A Letter to Indigo at 18 Months

My Little Man,

Sometimes I worry that you think your name is "Buddy" because we've called you that so much. We've been searching for a nickname for you since you were born. My first idea got shot down after a few weeks, but luckily your sister has come up with something adorable that we are all calling you now. I'd love it if you tried saying her name more often, just so we can hear how cute it sounds.

Right now you mainly just yell, "Elmo!" a lot. You are obsessed. You hear the song for "Elmo's World" and you get so excited. One time I thought you were going to jump out of the bathtub when it came on. And heaven help us if we try to bring you up to bed while "Elmo's World" is on!

We got you both little Elmo stuffed animals when we took away your pacifiers. I hoped it would be a worthy substitute, having your BFF hanging out with you in your crib. Boy, was I wrong. I feel absolutely horrible listening to you cry at night. You cycle up and down, upset and calm, each time making me think that you will now fall asleep. You are trying so hard to fall asleep, but you haven't learned to self-soothe yet, so it takes you over an hour. Periwinkle will cry with you for a little while because you are keeping her awake, and then she somehow drifts off into sound sleep while you are still going. But before she does, she tries to comfort you, rubbing your back and saying your name calmly. She loves you and just wants to help you. Can you help her and try to be calm as you are falling asleep?

Sometimes I take you out of the room to give you a break. We'll pull up the blinds in our bedroom and show you the cars going by. You love watching cars. When we're in the car and another one drives past, you say, "Car!" in this little voice full of wonder. I think they make you happy. This probably makes your great-grandpa happy, because he LOVES cars.

After this little interlude, and sometimes going downstairs for some milk if you are SUPER worked up, you'll go back into your crib and fall asleep. I'm not sure if you just need reassurance that mommy and daddy are still nearby, or if you're playing us because you know we'll come back, or if you just need more time to learn how to fall asleep without a pacifier... but I hope you get over it soon! Sometimes we don't get to eat dinner until after 8:30pm! But seriously, it makes me sad to hear you cry, and I hope you get better at bedtime soon, for your own sake. Sleep is wonderful. Trust me.

Besides our nighttime struggles, you have been a wonderful, sweet little boy. You still love snuggling, when you're not trying to con us into giving you more pretzels, or opening and closing doors, or trying to make a break for it out the front door so you can run around "ow-side." Sometimes you stand in the front doorway and watch the boys next door playing basketball, and I know you really want to go play with them. You love playing in the little house in the backyard, mainly interested in opening and closing the door and shutters and pushing the little doorbell. I love that you're so engaged with it.

I love watching you explore new toys, completely concentrating on how they work and what you can do with them. You and your sister quietly played with a new stacking train for almost an hour, without making a peep. It was fantastic! You shared, and took turns, and divvied up the toy, like such a big boy and girl! I was so proud of you. I love when you share, which sometimes you don't want to do. You get upset and sometimes hit and bite, especially at daycare. We are working on you finding other ways of saying, "I'm mad!" and I know you'll get there soon. When you are little you just don't know how to express how you feel. You don't even know how to know what you feel. Periwinkle sometimes just shrieks and throws food when she's frustrated she can't get out of her chair. I'm sure mommy and daddy did the same thing when we were little. It's okay. We'll work through it!

You are also a very helpful little boy. We ask you to bring your sister's lovey or sippy cup, and you trot right over with it. You shove it in her face, drop it, and walk away, but the intent to help is there. You are very chatty when you want to be, and very quiet when you want to be. You remind me of your uncle (my brother) in that regard. Your crazy reddish-brown curls remind me of him too, although the curls could also come from daddy's side. Your nonno and Zio Pippo have curly hair too. All I know is that I love it. You had such short hair for so long, and now it's growing and curling and it's pretty amazing.

Everything about this age is amazing. You make such fun, silly faces and laugh with such pure joy, I wish I could just exist in that moment with you always. I so love when you are happy. It lights up the room. I love watching you walk hand in hand with Daddy down the street, two men on the move. I love how exuberantly you hug your sister, and the sound of your "mwha!" when you blow a kiss across the room. Your high fives make my day, and I love the way you cling to me with such a firm grip when you don't want me to put you down (but I have to sometimes).

