5 Months and Counting (+ 3 years)...An overview of the Dobson clan

Baby Tahlia and Baby Jory are now 5 months old; their older brother Zachary is now 3 years. We are enjoying going out to toddler groups and the babies get a lot of attention wherever we go. 

Chillin' out on the sofa

Tahlia is growing extremely well, looking particularly chubby next to Jory and is gaining weight rapidly. She has now hit the 1 stone mark!

Tahlia looks almost as big as Zachary! (She is now half his weight)

Jory is also now growing well, after a slow start due to lots of reflux (bringing up feeds) and now weighs almost 13 lbs. The reflux is already a little better than at the beginning but we expect that it should further improve once he is introduced to solids. He does sometimes get very upset after feeding until he is sick, then he feels better, but he feeds more often than Tahlia because of it. 

Poor Jory has a bout of reflux; poor Daddy's shoulder is a little worse for wear

Tahlia always smiles when you approach her (in fact, both babies are very smiley). They both love to be held and chatter away to you when you speak to them.

Smiley little girl

Happy babies

Cuddles with Daddy

Jory is ultra inquisitive with huge eyes and is always interested in what's happening. In between his bouts of reflux, he's content and enjoys cooing when anyone talks to him.

Gazing into Mummy's eyes for a photo

Jory, in particular, enjoys lying on his play mat, attempting to grab the various hanging toys. He responds well when an object is placed in front of him, showing a lot of interest.

Reaching for the dangling toys

Jory loves being outside, especially when it's sunny. He enjoys lying in the pram, looking up at the tops of trees as we walk underneath them. 

All ready for the sunshine!

Tahlia prefers to be sitting up, either in a bouncer or a Bumbo seat. She is generally happy sitting near Zachary so she can watch him play. She hates being left in a room on her own and always wants someone nearby. She enjoys interesting sounds, particularly the crunching of a crisp packet which she stares at, then attempts to grab.

 

She has been teething recently (no sign of teething in Jory yet), so has been a little more grumpy, red faced and dribbly than normal. She also tries to bite on things. We haven't seen any new teeth as of yet.

Comfy seat

Mummy very much enjoys having a girl to dress up in lots of pretty outfits!

Tahlia's shoe collection

Pretty blue dress

If only she'd smile for the camera

Both babies tend to have a long lie-in and a bit of a nap in the morning. The rest of the day involves several 5 minute power naps and nothing else until bed time. They also gradually get more fussy through the day. Zachary still has an afternoon nap, so Mummy would very much like to get them all in sync with their nap times. All of the children go down for bed at around 7pm and are all asleep by 8pm, giving Mummy and Daddy a few hours on their own. For bedtime and overnight Mummy does a mixture of tandem feeds with two pillows and separate feeds, depending on when they awaken. The babies had a wonderful phase at about 2-3 months of sleeping solidly for 6-7 hours in the night, but recently this has been closer to 2-3 hours, due to colds and teething.

Jory all ready for bed

When Tahlia gets tired she is grumpy and constantly bats her ears. She likes to be in a seated position and rocked to sleep for her daytime naps, but if she's nice and comfortable, she'll sometimes go to sleep on her own. She always cries for about one minute before she falls asleep.

Time for bed soon

Too late for bed now!

Jory prefers to lie down for his naps. You lie him down somewhere soft, then realise he's gone quiet! He also likes to fall asleep while feeding, but tends to remain asleep when you put him down. Both babies fall asleep when being driven around in the car, but we always struggle to keep them that way in traffic jams.

Asleep on several layers of play mat

Both babies are getting stronger and are having some 'tummy time' most days. Tahlia, in particular, lifts her head and shoulders very well when placed in this position. Jory isn't a huge fan of tummy time, and even managed his first roll a few weeks ago, when he was getting a little stressed.

Tummy time trying to eat the sofa

Jory about to do his first ever roll

Roll successful!

Zachary is doing very well. He loves his new brother and sister and wants to include them in his play. He invites Tahlia into his ball pool tent (Mummy has to hold her up) and likes having pretend meals with Jory, who likes to sample the plastic fruit and vegetables.

Playing farms with Jory

He enjoys 'holding' them, especially to have his photo taken, and enjoys giving them cuddles and kisses (albeit a little on the rough side).

Happy cuddles

Zachary goes in for a hug with a confused Jory

Zachary is learning fast and particularly enjoys numbers, letters, spelling and reading words. He loves to identify and memorise sequences, so he found it quite easy to learn to count to a thousand, learn the days of the week, months of the year and in which month people's birthdays fall. He's also very interested in time, always wanting to know the date and time, and is trying to work out the pattern of minutes on a clock. He loves dice and can often add up the different numbers. One of his favourite games, however, (which we try to keep for just in the car) is the mind-numbingly dull game that he calls 'points', in which you each in turn have to name any number and the person with the highest number wins (he hasn't realised that the last person always wins anyway). He enjoys repeating things we say and it's always amusing to hear him use phrases such as 'it's ridiculous!', 'come on!' and 'oh man!'.

Zachary calls Jory 'Pory', as an amalgamation of 'poor' (due to his reflux problem) and 'Jory'

Zachary eats well, as long as he hasn't had a snack too close to tea time. He's recently become a little less fussy and will eat more of what we're having, not minding mixed-in sauces quite as much. There are still two things we have to avoid though: anything fizzy and anything even remotely spicy - with the latter, he gobbles it down, then cries when the heat comes through, asking Mummy to make it stop. He loves having ketchup or BBQ to dip things in. His new favourite food for tea time is corn on the cob, which he can devour in just a few minutes.

