the night. But the last few nights E has been wide awake and screaming from 9pm until 1am. Any advice for how to handle or if we're approaching bedtime the wrong way? Also TTMA cluster feeding when bottle feeding. Last night she ate 2.5oz at 9 (this is a pretty big amount for E), then I offered the boob at 10:30 which I never do, she half assed nursed for 10 minutes and dozed off for 15 minutes then woke again and fussed/cried until having another 0.5oz formula at 11:30 and then a full feed of 2oz at 12:00. The 12:00 feed took forever but I was finally able to put her in her RnP after and she slept until almost 3. Am I approaching this 9-12 problem time the wrong way? I'm not sure how to handle cluster feeding with a bottle since you aren't supposed to leave formula out longer than an hour but I don't want to make her a full bottle if she's only going to take a few sips of it.

Ok that was long. TL;DR help me with my bedtime routine!

[schmella]

mustloveerica, if she'll nurse it's probably the easiest way to handle cluster feeding. Or if you can offer a freshly pumped bottle of BM she can sip off for a few hours- if do the big formula feed and then have the BM available for additional needs?

[lotusbee]

How exciting @feegan! I dream of a toy room daily.

[mustloveerica]

Mar 27, 2017 9:46:07 GMT -5 schmella said:

mustloveerica, if she'll nurse it's probably the easiest way to handle cluster feeding. Or if you can offer a freshly pumped bottle of BM she can sip off for a few hours- if do the big formula feed and then have the BM available for additional needs?

Oh that's a thought. I always pump during the 9pm feed so I'd have a fresh bottle ready. And general consensus seems to be that BM is good to sit out for a few hours. Popping a bottle in her mouth every now and then would at least keep her quiet so DH can sleep now that he's back to work.

Now H will sleep from 9 until 12 no problem. No need to offer her a snack when E is crying right? Sometimes H will wake up but she won't fuss, she just looks around and falls back to sleep eventually. We're firmly in the OUBU camp but I guess that doesn't apply if only one baby wants to cluster feed.

[requiressnacks]

mustloveerica, we wasted so much formula in the early days. DS was exactly like this.

We cluster fed up until bedtime....so every 2 hours leading up until 9pm - so, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm. But since they are so tiny they should eat every 3 hours so you won't really get any long stretches yet, but hopefully this helps with the snack feedings.

What also helped in the early days was the 5 S's from Happiest Baby on the Block- I think it is Shush, Swaddle, Swing, Side and Suck. Mine really needed to be shushed, swaddled and sometimes used a paci.

[mustloveerica]

Mar 27, 2017 10:00:23 GMT -5 requiressnacks said:

mustloveerica, we wasted so much formula in the early days. DS was exactly like this.

We cluster fed up until bedtime....so every 2 hours leading up until 9pm - so, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm. But since they are so tiny they should eat every 3 hours so you won't really get any long stretches yet, but hopefully this helps with the snack feedings.

What also helped in the early days was the 5 S's from Happiest Baby on the Block- I think it is Shush, Swaddle, Swing, Side and Suck. Mine really needed to be shushed, swaddled and sometimes used a paci.

Yes! Evie loves her paci but it falls out every 5 seconds. We also swaddle for all naps and bedtime which definitely helps. I'll have to try cluster feeding until bed. They eat at 6 and then nap until 8 when we do bath, last diapers and pjs. At 8 we let them doze but keep everything dim and quiet in the hopes they won't wake much at the 9pm feed. I'm wondering if that long nap before bed is too much too.

[schmella]

Mar 27, 2017 9:54:40 GMT -5 mustloveerica said:

Mar 27, 2017 9:46:07 GMT -5 schmella said:

mustloveerica, if she'll nurse it's probably the easiest way to handle cluster feeding. Or if you can offer a freshly pumped bottle of BM she can sip off for a few hours- if do the big formula feed and then have the BM available for additional needs?

Oh that's a thought. I always pump during the 9pm feed so I'd have a fresh bottle ready. And general consensus seems to be that BM is good to sit out for a few hours. Popping a bottle in her mouth every now and then would at least keep her quiet so DH can sleep now that he's back to work.

Now H will sleep from 9 until 12 no problem. No need to offer her a snack when E is crying right? Sometimes H will wake up but she won't fuss, she just looks around and falls back to sleep eventually. We're firmly in the OUBU camp but I guess that doesn't apply if only one baby wants to cluster feed.

Let H sleep. A bottle of BM should be totally fine to sit out from 9-12.

[schmella]

Ugh, just got off the phone with the pediatrician and she wants A seen by an ortho. I'm already crying at the thought of my baby in a cast!

[nomnom]

Mar 27, 2017 8:47:51 GMT -5 requiressnacks said:

I feel like a zombie today after my weekend with 2 babies suffering from their first daycare colds. They are SO CONGESTED and miserable and I feel like there's nothing I can do to help them. Sorry doc, but a humidifier and the Nose Frida aren't cutting it. Also, we went from almost STTN to at least 4 wakeups per night and 2 full feeds, additional.

Someone please tell me this will get better. They got sent home from DC on Thursday and are still miserable.

And selfishly, so am I....

Drop of saline in each nostril a bit before using the nose frida, sleep in an inclined rocker, humidifier... that's about all I've got. It's rough.

[requiressnacks]

Mar 27, 2017 14:31:47 GMT -5 nomnom said:

Mar 27, 2017 8:47:51 GMT -5 requiressnacks said:

I feel like a zombie today after my weekend with 2 babies suffering from their first daycare colds. They are SO CONGESTED and miserable and I feel like there's nothing I can do to help them. Sorry doc, but a humidifier and the Nose Frida aren't cutting it. Also, we went from almost STTN to at least 4 wakeups per night and 2 full feeds, additional.

