There was a lizard in our kitchen sink when we came home last night. Norah freaked out and climbed up on a bar stool - should have taken her picture rather than the lizards - she's 5'9" and was petrified in such a girlie way! It was a teeny-tiny lizard and so scared! I think it must have came from one of the two plants she'd bought earlier in the day and put up over the sink.
Poor little lizard! I caught it in a vase and took it outside to a tree, across the street rather than the one nearby that Basel likes. I apologized to it, poor little lizard, it was a tree in the middle of downtown - not really getting back into the wild! At least it is back outside!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
My "Aha!" moment
Yesterday afternoon I said forget it. I'm stressed. They're stressed and maybe a schedule isn't right for this family. I cannot explain to you how unlike me thing this is to say. I love a nice schedule. Routine suits me. And I get to lead on this front. But everyone - I man - EVERYONE was having a hard time. So who could it hurt to back off and relax a bit? I have to tell you, the fact that Sara argues/questions/discusses just like Norah could have a little to do with me doubting myself here.
Afternoon nap was spent mostly in my arms, in a sling, in the rocking chair with me holding 28.2lbs of baby - this being the combined weight of both babies. It was very relaxing and rest was had by all - including me. Afterwards I didn't push the evening nap, Sara insists they might not need this one and they never go down easy at this time in the evening. Of course as much as I've doubted the rest of the schedule I KNOW that they NEED this nap. But sometimes stepping back and letting go helps others to understand more. So, after a nice afternoon nap, I decided to skip the evening nap. They were playing happily on the floor until two minutes before Sara, along with Norah, came in. At this point Jackson was screaming because he wanted to be held but I was washing bottles. I'm short and not thin which makes it impossible to wash anything while wearing a baby in the sling, my arms just aren't long enough to reach around my belly, the baby and into the sink. Needless to say the rest of the evening they were exhausted and went to bed early. No one doubts they need the evening nap now.
Today I came in relaxed and ready to go with the flow. Sara left and babies continued to sleep. Five minutes before their bottle was due Jackson woke up. We chatted a bit, I changed him and started his bottle. Not far in Tabitha woke, same. After an hour of being awake Jackson looked tired so I put him down. Same happened with Tabitha. When Jackson woke a little early from his nap I took him in my arms and we rocked in the chair. He went back to sleep and I dozed. Much of the day looked like this, one hour awake and then sleepy. A nice long nap, Jackson needed extra snuggles to prolong his in the morning, Tabitha needed extra snuggles in the afternoon. Great, no problem - snuggles are nice for everyone.
Duing these two lovely, calm, slow snuggle periods I had time to think. Lots of time. And the more I thought about it the more I felt like I'd missed the forest because I was looking at a tree. I was so excited to have a schedule that even though 1:15hr seemed like a long awake time, it was what Sara wanted and what the book suggested. But it was too much for my tomatoes. They could do it the first day because they were rested from the weekend. But after that it was too much. That is why Tabitha was waking at 45minutes, she was overtired. I know this. I've seen this at least twelve times before, what was I thinking?! Waking up at forty-five minutes ALWAYS means over tired. I felt like I'd lost my marbles forgetting something so ingrained in me.
Now life is good. My tomatoes are sweet and well rested. Sara says Jackson is saying "boo" as of this evening. They are too cute. And now it is the weekend. I'm so freaking happy!!!
Afternoon nap was spent mostly in my arms, in a sling, in the rocking chair with me holding 28.2lbs of baby - this being the combined weight of both babies. It was very relaxing and rest was had by all - including me. Afterwards I didn't push the evening nap, Sara insists they might not need this one and they never go down easy at this time in the evening. Of course as much as I've doubted the rest of the schedule I KNOW that they NEED this nap. But sometimes stepping back and letting go helps others to understand more. So, after a nice afternoon nap, I decided to skip the evening nap. They were playing happily on the floor until two minutes before Sara, along with Norah, came in. At this point Jackson was screaming because he wanted to be held but I was washing bottles. I'm short and not thin which makes it impossible to wash anything while wearing a baby in the sling, my arms just aren't long enough to reach around my belly, the baby and into the sink. Needless to say the rest of the evening they were exhausted and went to bed early. No one doubts they need the evening nap now.