Zachary loves home made potato wedges with sauce for dipping

Zachary is doing well with his potty training, which has been quite a gradual process. He now asks to go on when he needs it and is happy to use the toilet when we're out and about. He does, however, have a fear of hand driers and won't be able to relax until he's been reassured that the hand drier won't be activated during his visit.

Zachary wanted Tahlia and Jory to sit on their "potties" next to him

"Thanks for reading, see you next time!"

Advice for new parents of twins

Here are a few things we've found have helped us cope with day to day life with twin babies that we hope will help our friends (and others) who are expectant mums of twins. I've written it assuming you're planning to initially breastfeed, as that's what I've been doing. 

·         Before they're born, if you have any freezer space, make as many meals in advance as you can - you'll find you don't have a lot of time or energy to cook once they're born.

·         If you have space, set up changing stations upstairs and downstairs with everything you need - it'll save a lot of time. Make sure you also keep full changes of clothes there (you'll need these quite a bit) and we also found it useful having a small laundry basket for dirties.

·         Double prams can be very expensive. To save money, I use a single pram and a baby in a front carrier. It also makes it a little easier to manoeuvre, with less width.

·         Keep two muslin cloths handy in each room of the house - it's amazing how often you need them and how easy it is to mislay one at a crucial moment.

·         If your babies are small (5-6lb), you'll need to use micro (size 0) nappies, as the newborn sizes are huge on them. We found it hard to get hold of them and were only able to find them in a large Tesco store (no success at Morrisons or Sainsburys), so we decided to bulk buy to avoid having to keep going shopping for them (you'll find you get through a whole load of nappies). With our first child (now a toddler), I was constantly stressing about him getting nappy rash if I didn't change his nappy really often. This time around, it doesn't seem as pressing, and so we only change immediately if it smells like a poo or feels damp and very full - no problems with nappy rash yet, and lots of time saved.

·         Make sure you are well set up before starting a feed, as it'll be hard to move once you begin, especially if tandem feeding. I use a sports drink bottle that I can open with one hand and fill it up before I sit down. Also, having a muslin nearby, the TV remote and the phone close at hand will save lots of stress.

·         I had a problem with engorgement - breasts feeling very hard and lumpy, with milk flowing out quite quickly. If you get engorged, you must deal with it quickly to prevent getting blocked ducts/mastitis which can make it painful to feed them and being very full can also make it hard for them to latch on. Before each feed, I used a hot water bottle on top of the breast, whilst expressing a few ml with a hand pump and this cleared it up quickly.

·         If your babies are small and premature, which they most probably will be (mine were 4lb 13oz & 5lb 4oz), they may not feed for too long and be quite sleepy. It may seem a bonus that you get to catch up on more sleep between feeds, but if they're not gaining weight well (and to help avoid having to later do annoying top up feeds), you must make sure they are feeding every 3 hours or less. For me, this involved setting an alarm through the night and waking them when necessary.

·         Try to get tandem feeds going in the night as soon as possible. It is a bit of a killer having to get up to feed just one hungry baby, but feeding two at staggered intervals gives you only a small window of sleep time, so getting them to feed at the same time gives you more time to sleep and in bigger chunks. I use two pillows with a double rugby hold. When the first one wakes (or every 3 hours initially), I wake the other one and set up for a feed. It doesn't always work out if one is too sleepy, but it's definitely worth a try with both.

·         If you do need to give them top up feeds (I had to express milk after each feed, then give it to each of them in a cup after they'd finished), it can be really hard work, with all the expressing, sterilising and warming milk. In the night, I'd suggest taking your previously expressed milk up with you in a cool bag with freezer block and also a thermos flask of boiling water to warm the milk, so you don't have to keep running downstairs in the night.

·         Don't get upset if you have to leave one baby crying for a few minutes to deal with the other one - as long as they are in a safe place, they'll be fine for a little longer.

·         Don't get too concerned about weight gain. The midwives go on and on about it, and it can be quite stressful when it comes to frequent weighing in times (we had to do it every 2 days until they reached their birth weights), but actually, as long as they're feeding reasonably well and weeing/pooing frequently, although slow to start, the weight gain should pick up. Note: My boy twin only did a poo every other day which I was concerned about, but the health visitor seemed to think it wasn't too out of the ordinary.

·         Don't feel like you have to bath them all the time. Being small babies they'll get cold very quickly and waste lots of energy screaming and flailing around. We only bathed them once in the first month and they don't smell - they're being wiped with cotton wool and water quite a bit anyway, so don't need frequent baths too.

·         Accept all the help that is offered to you, whether it's housework, making meals, watching the babies while you shower etc, or helping look after any older siblings. It's also worth asking your Health Visitor if there are any charity schemes in place to help a new mum of twins - we're having a volunteer visit for one morning a week to help look after the babies and their older brother so I can get a few things done around the house.

·         Going food shopping with your new twin babies can be a tad frustrating - people everywhere will stop you to ask the same questions. You want to be polite and answer them, but if the babies are screaming for a feed, you'll just want to get out of there as quickly as you can. I find that answering all of the anticipated questions in a sentence or two before they have the chance to ask them speeds things up and leaves people without anything else to say. For example, stranger: "what cute babies", me: "thanks, they are twins, 6 weeks old, a boy and girl, called Jory and Tahlia; quite a handful".  

·         Enjoy cuddles, photo moments and all the attention that goes with being a mother of twins. The nights (and usually days, too) will be hard, but remember, it will definitely get easier, but they'll only be small once, so it's not worth wishing the time away.