You may be a year and a half old, but you're always going to be my little man, my "buddy," the first baby I brought home, my little love.

Just stop calling Daddy "mama" okay? I'm pretty sure you know exactly what you are doing and how much it drives him crazy. But I think the joke has played out now, okay? Tell your sister to stop, too. He's "Daddy" or "Papa" or "Dada." Got it? Good!

Love,
Mama

Twins Teething

I expected teething to be hell with two of them. Yet Periwinkle has popped one tooth and is well on her way to at least one more with little more than some runny poo and mild crankiness. She's still sleeping like a champ, smiley in the morning, and in general her normal self. She lulled us into thinking teething might be easy peasy.

Indigo is another story. The only reason I can see for his recent misery is that he's teething. He doesn't let you look in his mouth or feel around for too long so it's hard to tell, but there seem to be at least two coming. As a result, he enjoys screaming in his crib. His voice is hoarse from crying so much the last few nights. He even cried this morning when we put him back in his crib so we could get dressed for the day. If you hold him he's pretty happy (a little too happy at 3am). If he's playing he's pretty happy. But step near the crib and watch out! Two nights ago he was up from 3 to 4:30am. Last night he took until 10:30pm to really fall asleep (normal bedtime: 6:30pm). Needless to say, Blue and I are rather tired. Fingers crossed for better sleep for all of us tonight. Although Periwinkle has been sleeping through all the crying just fine, lucky girl.

And we're just hoping she doesn't get any ideas about upping the crankiness meter. In this case, misery does not need any company.

Last night before the crying began

At a Loss

Since probably last Wednesday, Indigo has been a real PITA at bedtime. We do the usual routine: bottle at 7:30, PJs, diaper change, into the sleep sacks, a bit of swaying and singing, then "goodnight."

Minutes later he's crying at the top of his lungs. We give him a few minutes but he doesn't calm down. One of us goes up to pat him, give him back his paci, try to get him to fall asleep. Sometimes we leave the room with him asleep. Ten minutes later, he's awake and crying again. Rinse and repeat.

"Your turn!" has become an all-too-familiar refrain in our house.

One evening, I picked him up during probably his fifth crying fit and he just collapsed against me and was asleep in an instant (which I admit I totally loved). I held him for a few minutes then put him down. Not a minute later, crying.

How could I NOT pick him up when he looks this upset? That lower lip quiver gets me every time.

It all usually stops at 10:30pm, give or take a few minutes.

Blue wants to just  cave (I don't blame him) and not even put them to bed until then, except that then they'd just be napping downstairs because they ARE tired, and Periwinkle usually goes to bed fine unless her naps were horrendous (or like yesterday when she took a four-hour nap at daycare--way too long). I don't want to mess up the progress we've made with her or give up on the healthier early bedtime.

I've heard suggestions ranging from "He's teething, so wait it out" to "Try an earlier bedtime, he might be too overtired by 8pm to go to sleep easily." He does have his hands in his mouth all the time these days, but teething rings don't really seem to help him. Plus he naps fine. Although, he has been more cranky since about the same time last week, so this could be the reasoning behind it. He's had crying fits during the day when he usually pretty much NEVER cries. And maybe at night he knows he won't be getting comforted all night so he cries. Maybe he just misses us during the week because he spends most of his time at daycare so he wants to be held by us (rip my heart out, kiddo).

It was working. We had a good thing going. What the hell happened in the past week?

The good news is that once finally asleep (which often involves him sleeping for 20 minutes, giving one last cry, then falling back to sleep for good) he sleeps all night. We haven't had a real nightwaking or feeding since Saturday, March 23. So that's been awesome.

Suggestions welcome.

Sleep Crying and Rolling Over

Sleep training is progressing with some more bumps in the road. Apparently I slept through a few nightwakes last night, and Blue kindly took care of the little ones. Whoops. I feel bad. Solidarity in exhaustion, no?

