29 June 2006

Happy One-Week Birthday

How is it that babies get cuter every day? Madeleine and Riley are now a week old. Amazing. Here they are posing for the camera in their bouncy seats.




So far, life with newborns is amazing, wonderful, and sometimes downright confusing. Some questions:

1. Why will Maddie and Riley sleep in their crib when napping during the day, but insist on being held to sleep at night?
2. How the heck is it possible to get a proper "latch-on" when nursing when one only has two hands to a) keep both flailing baby arms under control and b) get the delicate baby mouth to open wide enough to stuff in enough boob?
3. Why will the twins sleep seemingly forever during the day, but love to be up at night?

These are, of course, rhetorical questions unless anyone has advice that they'd like to share.

I'm managing to rest, eat, and stay clean only because my mom and stepdad are here to help. Otherwise, I'd be a lot cause. And I'm having to resort to wearing my husband's size XL button-up-the-front shirts because I don't really have any nursing-appropriate clothes. So I look like a slob. But I'm very comfortable! And who's seeing me anyway?

Will try to post more as I can.

11 comments:

Linda said...

Your babies are beautiful!

I nursed my twins for 13 months and rarely fed them at the same time. It was too hard to keep them both latched on. Someone inevitably fell off and then the other kid fell off while I was trying to relatch the second one. I just varied their schedule by about 30 minutes. That said, a lot of people do it. Good luck.

OTRgirl said...

I'm amazed you're posting at all! Your children are really lovely.

Anonymous said...

They are beautiful. No advice on twins but babies do often get days & nights mixed up. Unfortunately, I can't remember what the solution is.

Hanging out in oversized button down shirts- I remember doing that for about 3 months straight. :)

frostine said...

I have no baby advice, but they are breathaking! I made that little gasping noise when their pictures came up.

weigook saram said...

Ah, this post brought back lots of memories.

It must be really hard to juggle two nursing babies. The latching thing will get easier with time. Newborn mouths are just really tiny.

For a long time, K would only sleep on my chest or in the crook of my arm, at night. I think if you're nursing it's easier to just co-sleep at night, at least in the beginning when they want to eat so often. Sometimes swaddling helps them feel more secure in the crib, though.

Gorgeous babies!

Badger said...

beautiful beautiful babies indeed.

i don't have any good advice for nursing twins. and now that i have a teenager who seems to be awake all night and asleep all day, nor do i have suggestions on that front.

much love (and as much rest as possible) to you & yours

soralis said...

I have been on vacation and I missed the big announcement.

Congrats to you and your hubby they are so beautiful!

You bring me back to the birth of my twins it was amazing to read your posts!!

My boys were bad at night when we brought them home... up at night sleep all day. It does get better, we used a vibrating bassinet at night to try to settle them! I think it was about 2 months before they got the night thing straightened out

I nursed my twins for 6 months. I started with one at a time then moved to 2... the football hold worked for me

Enjoy your wee ones and congrats!

P.S. love their names!

Anonymous said...

1. It will get easier soon
2. It will get easier soon.
3. umm, it will get easier soon.
-none of which makes it any easier now, of course! Everyone does the nursing thing differently, especially with twins, but it gets less awkward pretty quickly. I wrote about the details here: http://allthis.typepad.com/allthis/2006/06/never_tandem_fe.html Perhaps that will be helpful to you. Also, this article was extremely inspirational to me (though-a disclaimer- I could use most of this magazine to line the proverbial bird cage): http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/breastfeeding/twins.html You're doing great,and so are your babies. They are just gorgeous!

Christine said...

My goodness, are they perfect and beautiful. Every happiness, Snick.

Anonymous said...

Those are some seriously beautiful kids. Well done!

Cie Cheesemeister said...

I'm so glad for you! I hadn't checked this blog in quite awhile in my own busy-ness, but it's wonderful that this turned out so nicely! Congratulations!