Someone please tell me this will get better. They got sent home from DC on Thursday and are still miserable.

And selfishly, so am I....

Drop of saline in each nostril a bit before using the nose frida, sleep in an inclined rocker, humidifier... that's about all I've got. It's rough.

Thanks.

[DVMmomma]

mustloveerica no advice but reading your tale and questions brought me back to the infant days with DD1 and I'm quite sure I will not survive that x2 without lots of wine! It's hard! It gets better. That's all I have. Today my 2.5 year old slept in till 9:30am. And went to bed at 8pm. So. You'll get there!

[nerdykitten]

mustloveerica if you don't have a wubbanub then you need to get one asap. It helped my kids keep their paci longer than 5 seconds.
I didn't get them to start with and I wish I had.

[pbandj714]

Good luck with the move @feegan! And you too mc13...reno and a move! You're brave!!

[schmella]

Teeniest tiniest boot for the teeniest tiniest fractured tibia.
The ortho said he was on the edge of boot/let it resolve on its own, except for the fact that he's a twin
PDQ

[pbandj714]

Aww schmella! Poor guy! That itty bitty boot is adorable though.

[river]

I'm glad they could do a boot rather than a cast, schmella. It is adorable though.

Ugh, we haven't settled on a boy name yet. We have two girl names that we've liked for months and will decide when we see her. Boy names, I hate what he likes and vice versa, and things we both liked a couple months ago, we don't like any longer. With five weeks at most to go, we should probably get this figured out.

I'm also terrified reading this as a FTM - I vaguely knew about cluster feeding from when my niece was an infant seven years ago. We're going to be a mess.

[schmella]

river, I honestly don't think mine did much cluster feeding, but we did the last two bottles before bedtime a little closer together, so maybe that masked it? MH and only agreed on one boy's name, and it took a while to grow on him.
They really don't want to cast a toddler unless it's absolutely necessary. It was a very small, very easily missed fracture.

[mustloveerica]

Mar 27, 2017 21:10:34 GMT -5 @wineandcupcakes said:

mustloveerica - bath time each night? Pjs? A routine? You are a superstar. We are 7 weeks in and it's bath twice a week, no bedtime routine yet and we just roll with it.

Our cluster fed in the evening mostly so we didn't have the overnight problem. But I did also figure out that OUBU is not always realistic depending on the babies.

Well they get a wipe down and clean pjs every night because they're messy eaters lol. Not necessarily a full blown bath.

[mustloveerica]

So we fed at 6,8 and 9 and babies slept 9:30 to midnight with no fussing. Perfect! Maybe that's all we needed was 1 extra pre bed snack.

[Deleted]

Mar 27, 2017 14:34:13 GMT -5 requiressnacks said:

Mar 27, 2017 14:31:47 GMT -5 nomnom said:

Drop of saline in each nostril a bit before using the nose frida, sleep in an inclined rocker, humidifier... that's about all I've got. It's rough.

Thanks.

You can also put baby Vicks on their feet then cover with either socks or a footed sleeper. Weird but it helps their stuffiness. Good Luck!

[schmella]

Mar 27, 2017 23:25:48 GMT -5 mustloveerica said:

So we fed at 6,8 and 9 and babies slept 9:30 to midnight with no fussing. Perfect! Maybe that's all we needed was 1 extra pre bed snack.

Yay!

[lindsay]

Y'all are bursting my forgetful bubble, I forgot about cluster feeding. Gah now times 2!

[mustloveerica]

Mar 28, 2017 10:02:02 GMT -5 @wineandcupcakes said:

Mar 27, 2017 23:21:59 GMT -5 mustloveerica said:

Well they get a wipe down and clean pjs every night because they're messy eaters lol. Not necessarily a full blown bath.

You're still my hero! ;-)

Last week I remembered that our less messy baby had been in the same outfit for 3 days. Whoops! #parentingfail

My goal for this week is to incorporate dinner making into my routine. I manage to read books, do tummy time, playmat and let each baby nap on me for an hour a day (mostly because it's the only time they will keep their heads turned to the right which is an issue now...and flat heads). I also get laundry done, dishes, and tidy the house to prevent it from getting messier. If I'm lucky, I can eat a meal by 3pm. Haven't figured out how to shower or make dinner.

#goalsfortoday

ETA: apparently sleep deprivation makes me hashtag.

One of the best decisions I ever made was to spend the last two months of my pregnancy filling our deep freezer. All I have to do is pick one and pop it in the oven for dinner.

My goal today is to fold the 3 baskets of laundry that have been in my living room since the day my water broke lol.

[nomnom]

18m +12 days:
R: 28.88lbs (83%), 32.9" (64%), 19.7" (95%)
G: 22lb (16%), 31.5" (41%), 19.1" (93%)

For comparison @1m +1 day a couple weeks ago:
L: 8.86lbs (24%), 20.3" (9%), 14.6" (25%)
M: 7.58lbs (10%), 19.6" (5%), 14.6" (54%)

ETA more comparison, R&G @1m -3 days:
R: 7.78lbs (10%), 20" (9%), 14.6" (31%)
G: 7.09lbs (6%), 20" (16%), 14" (20%)

[requiressnacks]

river, you're going to be an amazing FTM! I was the newbiest of the newb FTMs and somehow I've managed to keep my babes happy and (mostly) healthy for 4.5 months. This board is immensely helpful and I also joined my local Moms of Multiples group.

mustloveerica, I'm so glad the cluster feeding helped!

[schmella]

@wineandcupcakes, I really only got dinner reincorporated into our routine a few months ago... right around their 15 month appointment. New PJs were the start of our bedtime routine... because I did the same thing a couple times