Toddler Christmas times two

Christmas is tough as a toddler, but SB and BW handled it like champs.  Mostly.

SB and BW have become much more scheduled than I ever intended.  Pre-mom days, I was one of those people that believed I wouldn't schedule my life around my kid.  They would be flexible, they would be exposed to new people and new things and new places to sleep so I wouldn't be the parent going home or unable to pass my kid off to someone else because they are clinging to my neck.

Oh, I was naive.

Here's the thing.  My kids are depending on me to meet their needs, and that's my job as a parent.  I need to make sure they aren't hungry, or thirsty, or exhausted.  They are too little to get a drink or snack themselves, or put themselves in their crib. And even though they have quite the vocabulary for 18+ months at this point, they still can't formulate or articulate "I'm hungry" very well.  It's just my job to decipher that this time they are a grouch because they are thirsty, or hungry, or have an annoying tooth, or whatever.

So, the hubs and I have *gasp* become those parents who keep our kids on a set bedtime, and plan things around naps.  Because, my kids do.not.sleep away from their cribs during the day.  They do not pass out in their stroller. They do not fall asleep in someone's arms at a party.  They do not take nice long naps in the car (anymore).  Trust me, we've tried. And, since I have now experienced sleep deprivation after having newborn twins, I make it a priority to make sure they get good, restful sleep.  And we are all happy about it.

But I digress.

So, we aren't so regimented that we never deviate from our sleep schedule, and I've gotten a bit more lax as the girls are moving more into toddler-hood since their sleep needs are not as great.  However, we had several things converge around Christmas that made things difficult.

First, we moved 5 days before Christmas.  Don't do it.  Just don't.  Then, we had an unexpected death in the family the  day after we moved, which resulted in a funeral December 23, then we hosted Christmas Eve at our house, and went to family's house for Christmas Day.  Because of timing on Christmas Day, our girls got a nap in the car for about 20 minutes, which was probably only the result of almost nonexistent sleep the two previous days.  By the time we opened gifts on Christmas Day, they were basically running on three days of no nap, and later bedtimes.  They had several mini-crises during gift-giving, which was a chaotic affair with toy stealing by other kids and not enough space.

Our Christmas this year almost felt like an afterthought, a blip in a bunch of other stuff. But there are moments that I will still cherish.  SB and BW being enamored with their Christmas ornaments from last year, which have their initial, their full name, and their birth stats on them.  Daycare is big into their "letter" (the first initial of their first name) so the fact that we have that on their ornaments is huge.  The hubs made them a play kitchen from an entertainment center, which BW especially was thrilled about - she starting banging pans around right away.  SB loved the monkey floor pillow she got from grandma and later used it as a quiet spot to fill her diaper.  Not really the intended use there, SB.

And our new home is such a home.  Although we have been there a week, and our walls are bare, and there are still boxes stacked everywhere, and our window treatments just finally arrived today so I don't have to pee in the dark anymore, it feels like our home already.  It is filled with laughter and books and little girls who slide down the stairs on their tummies.

Baby on board

The hubs and I have lost our minds.

Immediately after SB and BW were born, I started thinking about having another baby.  At my six-week checkup, I asked the doctor how soon we could start trying again.  He recommended 6-8 months.  I laughed, as I had no intention of getting pregnant again so soon, but I figured I could probably stop taking birth control when SB and BW were 9 months old to get a start on things.

See, SB and BW took longer than we planned to conceive.  And involved several months of medical help, so I did not want to delay the clock ticking a second time.

When the 9-month mark rolled around, I was not really interested in getting pregnant again.  I was still nursing, SB and BW were not sleeping through the night consistently, and I felt very complete with SB and BW.  Fast forward to 11 months, and the hubs and I had a serious conversation about our family planning.  Hubs and I aren't spring chickens, and we both felt there might be one more kid in our future, and if there was, we should start trying to make that kid sooner rather than later.  So, I stopped taking the pill, and thought that we would probably get pregnant when SB and BW were around two, if it happened at all.  I was at peace with not having another child.

Because I was still nursing, my cycle didn't return for two more months.  But two months after that - BAM.  Positive pregnancy test.  I didn't tell the hubs for two days.  I was petrified.  Especially when I calculated the due date, which was, for all intents and purposes, SB and BW's birthday. Three under three wasn't really in our expectations.

So yeah, I am well into my pregnancy with SB and BW's little sibling.  And spend a lot of my time stressing about little things, like getting three kids into carseats in our vehicle that has less-than-ideal front-facing tether anchor positioning (who knew you had to worry about this crap?). And getting all three kids in and out of daycare, especially when we make giant kids that outgrow their infant seat at like 6 months. And the COST of daycare, I am so damn grateful we live somewhere where daycare is not outlandishly expensive, and sometimes a bit saddened that I still make enough money that it remains feasible for me to work with three kids in daycare :). I know, from experience, that in the grand scheme of things these difficult times will be relatively short, and soon I will be sending three kids who alternate between being best friends and worst enemies off to school by themselves, but I also know, from experience, how each individual day can be SO hard.

I also have this desire to explain myself to people.  We have remained fairly private about our infertility, but being pregnant so soon after having twins makes me want to explain to people WHY I am pregnant again so soon - I feel I should explain that we aren't stupid or ignorant about using contraception, but we expected it would take a long time or it wouldn't even happen at all...and we were completely blindsided. That we didn't plan to have another baby exactly two years after we had the twins.  That there isn't some special event in August that we have celebrated that has resulted in me knocked up twice.  I probably overthink things too much, probably because I have a bad habit of judging others too much.  And look where it got me :)

Breastfeeding twins - the financials

You often hear proponents of breastfeeding assert that it is "free" - while the actual milk is free, the methods of extracting and storing it, particularly for working moms, can add up quickly. I've assembled a list of my estimated purchases to breastfeed twins through seven months.  This is not a "must have" list - just a list of what has worked for me up to this point.