Today I came in relaxed and ready to go with the flow. Sara left and babies continued to sleep. Five minutes before their bottle was due Jackson woke up. We chatted a bit, I changed him and started his bottle. Not far in Tabitha woke, same. After an hour of being awake Jackson looked tired so I put him down. Same happened with Tabitha. When Jackson woke a little early from his nap I took him in my arms and we rocked in the chair. He went back to sleep and I dozed. Much of the day looked like this, one hour awake and then sleepy. A nice long nap, Jackson needed extra snuggles to prolong his in the morning, Tabitha needed extra snuggles in the afternoon. Great, no problem - snuggles are nice for everyone.
Duing these two lovely, calm, slow snuggle periods I had time to think. Lots of time. And the more I thought about it the more I felt like I'd missed the forest because I was looking at a tree. I was so excited to have a schedule that even though 1:15hr seemed like a long awake time, it was what Sara wanted and what the book suggested. But it was too much for my tomatoes. They could do it the first day because they were rested from the weekend. But after that it was too much. That is why Tabitha was waking at 45minutes, she was overtired. I know this. I've seen this at least twelve times before, what was I thinking?! Waking up at forty-five minutes ALWAYS means over tired. I felt like I'd lost my marbles forgetting something so ingrained in me.
Now life is good. My tomatoes are sweet and well rested. Sara says Jackson is saying "boo" as of this evening. They are too cute. And now it is the weekend. I'm so freaking happy!!!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Growing stronger, lungs that is!
As the battle of the naps rages on I get through the days with email, photos, activity and as of this morning, books on cd. Today, for the Jackson and Tabitha, I've added a bit more playtime, just in case we weren't getting sleepy enough between naps. And the babies have added extra fussing during their early morning sleep period and now for the morning nap. Ahh the days of adult noises and sleeping babies have morphed into no adults, aside from myself, and determined, strong babies. My but how far they have come!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Update on Schedule, naps and life.
So much has happened since my last post. I wasn't slacking but working my bottom off. The babies' grandpoppie was ill so Roger flew to be with him while he was still lucid. He was away for a week and I worked late every night plus all day Saturday, so that Sara could make it through the week.
Roger made it home and settled in. Just about the time things were getting back to normal the call came that grandpoppie had passed. Now the debate, should Sara go with Roger for the funeral? Roger would stay a week but Sara could come home early. Debate, debate. can Noragh and I help, debate. Then reality struck. Sara didn't have her passport. She couldn't fly internationally and know she'd be allowed back home. Debate ended, Sara stays home.
Roger left on Saturday and thank heavens other grandpoppie calls and offers to help for the weekend. I'm off the hook! That was last weekend. It was my first break in two weeks and I really enjoyed it. No babies, no blogging, no diapers and the only naps I had to worry about were my own. It was lovely. There were kids though, the high schoolers from church put on their yearly pancake breakfast and Norah and I were the adults in charge. It went very well, we were all exhausted after three hours in the kitchen. But we plugged through and supervised Sunday School as well. It was a very long morning followed by a trip to the park for Basel. Ahhh the fall. Basel swam, he's getting better but still learning and still unbelievably funny every time, and we brought him homejust as exhausted as we were. We all went to bed, seperate beds, no furry Basel-butt on my pillow!, and slept for three hours! It was the best.
Of course during that lovely restful weekend I decided to give up coffee and caffiene. [Norah is pushing for this winter pregnancy really hard and I'm yeilding.] So Monday, what a day, I head to work caffiene-free and ready, oh boy, for an extra long day and the start of our new schedule! Oh joy!!
Side note,
Tabitha can now sleep through the night and is doing so regularly. Jackson has been doing this for weeks now. Both go to bed around 7pm and wake around 6am for a bottle. And they do this each night. Good news, wonderful. But about the time this became predictable, they started having issues with our daytime routine.
Now, side note within the side note;
coming home from the NICU both babies were on a three hour schedule. Of course that was thrown out the window as soon as they were home. Roger and Sara had been listening to NICU nurses for long enough and now they got to choose, or more precisely Jackson and Tabitha chose. They ate whenever they wanted and slept on who ever was closest. And this worked well because their [young] auntie was visiting for three weeks, I was there, both Roger, Sara and my Norah, not to mention visiting nurses, lactation consultants and when auntie left grandmommie arrived, also for three weeks. You try telling the grandmommie that lives a twelve hour flight away she can't rock them to sleep every-single-time. I will cheer for you. I made it through 2/3 of her visit before I had to step up. This is when we instituted the routine they had up until last week, about three weeks total. Eating every three hours, they can do it, they were doing it six weeks ago when they came home from the NIC, and sleeping by themselves within every three hour cycle. There was patting and soothing and touching and talking and it was a small step but a step nonetheless.
