Type One With Twins: 2 month shots and a trip to the PNE!

Well, the boys are now 9.5 weeks old and their first round of shots are officially complete! We had our first appt with their pediatrician on Tuesday and it went great. We started off by getting them weighed (Adam was 7 lbs 11 oz and Scott has doubled his birth weight, coming in at 7 lbs 3 oz). They are both 53 cm long, and I'm not sure about their heads, although I know they're growing! She took a good look at them, and they are doing fantastic. Both of them are completely healthy and growing like weeds. She was shocked at how early they left the hospital (36 weeks gestation). They had a few things against them from the start. According to her, twins usually have a harder time being born premature, and boys also typically do worse in the NICU than girls do. Luckily, that wasn't the case for our boys. She said they likely won't be very far behind and that they are doing things that are advanced for their adjusted age like sucking their thumbs and holding up their heads so well. She plotted their weights and heights on the chart for their adjusted age (as if they were actually born on August 15th) and they are both just a smidge below the 50th percentile for weight and slightly over the 50th for height! Such a relief. We're going back again in a couple months to make sure everything is still looking as good as they are now.

Yesterday we also took the boys in for their 2 month immunizations. No Mother wants to have to go through her baby (babies!!) getting poked, but I thought that they would handle it pretty well, given that they're tough NICU babies. We did Scott first and he sat on my lap. The nurse started with the oral syringe and he seemed to like that one. For the shots, it's two in one leg, and one in the other leg. She said she was going to try to them quickly and it was pretty fast. The first injection poor Scott screamed and held his breath for about 10 seconds because it shocked him. The whole experience was over in less than 30 seconds and he cried for a little bit more before he would start nursing at which point he was totally fine. Adam was asleep on Jamie before his turn and he was barely awake for the oral one. Jamie held him on his lap for the shots and he cried for a little bit during it all, but calmed down and was almost asleep again pretty much as soon as she was done. Jamie bounced him for a second and then he nursed for a bit with Scott and all was fine in the world. Not a pleasant experience by any means, but they were such champs and it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Jamie and I were sure to stay calm, because I think it would have been harder on the babies if we were all stressed and panicky about it. I was pretty scared about their reactions, but we really lucked out. Both babies were sleepier than usual last night, and didn't seem to be in pain at all! We gave them nice warm baths before bed and they seemed totally fine. So happy that it went that well, I was nervous for feverish babies, making their evening witching hour worse than it has been before!

Now, how about the sleep saga? The boys have been sleeping in a playpen in our room since they came home aside from a 2 night stint in their own room, which didn't go too well. It seems like they were doing great (well great for them) for a while and then we had a stretch where things were not so fun. We're seeming to be pretty settled for now. At their worst we would start putting them down around 9PM and it would take forever. They would be up every 2 hours, so 11, 1, 3, 5 at which point we just bring them in bed with us. We were getting 3 hour stretches before we tried them in their own room. I had really high hopes for moving them out. They would fall asleep alone in their crib before 9PM, and I thought things would be great. For some reason though, they never last long in their own crib. I would get up at 11PM for a feed, put them back down (not an easy feat) and go to bed thinking that I'd have another 2-3 hours for sure. I'd hear crying on the monitor and think that so much time must have passed when in actuality I had only been sleeping for 45 minutes. Ugh. It would also take over an hour to get both of them back to sleep after a feeding, which really makes for a long night. We retreated from that idea, and back in the playpen they went. For the past few days we've had a 4 hour stretch to start, and then 2-3 hour stretches for the rest of the night. I don't mind getting up so often, I just love that now they will finally go back to sleep after a feeding. For now, at least. Jamie is a huge help at nighttime. If we had one baby I would easily be able to do it all, but an extra set of hands really comes in 'handy' at 2AM! I don't anticipate them sleeping through the night anytime soon, boo... Maybe one of these years!

After our Doctors appt, my Mom and I took the boys to the PNE. For those of you who don't live in BC, the PNE is basically a fair that comes every year to Vancouver. My Mom has been going annually since she was a kid, and continued the tradition with me, so it's only fitting that the boys start right from the beginning too! It's close to an hour drive, so I was a little worried about hearing a lot of screaming on the freeway where we can't pull over to do anything about it. They were perfect angels on the drive, and neither of them made a peep! We got there and loaded them up in their stroller (I'm still going to do a post on how I settled on a stroller!!) and in we went. First thing was to feed them, and we settled down in a park area to do so. I tandem fed them with a little cover and it went great. So much faster to do them both at once. After they had their lunch, we went through the prize home. My Mom carried Scott and I had Adam. Adam slept the entire time, but Scott was wide awake, taking in his surroundings. I think he really liked it because there was a lot of black and white, which apparently babies like to look at because of the contrast. We spent a couple hours after just walking around - we didn't really 'do' anything though. We didn't go in the area with all the animals just in case there was poo particles floating around or something and of course the boys are too young for shows, rides, games etc. So really, we just walked a LOT. But it was great, and nice to have a day out there. Mom and I had some dinner, fed the boys again, and off we went back home! Scott cried the first 5 minutes of the drive home, and Adam cried as we were pulling into our neighbourhood, so overall both boys did amazing!!!

Overall, things are going great. Last week was not so fun because they were really going through a horrible colicky, fussy period. It seemed like between 4-9 they would both SCREAM unless they were nursing, and even nursing barely made them happy. It was exhausting and very stressful. We're going on day 3 of that not happening anymore, so I'm really hoping it was just an awful stage!

Okay, pics :)