A fun new development since we stopped swaddling the babies last week is that Indigo cries in his sleep. And it's not just a wah-wah cry. No, it sounds like someone is in there trying to kill him. He sounds SO upset, SO pained, and worst of all, SO scared. It breaks my heart to listen to it. An online friend I've dubbed the Sleep Guru told me not to wake Indigo during these times as then it will take forever for him to fall back asleep. Or he could freak out, like people who are sleepwalking tend to do when harshly woken up.

So I tried to just let him cry through it last night. I knew he wasn't hungry or wet, or at least that those things weren't what was bringing the crying on. I had no idea what WAS bringing the crying on, but it wasn't something I could fix. That's perhaps the most frustrating part of this, actually.

But after a minute or two of hearing my baby screaming like that, I had to pick him up. Horizontal didn't work, so up on my shoulder he went, still completely asleep. Phew. He calmed down, so I put him back in the crib. And the screaming started up again. Back up on my shoulder he went, and he came into our room for a few minutes. I reclined a bit to get him a bit more horizontal and he stayed calm. Finally his breathing slowed from that ragged, crying breathing we all get after a good crying jag. I put him back to bed and he stayed asleep and calm. Phew again!

Until 3 am, when it started up again. This time it took less time to get him calm and I never had to leave the nursery. Still broke my heart listening to that cry.

I've been told that babies do not dream until 18 months, so I know he's not having horrific nightmares. I've been told it might be a growth spurt, which might make sense given his recent jump from 6oz to 8oz bottles. And another person told me their child started doing it when they stopped swaddling him, which also could be a reason for Indigo, although by all other accounts he is doing well without it.

I'm also told these crying fits last about ten minutes, that as they get older they will wake more easily and I should definitely let him cry it out at that point, and that frequency diminishes over time. So we'll see what tonight brings...

The day before her first roll-over. So close!

In better news, Periwinkle rolled over for the first time yesterday, from front to back! She looked so surprised. I was ridiculously excited, mainly because we were both there to witness it and she saved it for us, not daycare (unless she did it there and they didn't tell us, which is fine. I'm okay living in ignorance). So, first roll-over on St. Patty's Day!

Almost a year to the day that we found out I was pregnant, which is kind of crazy. Where did the past year go? The Monday after St. Patty's Day last year I was so giddy at work I don't think I did a damned thing. I'm not terribly productive today either, but that's because this project isn't exactly inspiring...

Also, wish me luck at the allergist tonight. I'm hoping they can alleviate the sniffles, and thus the pain my nose is in, so that I don't want to chop it off anymore.

Sleep Training Continues

I was so hopeful last night. Both babies had napped appropriately during the day. They ate at 8pm while I was at Zumba, and Blue got them into their crib by 9pm and read them a story. When I got home a little after 9 he was coming out of their room after his first revisit to pat and reinsert their pacifiers. Periwinkle started crying again at 9:15, and I went up at 9:17. I did a sway and shhh with her and got her eyes looking very sleepy. Indigo was awake but calm, but I did a sway and shhh with him too, mainly because my time with both of them was so limited yesterday because I decided to prioritize ME one day a week and do Zumba. I'm allowed. Still feeling a little guilty...

But in any event. I got both of them sleepy and then went to take a shower. When I got out around 9:45pm, Blue reported that one of them (he didn't check) had been halfheartedly crying but that they were both now sleeping. They worked it out and put themselves to sleep. Go babies!

I was in bed by 10:45pm and asleep soon after, absolutely exhausted from the night before and from Zumba. I'm surprisingly not sore today. I was awoken at 2:30am by Peri crying. I listened for a minute before I realized she wasn't crying so much as complaining, almost "talking" to her brother, who soon started responding. I decided that they were not hungry, just awake. I went in to their room and found them in each others' faces, having moved closer together so that they were now kicking each other. It's definitely time to split them up into separate cribs...

Periwinkle reenacts how I felt upon being woken up at 2:30am by her chit-chat.

