The countdown is on until their big 0-1, so this post will be just their 11 month pictures. To find out what’s happening in the life of these soon-to-be 1 YEAR OLDS…stay tuned!
And now the usual comparisons. Here are 11 month posts for the other 3:
And here are the photo comparisons – Della, Lana, Morrison, twins, and twins month by month.
The twins turned 10 months old at the end of November, and Houston, we have 2 crawlers! So there are now babies ALL OVER THE PLACE!
I finally stopped being lazy and actually feed them now, starting around Thanksgiving, and they’re doing great! Maybe they honestly just didn’t want to eat the past couple months when I tried, because now it’s like they can’t get enough. And so far they’ve liked and not had any bad reaction to everything I’ve given them – all varieties of baby food fruits and veggies (but baby food meat in a jar is so horribly disgusting, i refuse to make them eat that. yuck!) in both jars and pouches, Cheerios, puffs, cheese, blueberries, bananas, apples, pasta, meatballs (their new favorite!), oranges, crackers, rice, green beans, sweet potatoes, cooked carrots, stuffing, mashed potatoes. I want to try to introduce peanuts to them to make sure there are no allergies, but I’m not quite sure how to do that yet. They still love their bottles, though, and come crawling when they see me making them. I’m just now getting Nat to hold his own bottle, too, which is fantastic!
Their sleep at night is still horrendous, so we’re working on that. I just stopped nursing them overnight last night, and there was all the crying. I finally left our bedroom and slept on the couch since I don’t have to feed them in the middle of the night and boy, oh boy, do their lungs work. They’ve gotta figure this shit out, though. Almost 11 months is ridiculous. I even read a bunch of articles yesterday about getting older babies to sleep through, and I kept seeing that if it isn’t happening by 12 months to talk to your pediatrician. Even the internet runs out of answers by then. Awesome.
But otherwise, they’re great. These are 2 hilarious little guys to watch, and I love seeing them just playing all day, chattering away and making noises the whole time. They each know their name, too, and they actually respond when you call them. They’re so content to dig into their toy pile and play with stuff, it’s amazing. I really only have to put them in their jumpers for containment when I need to get something out of sight done like shower, laundry in the basement, etc. The rest of the time they’re totally fine crawling around and playing. I just shut the bedroom and bathroom doors, and they’re good. We actually took 2 real babyproofing steps, too, which, if you know us well, you know we don’t babyproof. They just figure it out. 😉 I put a gate up in the kitchen to block access to the back door area and basement stairs, and I put clear rubber protectors on the corners of our new coffee table in the living room because that thing is brutal!
Now that Nat is mobile, too, he’s testing out his strength against Avit. More than once I’ve seen him literally climb up on Avit’s head and try to knock him down. Payback for all those nights Avit slept on top of him in their shared crib. Avit still likes to take every toy Nat plays with away from him, which causes Nat to scream, so we’re trying to teach Avit to stop that. Their interactions are so funny.
Seeing 2 little bodies crawling around the house at the same time is pretty crazy. This morning I was vacuuming, came around the corner from our bedroom, and both of them were sitting right next to each other in the middle of the bathroom just looking at me with wide eyes. Plotting my future demise, I’m sure, hahaha!
They could not be more different, both in looks and personality. Nat is still the much calmer of the 2, except, of course, for his high-pitched screams and wails at night. Avit crawls at the speed of light and must figure out a way to investigate or get into every single thing he sees. And he 100% knows when he’s doing something naughty, because when he sees you coming to stop him, he looks at you, smiles, usually squinks up his face and giggles, then crawls away as fast as he possibly can. He’s also probably days away from walking. He takes a tentative step or two on his own, but no actual walking across rooms yet. Nat is much happier to just grab a toy and sit and play with it. Except Nat is the one who’s more prone to make a bee-line across the living room rug to the Christmas tree area. Stinker. Nat falls asleep for naps much better still, whereas Avit likes to flop around in his pack n play as much as possible and grab anything within reach to bring it in with him. Avit shovels his food in from his high chair tray, whereas Nat is happy eating one thing at a time, actually chewing and swallowing his food like a normal person. Nat has the most delicate little pixie face, and Avit is much more Gerber-baby cute. Both perfect for eating baby faces, though!