So, every three hours easily merged into a suggested daytime feeding schedule, spaced of course, three hours apart. Some days this was very tough for Tabitha. She likes the bottle to go to sleep. But I persisted, the routne prevailed and we were on our way. They started to become more aware and more social. No longer were they just sleeping when the opportunity arose. Then last week they missed a nap. They dozed while we were out but they were miserable later and took two days to get back to normal. [We'd been at Children's Hospital having some blood work done as a follow up from the NICU] We kept close to the schedule but stretched their awake times to see what they could handle, let them know there is time for socializing and seperate sleeptime from awake time.
We found that 1:15hr is about all they can handle. At an hour and a half they get overtired and have trouble going to sleep. We also found that for them this is total awake time - including the diaper/bottle/feeding/burping time. Since this last part takes 45 minutes max, 35-40 on average, we added 30 minutes awake time before each bottle because if they play after a bottle we're always worried about bringing the bottle back up.
Figuring out wht they need and getting them the sleep they need is crucial. 25 weeks is way too early to start a life. But they are thriving and I believe it is because they sleep. Children and babies release growth hormones during deep sleep, if they never get into that deep sleep or only get their irregularly they will never reach their potential. Starting life so early we need to give them every opprtunity possible to reach their potential. We've also seen that being tired affects the way Jackson eats. He has reflux and when he doesn't get enough sleep he spits up more, both in frequency and volume. He also has a really hard time connecting to the bottle when he's overtired, his latch is off, he can't get started and he gets really, really frustrated.
Taking what we found into account we looked to Sara's favorite sleep book, Healthy Sleep Habitsetc. He suggested, for a 4-6 months old baby, bed between 6-7pm, check, early wake up [with or without bottle, ours is with] around 5-6am, check, wake up around 7am, um no, nap #1 at 9am, nap #2 at 1pm and nap #3 at some point in the evening. Of course we modified this to fit our needs, more specifically the babies needs. 7am wake up is too early for them. They get up around 8:45am, bottle at 9:15am, nap #1 at 10am. Good. Wake up 12:45pm, bottle 1:15pm, nap at 2pm, okay. Wwake up at 4pm, bottle 4:30pm, nap #3 at 5:15pm. Tough but we can do it. Finally, wake up at 6pm, bottle by 7pm and bed.
Monday, without any caffiene, we embarked on our schedule-changing journey. I am pleased to report - it was perfect! I told Sara the plan, she liked it and agreed, then headed off to work. We had a tough first feed and were 15 minutes off all day, but that is AWESOME!! Tuesday I headed in bright and early and mom headed off to work [this is a new thing, she's been home with me on maternity leave until this week] morning went well and then during nap #2 Tabitha exploded! She refused. She was mad and not having it. 45 minutes and she was toast. No sleep. No. I'm not doing it she said in babyspeak - waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! [only much, much louder] Of course I finally get her to stop and BOOM!! Jackson has to put his thoughts in. I give in, I have a caffiene headache and I can't take anymore crying, we're only 30 minutes early at this point so we just go for a walk. Today, same deal. 45 minutes and she's done, mad, telling the world. Of course I know, ten years of doing this has taught me, if I keep giving in, it will keep happening. So I wait. And wait. And wait. She settles down and is quietly going to sleep. Of course this is the point at which the housekeepers show up [4hrs late and right at 45 minutes] to clean, vacuum and mainly, be really, really noisey. So cry, cry, cry. Calm, snooze, cry. And so it went, but today Jackson didn't sleep through it, he joined her. And as a baby chorus sang on and on I held strong - much to the housekeepers chagrin. You know this means that today I didn't have a headache. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Today was better then yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today, I can only hope. I'm also going to try tweaking the schedule just a little even though it worked o well on Monday. Maybe the morning nap is so refreshing after that nice long overnight sleep that Tabitha isn't getting sleepy enough in between the two naps. Jackson definitely likes this schedule and only cried out of frustration today because his sister was keeping him up.
In other news, today Jackson and Tabitha are five months old!! Technically they are more like two month olds but literally they have been here for five months. Very exciting. They are getting big and are unbelievably social. Today I saw the beginnings of their sennses of humor. Completely different from each other, of course. It is very exciting to see them changing and growing each day. Jackson's nose is changing and Tabitha's forehead is changing. They are both getting stronger, eating faster and making new sounds. Jackson tries to say hi, not really but it sounds lie he does. Tabitha can mimic almost any face you throw at her, tongue out, curled tongue, crinkled nose, she's a pro!