I did the sway and shhh again with both of them and got them both sleeping again. Victory! (stupid me prematurely declaring success) I went back to bed and got maybe a half hour of sleep before they started up again. This time sway and shhh wasn't as effective, even though they still didn't seem too distressed. I got Peri asleep again but not Indigo. I changed his diaper and hoped that would do the trick. No go. More swaying and shhing and butt-patting and finally he was calm, at least. Back to bed with me. Twenty minutes later, so now almost 4am, and Periwinkle starts crying for real. This is more what I am used to. I declared defeat and went to make bottles. But I think I'm okay with that, because this time she did sound hungry. Indigo was still just looking around, calm, so we fed him as well.

And then neither of them wanted to go back to sleep. Blue somehow got them sleeping. I'm not sure how, since I conked out almost immediately in desperate need of some zzzzs. I don't think it took him longer than 15 minutes though, so I suppose that's not terrible. They aren't sleepy newborns anymore, after all, so we can't expect them to immediately fall asleep when we lay them down like they used to.

So thus far, I am happy that they napped better, and that I am getting better at reading their cries. I would like to eliminate that 2:30am "playtime" wake time, though. I think it is likely a result of them still being unused to their earlier bedtime and I am hoping that a few more days of this new routine will get them sleeping through until they are hungry, probably around 3:30am or 4am. If a few more days doesn't do the trick, I might try that dreamfeed idea when we go to bed around 10pm.

A work in progress...

And once we get them used to this bedtime, we'll start moving it even earlier in 15 minute increments. They should have an easier time adjusting to that than to this bigger jump from 11pm to 9pm. If daylight savings time doesn't totally eff it all up.

Sleep Training

For a while there, I didn't think we'd need to deal with sleep training. The kids seemed to go to bed just fine after a 10pm feeding (so around 11pm), wake up at 4:30am to eat, then sleep until woken up around 7:30am to go to daycare or hang out around the house if it's the weekend. Then two things happened.

1. I realized I wasn't getting to bed until nearly midnight because I'd be doing all my stuff after they went to bed, which made for Zombie Red once I went back to work. I get up at 6am to be at work by 8am. Figure six hours minus the 4:30am feeding equals about five hours of sleep. That's just not liveable for me.

Probably how I look these days.

2. I did a lot of reading and talking to other moms, and their kids were averaging about 11 hours of sleep at night. Ours were averaging about 8. This was likely creating a vicious cycle where they were then overtired the next day, napped erratically, got even more overtired, then didn't sleep as much at night, and so on. And napping does not have the same restorative features as nightsleep. Also, as the saying goes, "Sleep begets sleep." I.e., get your kids napping well and they will sleep better at night. And if they go to bed earlier at night, they will, quite ironically, go longer before waking up and sometimes will actually start sleeping through the night, because they are better rested and thus sleep more soundly.

So, our mission is two-pronged:

1. Get the kids napping more regularly. No more than two hours should pass between them waking and them going back into nap-land. I'm sure the daycare knows this, but judging from their recent naps, the babies are going too long in between naps during the day.

2. Work back their bedtime from 11pm to 8pm. If that works well, perhaps even try and move it to 7pm, which would probably be best for them. It would mean I would never see them, pretty much, until weekends, so that would be a bit rough on me.

So the plan:

I'm going to mention to daycare, as non-judgmentally as possible, that we really want to work on naptimes and wake times.  It also seems that Periwinkle has a tougher time transitioning between sleep cycles and they might be getting her up when she starts to cry about 45 minutes into her nap. Instead she might just need some patting and shushing to help her fall asleep again for another sleep cycle. I'm going to work on this on weekends before I bring it up at daycare. For now we'll have them work on keeping wake times to two hours or less.

As for the second part, it's worked out pretty well that the babies are now eating around 8:30am, 12:30pm, and 4:30pm. Which leads to a last feeding around 8:30pm and a middle-of-the-night feeding around 3am. Last night Periwinkle was out like a light at 9pm. Indigo had a harder time, but he was the one with the worst napping yesterday so I chalked it up to overtiredness. He did eventually fall asleep for good at 10:08pm after a few cycles of us going up to calm him, rock him, and give him his pacifier back. The last time he cried, I could tell it was different. He would cry somewhat half-heartedly for a few moments, then be quiet for perhaps 20 seconds, then cry again. After a few minutes of that he finally quieted for good and fell asleep. I'm hoping he'll get better at calming himself like he did that last time, and that if we just give him five minutes to cry and then self-soothe he'll put himself back to sleep. It is SO hard to listen to him cry, though, and even though I say we're waiting five minutes, we never make it that long. Luckily Periwinkle can sleep through his crying! This part of sleep training is a work in progress. We still need to push their bedtime another hour earlier but I will let them adjust to 9pm first. We'll get there, little by little.