The big 3 always tell me that my tummy picked the right babies with the twins, and they’re exactly right. They’ve also asked if my tummy had picked only one, which one would it be, Nat or Avit. I have no idea, but it’s hard to picture life with only one of these two. I love them so much, and I can’t believe they’re almost 1!
Here are the 11 month posts for the big 3:
And here are all the monthly pictures – Della, Lana, Morrison, twins, then all twins from the beginning.
Nat and Avit turned 9 months old on Halloween, so this post will be super short since 10 months is just 2 days away. I just want to make sure I get their picture up here.
We did have a well check this time, so here are their official 9 month stats:
Nat
Avit
For comparison, here are the 9 month posts for the other 3:
And here are all the 9 month pictures – Della, Lana, Morrison, twins. Then the usual all-twins montage.
Nat and Avit turned 8 months old just 3 days ago. And I’m already writing their monthly post! What?!? I know! (ok, so obviously september 30 wasn’t 3 days ago now, but i really did write this post when it was, so i’m sticking with my original punctuality)
Since I just got around to their 6 and 7 month post a few weeks ago, though, this one will be very short and sweet. Their next checkup isn’t until 9 months, so I have no new growth stats to share, and pretty much everything is exactly the same as that last post.
They still aren’t sleeping through the night. They still show minimal interest in solids, so I’m not wasting the time I don’t have trying to force them and then cleaning up more giant messes. I’ve tried Cheerios with both of them, too, and I’ve never seen babies do a worse job trying to get those tiny circles in their mouths. Avit seemed like he wanted to eat them, but he couldn’t actually get any in his mouth; Nat actually pressed his lips closed and pulled away when I tried to feed him one. Fine then, be that way! I loathe the spoon-fed baby food stage anyway, so I’m just going to wait until they can feed themselves better.
I do think this lack of food is contributing to their nighttime wakeups, though, so just yesterday I started giving them an extra bottle during the day. Nat has started throwing in this early nightly wakeup again that is enough to drive me insane. He clearly does NOT need to be waking and having another bottle anywhere between 8-11, because he used to sleep from 6:00 until at least 2 a.m. easily and consistently. So I’m just pumping them as full of milk as I can. I’ve switched their first 2 bottles of the day to be all breastmilk; I’ve added a third bottle that’s half milk, half formula; I’ve switched their last 2 bottles of the day to be all formula; and I’ve changed their bedtime bottle to be 8 oz. instead of 6 oz. like all the other bottles are. So we’ll see.
Avit still steamrolls all over everything, including Nat. He is literally 1 knee “step” away from crawling, and each day I am shocked that he still hasn’t fully figured it out. Don’t worry, he still squiggles and rolls his way all over the place, though. (update – he finally got that second knee going for a real crawl 2 days ago. look out!) Nat is still content to just lie on the floor and roll around. No sitting or crawling in sight.
So that’s about it. They still amaze me daily, and I still can’t believe we have twins. One big thing is that they have their first flight coming up at the end of this week – HEAVEN HELP ME! 4 hours on an airplane with all 5. Twice. Fun. I hope I survive. I will need coffee. And wine. Lots of both. (this has happened now also, but i will have an update on that later)
Here are all the monthly comparisons again:
Lana 8 month post; Morrison 8 month post
Photos –Â Della, Lana (combo of these 2 this month), Morrison, twins.
Now all twins. Until month 9 (pray for sleep!)…
Clearly I have neglected this blog yet again, since the twins are almost 8 months old. And because of that fact, I’m doing something I’ve never had to do yet – combine stats posts. Oops. Oh well, at least I’m finally getting them written here.