All in all life is pretty good right now. I'm exhausted and I know that once the caffiene headaches are completely gone I'll dip into a low. Norah and I have each given up caffiene before and seen it happen, it sucks, but if I am to get pregnant at the beginning of December then it's better now then later. And I can do it! I'm also losing weight. The idea was that I'd work really hard to look good for our ten year reunion in April, just before I turn 30, but now that's out of the window if I'm pregnant, right? I'll be just as chubby as I am now. Oh well, I'll keep working on it, I'm doing pretty well and I feel good so either way it is good for me.
Sorry for all the detail but I thought having it written down might help me later or someone else, having twins can be challenging but the benefits far outweigh the extra work at times. Two babies, together to share the good, the bad and the naps - it's all worth it!
Roger made it home and settled in. Just about the time things were getting back to normal the call came that grandpoppie had passed. Now the debate, should Sara go with Roger for the funeral? Roger would stay a week but Sara could come home early. Debate, debate. can Noragh and I help, debate. Then reality struck. Sara didn't have her passport. She couldn't fly internationally and know she'd be allowed back home. Debate ended, Sara stays home.
Roger left on Saturday and thank heavens other grandpoppie calls and offers to help for the weekend. I'm off the hook! That was last weekend. It was my first break in two weeks and I really enjoyed it. No babies, no blogging, no diapers and the only naps I had to worry about were my own. It was lovely. There were kids though, the high schoolers from church put on their yearly pancake breakfast and Norah and I were the adults in charge. It went very well, we were all exhausted after three hours in the kitchen. But we plugged through and supervised Sunday School as well. It was a very long morning followed by a trip to the park for Basel. Ahhh the fall. Basel swam, he's getting better but still learning and still unbelievably funny every time, and we brought him homejust as exhausted as we were. We all went to bed, seperate beds, no furry Basel-butt on my pillow!, and slept for three hours! It was the best.
Of course during that lovely restful weekend I decided to give up coffee and caffiene. [Norah is pushing for this winter pregnancy really hard and I'm yeilding.] So Monday, what a day, I head to work caffiene-free and ready, oh boy, for an extra long day and the start of our new schedule! Oh joy!!
Side note,
Tabitha can now sleep through the night and is doing so regularly. Jackson has been doing this for weeks now. Both go to bed around 7pm and wake around 6am for a bottle. And they do this each night. Good news, wonderful. But about the time this became predictable, they started having issues with our daytime routine.
Now, side note within the side note;
coming home from the NICU both babies were on a three hour schedule. Of course that was thrown out the window as soon as they were home. Roger and Sara had been listening to NICU nurses for long enough and now they got to choose, or more precisely Jackson and Tabitha chose. They ate whenever they wanted and slept on who ever was closest. And this worked well because their [young] auntie was visiting for three weeks, I was there, both Roger, Sara and my Norah, not to mention visiting nurses, lactation consultants and when auntie left grandmommie arrived, also for three weeks. You try telling the grandmommie that lives a twelve hour flight away she can't rock them to sleep every-single-time. I will cheer for you. I made it through 2/3 of her visit before I had to step up. This is when we instituted the routine they had up until last week, about three weeks total. Eating every three hours, they can do it, they were doing it six weeks ago when they came home from the NIC, and sleeping by themselves within every three hour cycle. There was patting and soothing and touching and talking and it was a small step but a step nonetheless.
So, every three hours easily merged into a suggested daytime feeding schedule, spaced of course, three hours apart. Some days this was very tough for Tabitha. She likes the bottle to go to sleep. But I persisted, the routne prevailed and we were on our way. They started to become more aware and more social. No longer were they just sleeping when the opportunity arose. Then last week they missed a nap. They dozed while we were out but they were miserable later and took two days to get back to normal. [We'd been at Children's Hospital having some blood work done as a follow up from the NICU] We kept close to the schedule but stretched their awake times to see what they could handle, let them know there is time for socializing and seperate sleeptime from awake time.
We found that 1:15hr is about all they can handle. At an hour and a half they get overtired and have trouble going to sleep. We also found that for them this is total awake time - including the diaper/bottle/feeding/burping time. Since this last part takes 45 minutes max, 35-40 on average, we added 30 minutes awake time before each bottle because if they play after a bottle we're always worried about bringing the bottle back up.