Day 61 of Project365

Then of course last night Periwinkle was crying at 2:15am, and Indigo woke up around then too, which he rarely does. We tried in vain to get them back to sleep before caving at 3am and feeding them. They both then resisted going back to sleep, and it took about twenty minutes of us going in and calming them (they alternated whose turn it was to cry, which was somewhat helpful) to finally fall asleep again. It's pretty rare that they resist going back to sleep in the middle of the night, so I'm hoping that was just a fluke and not a new normal. I'm sure it has something to do with their new, earlier bedtime, so perhaps in a few days they'll have adjusted and will drift back to sleep like they used to. I ordered Indigo one of the Woombie things Periwinkle has been using this week because his size small swaddling sleep sack just doesn't keep his arms from flailing the way the newborn size did, which I think makes it harder for him to fall asleep. I'm hoping, anyways!

Another thing we might try is a dreamfeed before we go to bed. Essentially you get them to eat while they are still in their crib asleep. This might push the MOTN feeding from 3am to 5am or something like that. We'll see if we feel the need to do that though. Just another tool in our arsenal.

Unless you are a parent of an infant, this was all probably horrible boring for you. If you are my parents or in-laws, this might help you understand what we're now trying to do for next time you are babysitting! I promise I'm not crazy (although Blue probably thinks I am) and there is a lot of evidence behind this whole "early to bed means better sleeping, happier babies" thing.

More Smiles

Indigo decided to finally show Blue his newest accessory: his smile! It seemed that whenever he was smiling and I'd call Blue's attention to it, Indigo would stop immediately. But tonight after bathtime Indigo decided to share. Blue agrees it's a more wide-mouth happy smile, rather than Periwinkle's sort of sly smile. Either way, we love it! Still no photo of it though, sorry. It's still too fleeting an occurrence.

Periwinkle was also very smiley tonight, and the odd part was it was during her bath! Maybe I'll just stick her in the tub next time she's crying like crazy. She seemed to love the warm water tonight!

My in-laws didn't believe us that she is usually quite ornery, especially after, when they babysat Saturday night, she was an angel for them. Figures. But yesterday we went over for the afternoon and she showed her true colors. It's not that we wanted her to cry, we just wanted other people to see what we are dealing with most days. And today Indigo decided to try out the crying thing, too. It was a long day, which made the smiles tonight extra rewarding.

And I'm assuming both are sleeping contentedly right now. I have no idea, since I gave Blue the monitor. Mwhahahaha!

Here's a photo of them from Sunday, looking quite put together and adorable:

I'm doing the 365 days of photos project thingy, and this is Day 3 of my restart. I'd been using another app called My365 since November, but it seemed to be big only in Asia and no one I know was seeing the photos. So now I'm using Instagram like everyone else, even though it doesn't put the photos in a calendar format like the My365 app, which I really liked. I'll save all those photos so I have them, but I'm restarting the project for simplicity's sake. It'll be cool to see them grow day by day!

Happy New Year!

I hope 2013 is treating all of you well so far! Yesterday we just chilled at home. I didn't even get out of my pajamas. It was fantastic. We watched some movies, cuddled some babies, and I spent some time working on a freelance project that is due today. I'm hoping I can finish up when the babies take a nap, if they'd just decide to nap at the same time!

We finally set up the swing we got and tried both babies in it. They seemed okay with it, but at the time were too riled up/hungry to stay in it for long. We'll try again today. It's a nice place to put a baby while I'm working, and that way Blue only has to watch one. Plus it gives babies some one-on-one time with each of us.