Life is very busy these days. I often think back to when I started this blog after Della was born – I would sit at my desk at work and post daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Ha! Hahahahaha! If only I had that kind of time now. I mean, no, I don’t wish I was back sitting at a desk all day again, definitely not. But now I get to actually sit down for any length of time longer than 5 minutes without that time being spent folding laundry so infrequently, my poor updates are few and far between. I mean well, really I do. I constantly have a running list in my head of post ideas and kids’ pages notes that I need to write. But I only have so many hours in a day, and I do need to sleep. At least try to sleep with these two little maniacs in our room, anyway.
So anyway… I’ll give you their 6 month well check stats, then a quick update on what they’re up to now (since who cares what they were actually doing at 6 months, oh, so long ago), and a bunch of pictures as usual.
Nat
Avit
We can already see that these two have distinctly different personalities. Avit is pushing himself up to sitting (and has been for a couple weeks now); can move himself around a room through a combination of rocking/rolling/sitting/repeating (everything but crawling so far); loves to grab anything in sight and mess with it or try to eat it, including Nat’s head or arm or buns, my leg (yes, the other day i was standing on their blanket in the living room and Avit grabbed my leg, wrapped his arms around it, and started licking it!), and all their toys; and generally not nap when I’d like him to. And just 2 days ago he pulled himself up on the edge of the coffee table to standing! Good lord. Nat is much more content to just lie in his spot on the floor, play with his toys, roll over here and there but nothing crazy (no ending up on the opposite side of the room or in the corner facing the wall under the jumperoo like Avit), and take his naps like good little babies should. Sometimes they actually get on opposite nap schedules – Nat takes a decent morning nap; Avit does not. Then after lunch I put Avit down and Nat wakes up for the afternoon. Turds.
I just consistently started solids last week. I tried them a while ago, and neither one had much interest at all, surprisingly. Avit loved his first taste of oatmeal and wanted to grab the spoon and do it all himself. But then when I tried other things like sweet potatoes, he would barely take a bite. Nat got his start at solids later than Avit because I was giving them at dinner time to begin with, and Nat was always taking his 3rd nap then (yes, 3rd nap of the day). So he missed out for a while, but once I gave him his first bite of sweet potatoes, he loved them and actually did a lot better at eating than Avit. Now that we’re into the school routine again, I’ve begun trying to give them their solids at lunch time instead, since dinner time always gets so hectic. Some days it works out that way, some days it doesn’t, but they seem to be doing fine with them at either time of the day.
They both have their bottom front 2 teeth and got those about a month ago. And they instantly started biting me with them while nursing, so that’s super fun. Fortunately I only nurse them once overnight and sometimes once around wake-up time now with bottles of pumped milk and formula throughout the day, but that still hurts when it happens!
Speaking of bottles, they’re still on the same bottle schedule that they’ve been on for months – 4 bottles per day (roughly 9:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.) that are each a mixture of mostly pumped milk and a little formula. Nat just recently caught up to Avit with having a 6 oz. bottle each time; he had been stuck at 4 oz. for the longest time while Avit chugged down 6 and basically as much as you would give him. Chunk.
Like I said earlier, naps aren’t always the most consistent. Nat can usually be counted on to take 2 solid naps a day if we’re not walking to/from school (I’ve stopped putting him down for that last early evening nap and just stretching things out until bedtime instead), and Avit is happy to take normally just a longer afternoon one. For the past couple days, though, the stars have aligned and I actually have gotten all 3 boys to nap at the same time after lunch for a couple hours, and I haven’t even been giving the twins their solid food. They’ve had colds the past couple days and are all stuffy, so I’m not forcing them to try to swallow mushy food along with all their snot. If they could do that regularly, I’d be happy for them to drop morning and early evening naps all together.
