Getting through the first few months with twins

Your story has brought me to tears! I'm so happy that your boys are doing
well. They are beautiful babies and true miracles for having survived and
thrived through everything they faced. Seeing the photos brought back memories
of my babies in the NICU (even though they've only been home with us for five
weeks!)

Thanks for posting.
----------
Elissa - Mommy to Rebecca Meagan 9/6/00, Joshua Emmett &
Jacob Bryant 9/26/03.
"Before I got married, I had six theories about bring up children; now I have
six children and no theories." - John Wilmont, Earl of Rochester

we made every mistake in the book with our girls (born 4.14.2000) i
wanted to make sure that they got enough love so i demanded that they
be held at every feeding. i mean thats the way you do it with a
singleton right? anyway, on about 4 hours sleep a day i nearly
lost my mind. and thank god hubby was there for 3 weeks otherwise i'd
have completely lost it.

we woke them to feed them every 3 hours, and eventually, around 4 or 5
months, they started going longer between feedings. what i would
suggest (and i hated hearing this when i had my kids, but i'd do it
now in a heartbeat) is waking them both every 3 hours with a bottle
ready so they can eat, get a change and go back to sleep. some
people tell ya to put a wrapped up towel under the bottle and feed
them that way while holding the other, but both the girls were both
super chokers and that would never have worked. but you can burp one
and feed the other with both hands... takes balance, but thats one of
the first great stunts you learn being a parent to twins...

good luck and dont get stressed out. its a hard time (coughHORRIBLE)
and we've all been there and can sympathize.

we made every mistake in the book with our girls (born 4.14.2000) i
wanted to make sure that they got enough love so i demanded that they
be held at every feeding. i mean thats the way you do it with a
singleton right? anyway, on about 4 hours sleep a day i nearly
lost my mind. and thank god hubby was there for 3 weeks otherwise i'd
have completely lost it.

we woke them to feed them every 3 hours, and eventually, around 4 or 5
months, they started going longer between feedings. what i would
suggest (and i hated hearing this when i had my kids, but i'd do it
now in a heartbeat) is waking them both every 3 hours with a bottle
ready so they can eat, get a change and go back to sleep. some
people tell ya to put a wrapped up towel under the bottle and feed
them that way while holding the other, but both the girls were both
super chokers and that would never have worked. but you can burp one
and feed the other with both hands... takes balance, but thats one of
the first great stunts you learn being a parent to twins...

good luck and dont get stressed out. its a hard time (coughHORRIBLE)
and we've all been there and can sympathize.

Thank you, everyone....we hope that parents new to the NICU will be
able to come across our pages and get some idea of what its all like
and that things can come out fine....


StayAtHome Dad

Thank you, everyone....we hope that parents new to the NICU will be
able to come across our pages and get some idea of what its all like
and that things can come out fine....


StayAtHome Dad

"Captain Freaky Pants" wrote in message
...
Thank you, everyone....we hope that parents new to the NICU will be
able to come across our pages and get some idea of what its all like
and that things can come out fine....

Your website was truly well done and your sons are just adorable!!

"Captain Freaky Pants" wrote in message
...
Thank you, everyone....we hope that parents new to the NICU will be
able to come across our pages and get some idea of what its all like
and that things can come out fine....

Your website was truly well done and your sons are just adorable!!

ospam (Elissa) wrote in
:

The twins left the hospital on a four-hour feeding
schedule but haven't been sticking to it at all - sometimes they go
five hours betwen feeding, other times they're hungry two hours after
eating.

Very similar story to our own. Two boys born at 32.5 weeks, about 3
weeks in NICU. At the NICU they said "they're ready to come home, they're
on a 4-hour schedule" and even at six months, during the day it is still
typically 3 hrs. At night it can be 5 to 8 by this time. It would be
considered "sleeping through the night" if that last feeding was at 11PM,
however more likely it is at 6:30 PM so there's still an early morning
feeding in the 1-2 AM slot. However this has turned into a change, feed,
burp, pass out cycle which is much smoother than before where settling down
even after a feeding was so difficult.

They have started solids, though Martin takes to it readily, esp. pears,
Reed is still a bit uncertain about this new development.

Here's some not very recent pics of them.

http://tinyurl.com/ltbg

At six months they are MONSTERS, 18 and 20 lbs, 90th percentile for
adjusted age.

Anyway we never tried to schedule them really, the logic of it makes no
sense to me, they are babies and react according to their physical needs,
not necessarily for the convenience of their parents. I know there are
other pts of view.

The early days seem like two years ago already - what a slog! How do you
get through it? Just one feeding at a time I guess. My wife was able to
take 6 months off and I did 4 months part time on Family Medical Leave Act
(FMLA).

Best o'luck, hmmm some noise coming over the monitor... someone's getting
hungry it seems LOL!

Gary

ospam (Elissa) wrote in
:

The twins left the hospital on a four-hour feeding
schedule but haven't been sticking to it at all - sometimes they go
five hours betwen feeding, other times they're hungry two hours after
eating.

Very similar story to our own. Two boys born at 32.5 weeks, about 3
weeks in NICU. At the NICU they said "they're ready to come home, they're
on a 4-hour schedule" and even at six months, during the day it is still
typically 3 hrs. At night it can be 5 to 8 by this time. It would be
considered "sleeping through the night" if that last feeding was at 11PM,
however more likely it is at 6:30 PM so there's still an early morning
feeding in the 1-2 AM slot. However this has turned into a change, feed,
burp, pass out cycle which is much smoother than before where settling down
even after a feeding was so difficult.

They have started solids, though Martin takes to it readily, esp. pears,
Reed is still a bit uncertain about this new development.

Here's some not very recent pics of them.

http://tinyurl.com/ltbg

At six months they are MONSTERS, 18 and 20 lbs, 90th percentile for
adjusted age.

Anyway we never tried to schedule them really, the logic of it makes no
sense to me, they are babies and react according to their physical needs,
not necessarily for the convenience of their parents. I know there are
other pts of view.

The early days seem like two years ago already - what a slog! How do you
get through it? Just one feeding at a time I guess. My wife was able to
take 6 months off and I did 4 months part time on Family Medical Leave Act
(FMLA).

Best o'luck, hmmm some noise coming over the monitor... someone's getting
hungry it seems LOL!

Gary

Just to answer your question, as has already been posted, there are
two main schools of thought: demand feeding vs. PDF (parent-directed
feeding). Most people here seem to fall into the former category; my
wife and I fell into the latter. It worked great for us and we credit
it for allowing us to have some sort of sanity. However, when I
posted my opinion here, several months later, some people posted info
which was critical of the Ezzos (authors of the "Baby Wise" series of
books, which advocate PDF). Although those criticisms seem valid and
concern me, I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater
and give up on PDF, as it worked great for us.

As they say, individual results may vary.