Figuring out wht they need and getting them the sleep they need is crucial. 25 weeks is way too early to start a life. But they are thriving and I believe it is because they sleep. Children and babies release growth hormones during deep sleep, if they never get into that deep sleep or only get their irregularly they will never reach their potential. Starting life so early we need to give them every opprtunity possible to reach their potential. We've also seen that being tired affects the way Jackson eats. He has reflux and when he doesn't get enough sleep he spits up more, both in frequency and volume. He also has a really hard time connecting to the bottle when he's overtired, his latch is off, he can't get started and he gets really, really frustrated.
Taking what we found into account we looked to Sara's favorite sleep book, Healthy Sleep Habitsetc. He suggested, for a 4-6 months old baby, bed between 6-7pm, check, early wake up [with or without bottle, ours is with] around 5-6am, check, wake up around 7am, um no, nap #1 at 9am, nap #2 at 1pm and nap #3 at some point in the evening. Of course we modified this to fit our needs, more specifically the babies needs. 7am wake up is too early for them. They get up around 8:45am, bottle at 9:15am, nap #1 at 10am. Good. Wake up 12:45pm, bottle 1:15pm, nap at 2pm, okay. Wwake up at 4pm, bottle 4:30pm, nap #3 at 5:15pm. Tough but we can do it. Finally, wake up at 6pm, bottle by 7pm and bed.
Monday, without any caffiene, we embarked on our schedule-changing journey. I am pleased to report - it was perfect! I told Sara the plan, she liked it and agreed, then headed off to work. We had a tough first feed and were 15 minutes off all day, but that is AWESOME!! Tuesday I headed in bright and early and mom headed off to work [this is a new thing, she's been home with me on maternity leave until this week] morning went well and then during nap #2 Tabitha exploded! She refused. She was mad and not having it. 45 minutes and she was toast. No sleep. No. I'm not doing it she said in babyspeak - waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! [only much, much louder] Of course I finally get her to stop and BOOM!! Jackson has to put his thoughts in. I give in, I have a caffiene headache and I can't take anymore crying, we're only 30 minutes early at this point so we just go for a walk. Today, same deal. 45 minutes and she's done, mad, telling the world. Of course I know, ten years of doing this has taught me, if I keep giving in, it will keep happening. So I wait. And wait. And wait. She settles down and is quietly going to sleep. Of course this is the point at which the housekeepers show up [4hrs late and right at 45 minutes] to clean, vacuum and mainly, be really, really noisey. So cry, cry, cry. Calm, snooze, cry. And so it went, but today Jackson didn't sleep through it, he joined her. And as a baby chorus sang on and on I held strong - much to the housekeepers chagrin. You know this means that today I didn't have a headache. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Today was better then yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today, I can only hope. I'm also going to try tweaking the schedule just a little even though it worked o well on Monday. Maybe the morning nap is so refreshing after that nice long overnight sleep that Tabitha isn't getting sleepy enough in between the two naps. Jackson definitely likes this schedule and only cried out of frustration today because his sister was keeping him up.
In other news, today Jackson and Tabitha are five months old!! Technically they are more like two month olds but literally they have been here for five months. Very exciting. They are getting big and are unbelievably social. Today I saw the beginnings of their sennses of humor. Completely different from each other, of course. It is very exciting to see them changing and growing each day. Jackson's nose is changing and Tabitha's forehead is changing. They are both getting stronger, eating faster and making new sounds. Jackson tries to say hi, not really but it sounds lie he does. Tabitha can mimic almost any face you throw at her, tongue out, curled tongue, crinkled nose, she's a pro!
All in all life is pretty good right now. I'm exhausted and I know that once the caffiene headaches are completely gone I'll dip into a low. Norah and I have each given up caffiene before and seen it happen, it sucks, but if I am to get pregnant at the beginning of December then it's better now then later. And I can do it! I'm also losing weight. The idea was that I'd work really hard to look good for our ten year reunion in April, just before I turn 30, but now that's out of the window if I'm pregnant, right? I'll be just as chubby as I am now. Oh well, I'll keep working on it, I'm doing pretty well and I feel good so either way it is good for me.
Sorry for all the detail but I thought having it written down might help me later or someone else, having twins can be challenging but the benefits far outweigh the extra work at times. Two babies, together to share the good, the bad and the naps - it's all worth it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