1. $190. Breast pump - A necessity if returning to work or if you have inefficient nursers. I got my Pump In Style advanced on sale for $190. Here it is in use. It looks really gross, I know.

Side note - your insurance may cover a breast pump due to the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Because the ACA just requires coverage of a pump and does not specify what kind, your insurance may offer you a single hand pump, like mine did. I passed on that, although I've heard some people actually have better luck with hand pumps. 

2. $200. Second breast pump. After being back to work for two days, I decided there was no way I was transporting a pump back and forth every work day for the next 9 months. I found a PISA metro bag on Craigslist, still new in the box, and bought it for $200. This is my at home/travel pump because the "guts" of the pump are removable from the tote bag in a separate bag. I can leave it sitting on my nightstand or toss it in my suitcase for trips, and I don't have to transport my work pump back and forth. I never use the included tote bag. 

3. $12.99. (?) Cooler bag.  I pump approximately 30 oz during the work day - plus I store my pump parts in the cooler between pumping sessions. The small black cooler that comes with the pump just isn't a great option for me.

4.  Free -(well, paid through my hospital bill) the small 80mL containers (and extra tubing, flanges, etc) for the medela pump. Because I pumped in the hospital, I received like 8 of these - I use them frequently, as I only freeze BM in 6,8, and 10oz quantities - so I'll store the overflow in these to reach even quantities for other pumping sessions. It's also helpful to have the extra flanges, valves, etc so you aren't constantly washing parts. 

5. $12.99 - Munchkin high capacity drying rack. I hand wash my pump parts because we only run our dishwasher intermittently. This drying rack holds a TON of stuff in a relatively small area. Skip the boon grass. Seriously. 

6. $13.99. 100-count Lansinoh freezer bags. (Multiplied by 4). I pretty much freeze all my pumped milk each night, except for the odd bottle here and there, as daycare will prepare bottles and take milk frozen in any quantity. I bring in about 150oz frozen at a time. Note - I routinely put 10oz in these bags, even though the max measurement on the bag is 6 oz. In all the bags I have used for the past 4 months (about 18-20 a week, probably) I have had two leak. Not bad. 

7.  $35. Hands-free pumping bra. I know some people cut holes in an old sports bra, and when I forgot my hands free bra in a hotel room, I did that for a few days to get me by - but for working, I find the hands-free bra much more convenient. 

8.  Evenflo BPA-free 8 oz bottles - 12 pack. I bought two of these when I had to travel for work - I used one set to transport my pumped milk home, and I used the other set to store fresh milk in the fridge for DH, as I wasn't sure how many ounces the girls would take for feedings when they normally nursed. These bottles are compatible with the med.ela parts, so I usually use one of these for pumping, too, as I occasionally overflow the 5 oz bottle otherwise.

9.  AA batteries. The little battery pack is handy for pumping in the car in a pinch, or in an airport bathroom stall...

I'm sure I could think of other expenditures, but these are the things that have made being a working, occasionally traveling, nursing mom of twin infants easier. 

Battling the masses - babies are people, too.

So, I started writing this post in March.  But then Google decided to hate on IE, and I drifted away from posting even more than I already had because I had to write posts in HTML, which I didn't want to bother with.  However, I think this is still relevant.  So, I'm working in Firefox now, read away if you want.

This post builds on my previous post. I have made an observation that I think may be easier to make with fraternal twins as opposed to a singleton - all babies are unique.

Duh, you say, right?

But as a first-time parent, it's easy to get caught up in the hype of "I must be doing it wrong". For example, comparing yourself to the people whose babies are sleeping through the night at six weeks, or those who can lay their "drowsy but awake" baby down and he/she drifts happily off to sleep, and you are still zombie-walking your way through multiple night wakings at 8 months.

Here's what I've discovered - it depends on the kid.  Although parents of singletons may have already figured this out, I think it's more obvious with twins, because you're doing (almost) the same thing at the same time.  Obviously, there are variables. But, we had a good sleeper and a bad sleeper.  I followed the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins" - which was wonderful, since it says the first 4 months are all about survival, and you should put your twins to sleep any way you can.  Which I did. Nursed them to sleep, rocked them to sleep, put them in a rocking swing a few desperate nights...However, we did start working on the whole drowsy but awake thing.  SB? would totally crane her neck back at a funny angle and pass out almost immediately most of the time.  BW? Not having it.  I'll post more about sleep trials in a later post, but we did the same exact thing with their nighttime routine - and we had one good sleeper and one poor sleeper (of course, now that we are 18 months in, they have completely flip-flopped and BW is the better sleeper at the moment).

We had a similar experience with eating.  We started solids at about 6.5 months.  We skipped rice cereal because I was having a crunchy mom time period, and started with avocado.  BW? Loved it.  SB - hated it with the fire of a thousand suns, complete with coughing and whole-body shudders.  We continued to offer both girls the same foods at the same meals - egg yolk, beans, veggies - with much the same result. BW will eat pretty much everything in sight as quickly as she possibly can, and SB eats likes a bird, refuses to taste foods randomly but will often like something if you can just get her to open her mouth and try it for a second...she also has a strong preference for complex flavors.  Buttered noodles? Won't touch them. A boston sushi roll with some soy sauce? More, pease. 

So, takeaway?  Do what works for you, and what you believe is best for your kid.  If it doesn't work like it worked for your friend, or your mom, or your mother-in-law - it's probably not because you failed, or your kid failed.  It's because your kid is an individual, with an individual personality and quirks.