Bedtime is pretty much right after that last bottle, so they’re usually in bed by 6-6:30. No, they are still not sleeping through the night, so everyone can stop asking. They have both done it, sleeping until 5:00 or even 6:00 the next morning, but neither does it with any consistency at all yet. Their schedules are fairly regular with the wake-ups, though – one (usually Nat) wakes around let’s say 1:00 and 5:00; the other might wake up then, too, but lately it’s been in the middle of the other two wake-ups instead, somewhere in the 3:00 hour. So there’s a decent chunk of sleep for the first part of the night, then those early morning hours can get dicey. Nat likes to throw in a crying jag in the 10:00-11:00 hour every couple nights, so that’s real fun, because I know he certainly doesn’t need to be eating then but usually the only way to get him back to sleep is to make him a little bottle. So we’ll see. Hopefully they figure it out soon. Morrison didn’t sleep through consistently until between 8-9 months, so I’m not really that surprised that these 2 aren’t either. And now with school mornings again I get up at 5:30, so I just try to go to bed as early as I can since I know I’ll be up a number of times before my alarm even goes off.
They do make up for my lack of sleep during the days with their smiles and general happy attitudes. Lately Avit has started doing a ton of talking, with “da-da-da” and “ga-ga” sounds and even mimicking Ryan the other night when he was saying hi. Nat does more of a “singing,” with high-pitched little squeals and shrieks like Lana used to do, plus a ton of raspberries blowing and motorboat noises. It’s pretty hysterical. And they both get huge chuckling belly laughs going, which is just amazing. When I pick Nat up, he loves to grab the sides of my neck, pull in real close to my face, and act like he’s going to eat my nose. I love it!
They both still love the jumperoos, being held and played with (obviously), their show on Netflix called Little Baby Bum (i don’t know what it is, but this show has total baby mind control. they can both be screaming crabby, and i’ll put them on the living room floor and turn that show on and they instantly quiet), pacifiers and snuggling into their muslin blankets to sleep, being in the stroller and car, reaching for and grabbing toys now, and watching and interacting with all of us. The big 3 love playing with these little guys, too. I just switched out all their 6 month clothes and brought up everything 6-9, 6-12, and 9 month sizes, and I swear those are all going to be too small soon as well. They’re in size 3 daytime diapers and I just bought the first pack of size 4 overnights. I’m hoping that trying overnight diapers now will help get them through the nights better, too. Yeah, we’ll see.
So, that was more than a quick update, but life is pretty great with these little guys. Like Della said in her note to me last summer when I was so upset when we found out we were having twins, it’s going to be fun! It is a shit ton of work, and every day has to be a very controlled level of chaos or else it can get overwhelming, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job. Plus the big 3 really are excellent helpers, which is a lifesaver. It still sounds so weird to me to hear myself say we have 5 children. I think it always will!
Now for the monthly comparisons. I don’t think I had started writing here when Della was 6 months old, but I’ll give you Lana’s and Morrison’s 6 and 7 month posts:
Lana 6 months; Morrison 6 months; Lana 7 months; Morrison 7 months
And here are all the pictures – Della, Lana, Morrison, then the twins. Whew! Let’s see if I can get their 8 month post written before they turn 16.
The twins turned 5 months on June 30. No checkup this month either, so this will be another photo post.
Avit is now rolling all over the place, and Nat is very close. He can get his whole lower body over, just gets stuck trying to get his head and shoulders to follow. He likes to stop twisted halfway and just look around, little goofball.
We switched them into a crib from the pack n play in our bedroom a few days ago because they’re getting so big, and Avit was totally steamrolling over Nat all night. He still does, but now at least little Natty Nat has slightly more room to get out of the way. This is very typical of their personalities – Nat is generally very calm and easygoing, whereas I like to describe Avit as a little more high maintenance. Definitely crabbier. And so many times I go into our room to find Avit screaming right in Nat’s face and Nat just lying there, totally asleep.
They love to blow spits to talk to everyone, and the fake coughs are in full effect, just like their big brother and sisters did. I took the arched playmats out of the living room and brought up the jumperoo and 2 bumbo chairs, and they both love being in both of those. A little more physical activity is what they want now instead of just lying around.