We also opened up their last few gifts from family members we didn't see at the holidays. They each got a glow worm, and Indigo got a glowing seahorse thing that makes music. Unfortunately for him, Periwinkle is probably going to use it more. She was a bit ornery this morning (of course) but once I put the seahorse next to her, she got quiet, and then got full of smiles.

I got maybe 45 minutes of happy Periwinkle before she wigged out again. She spent some time in the Ergo while I finished up my freelance project, and is currently crying again as I sit here hoping the seahorse can work its magic again (edited: it didn't. She's currently in my lap making little whimpers as she gathers her breath again). Indigo is just staring at her as if saying, "What is her problem and can you turn it off?"

Speaking of Indigo, I got the first REAL smiles out of him today. Big, wide-mouthed, gummy-toothed grins. It melted my heart. The grins came with real, prolonged eye contact, too. He's been a bit behind Periwinkle on these things, so it was so nice to see him catching up a bit. I'll try to catch the grins on camera next time but I didn't have one near me.

Lucky for us, we are entering the new year with two babies who are sleeping really well at night (although Periwinkle still struggles to nap during the day). We even got 6.5 hours out of them one night, followed by a five-hour chunk! We can work with that!

Teething Already?

As insane as this sounds, I think Periwinkle might be teething already. 

Today she has been super cranky and drooling a lot, and, as she was in my lap crying in full force, I noticed a white spot on her upper right gums. I thought maybe it was formula but I touched it and it did not go away and she started crying harder. Poor kiddo. 

Not Periwinkle, but pretty much what she's looked like most of the day.

I called my mother (of course) and she suggested a cold cloth held on her gums. Periwinkle started sucking on it so I'm not sure if I actually hit the right spot, and then she kept crying. But when I offered her chuchetto (pacifier) she started sucking on that like crazy again and quieted down. She's now quietly swaddled in the pack n play, so hopefully she's feeling better. 

We'll keep an eye on the white spot to see if it sticks around or what. Google leads me to believe three months would be the earliest teething would occur, which, given she's a preemie, would mean she has two months until she should be starting, but who knows? Babies are born with teeth so I guess they could start popping through at any time. 

It figures that I notice this white spot the day after her doctor's appointment...

Horrible Mother

I took these photos instead of solving the problem. I call this series "Help! I Lost My Pacifier!"

What cements my place as a horrible mother is the fact that I burst into hysterical laughter every time I see the fourth picture. I can't help myself. Poor Indigo.

Here's a picture from later today where he's much more zen:

Mainly he's just pissed off I'm taking pictures again, I think.

And some cute pictures of Periwinkle in two cute outfits I had her in today. I absolutely love the sleep n play in the first shot. I have no idea why, but the way it fits her or something just makes me go "awww" and want to smother her with kisses. Which I don't. Because that would definitely get me horrible mother status. The second outfit is super simple: just a long-sleeved onesie and blue pants Fuschia got her (remember the clothing cupcakes from my baby shower this summer?). But she pulls it off with aplomb.

Both of these pictures were taken right before she broke out into crazy crying. She wasn't a fan of the bouncy seat today, and in the second shot she was just about to lose the pacifier. These kids and their pacifiers...

Almost Three Weeks Old!

How did that happen? Even crazier to consider they were supposed to be born today! The best laid plans...

Things continue to go well. Indigo is a rock star sleeper now, not even waking up when his sister cries. Or he'll just lie there and look sideways at her and then back at us as if to say, "What is her problem? Can't you turn it off?"

Periwinkle seems to have a "witching hour" between 11pm and 3am, although last night it was delayed a bit because she was up a lot during the day crying for seemingly no reason at all. I'm wondering if it's gas/stomachache related. She also tends to spit up at some point after eating, whether ten minutes later or two hours. She's eating slightly more than she had been in the NICU, which is what she should be doing, so it's not like we're overfeeding her. We continue to try new things and hope she'll settle into her new routine as she figures out night and day. With the constant noise and light in the NICU, it's no wonder she's a little backwards. We just feel so bad when we can't seem to comfort her in the middle of the night!!

And now, some cuteness:

Kind of holding hands

Indigo isn't sure about the bouncy seat.

Finally sleeping. During the day. My backwards girl.