They did great on our family vacation up north. Despite sleeping like garbage, they really didn’t add much trouble or hassle to the trip at all. We made sure bottles were ready well before needed, planned enough stops for diaper changes as well as letting the big 3 go to the bathroom while driving, and made sure to be proactive with their needs instead of reactive. Major difference in resultant attitude and decibel level.
These little ones are getting big! They’ve been with us on the outside almost half a year now, and just like Della’s note to me said when I found out last summer that I was having twins – don’t worry, it’ll be fun!
Comparisons, as usual – Della, Lana, Morrison, twins. Seeing any resemblances getting stronger?
And now all twins. Pretty soon they’ll be big enough to each go on their own rug.
Nat and Avit turned 4 months old the same day Morrison turned 3 years old, so that was a very fun day around here.
We did have a 4-month well check, so here are the twins’ official stats:
Nat
Avit
So Nat is an inch longer and half a pound heavier, yet Avit’s head is slightly bigger. These 2 have gotten so big! No more tiny babies. Not that they ever really were super tiny, though, both being born the same size as most singletons. Just tiny to us.
I can’t remember if I switched their clothes before or after they turned 4 months, but now they wear mostly 6 months sizes. There are just a couple 3-6 month pieces I’ve kept up because they’re cute and run a little bigger, but I couldn’t bear to squeeze their chubby little legs into 3 month sleepers anymore.
I’m bumping up to size 3 diapers for this next shipment, but, in all fairness, I think the brand we use runs a little smaller than others. They’re still almost exclusively breastfed, with their daytime bottles having just a little formula mixed into each one. I haven’t really noticed any difference in their sleep patterns based on the amount of formula they have, but I like mixing it to stretch the milk supply and get them some vitamins and minerals.
They’re still getting their 4 bottles throughout the day, then nursing overnight, and I pump twice a day to keep the stash stocked. We haven’t started any solid foods yet, because they’re still young enough to not really need them, plus I’m lazy and bottles are easy.
I’m finally starting to notice the typical baby 3-nap-a-day pattern – sleep a little while between the last nursing of the morning and the first morning bottle; may or may not sleep after the first morning bottle; take a pretty solid nap after the noon-time bottle (hopefully!); then doze a little off and on after the mid-afternoon bottle. Then they go right to bed after the 6:00ish bottle for the night (hooray!).
Thankfully I’ve noticed a slight increase in their overnight sleep, too. I won’t feed them before about 1:00 at the earliest now, and most nights it’s become closer to 2:00-3:00. A few nights ago one of them actually slept until 4:00! And because I’m still so sleep deprived I can’t remember which one it was, but I think it was Nat. Avit did wake up for about 1:30 and 3:30 feedings that night, but for some reason little Natty Nat didn’t (I think). Then it’s about every 2 hours until morning for feedings after that. So if it’s a 2:00 wakeup, I can generally count on that one to be up again around 4:00 and 6:00, etc. I don’t force them to wake up at the same time anymore, because I’m so tired that I just grab any sleep in between wakeups that I can get. Hopefully they’ll both get to the same wakeup schedule soon, though, and stretch it out even more overnight.
Their smiles and talking sounds are amazing, and Avit has started adding some “D” sounds to all their “G” sounds, coos, and oohs. And they have both now laughed, which about makes my heart explode every time.
I just brought the jumperoo up today and took both arched playmats out, so we’re transitioning them to more activity, too. They’re so close to rolling but just can’t quite get all the way over yet, so maybe getting them a little more physical will help. Lying on the floor like little blobs doesn’t exactly do wonders for large motor skills. They both try to pull themselves up to sitting positions, too, and Nat is so close. He can get himself about halfway up, then curls up into a little ball on his side. It’s pretty funny to watch. They both loved the jumper this morning, though, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of days before they both jump themselves to sleep in it, just like each of the other 3 did.
I say it all the time, but I still can’t believe there are 2 of them. I look at them both every day and just think how happy they make me. All 5 of these kids are little miracles running around my heart.
Now here are the comparisons again. The big 3 first, then the twins.
And now the twins month-by-month. Growing every day!
