Bottles for daycare

If you're sending your kids to daycare like we did, they need to have all the bottles made and ready for the entire day. This meant 2 kids, 6 bottles/day while at school = 12 bottles to make. Every day. Just for school.

So don't kill yourself making each bottle individually. Go get yourself a couple of pitchers. You can get them anywhere. You used to make strawberry daiquiris in them before you had twins, remember?

Make sure each child has his own pitcher and write his name on it so there is no confusion. The last thing you want to do is mix up the formulas. We had 1 child with a milk protein allergy so he was on Neutramegin, which was one of the most foul smelling odors I've ever smelled. I still can't even believe he drank it, but he did. The other one was on Enfamil AR, which is pretty common.

Mix the right amount of formula with water so there is enough for all 6 bottles. Do this the night before and put it in the fridge for the morning. Pour the bottles in the morning and you're good to go. Before going to bed that night (obviously after washing all 12 bottles and the pitcher), make the pitchers again and put in the fridge.

While it doesn't seem like much time is saved, believe it or not making the pitchers and not the individual bottles saved enough time for us to maybe eat breakfast in the morning or perhaps snooze once or twice.

And in the world of having children, not just twins, those two things are gold.

Less is Better?

So I've had this opinion for a very long time about something.. Some people disagree and that's fine. It may not even work for everyone as everybody is different. But it works for me and I guess that's all that matters.

Let me ask you a question: When it's the winter and you get into your bed and it's cold (because you're just getting in) do you warm up faster with more clothes on or less?

My thought has always been that the less clothes you wear to bed, the more contact the comforter has with your skin and therefore transfers the heat more quickly warming up your body faster. Am I crazy? There are people out there who swear by wearing socks, sweatshirt, sweatpants, etc to bed saying they're cold so they wear layers.  But to me, that doesn't make sense. The heat from the comforter has to go through all of those layers to get to your body.

Perhaps it's the difference between wearing more clothes takes you longer to get warm but keeps you warm longer because the heat is trapped in from all the layers, or wearing less clothes makes you warmer faster but escapes easily there's less clothes in which to trap the heat.

I guess it will be one of those age old questions that's never answered. All I know is the best cure for a cold bed is to bring your yellow lab up and use her as a space heater.

Feeding, at the same time

When I tell you that trying to feed them at the same time is a disaster, I'm not kidding. But, then that little lightbulb goes off and you think you're a genius. You're not, you've just had more sleep that day than previous days..

Step 1: Get a boppy. 2 if you can, but one will suffice.
Step 2: Please the boppy to the side of you, whichever is your dominant hand so the open part of the ring is facing you.
Step 3: Put 1 kid in the boppy leaning the head against the middle of the ring so they are slightly upright.
Step 4: Sit up against a pillow, wall, etc so you are upright and place your other child on your lap with your knees up so they are upright.
Step 5: While making sure both kids are within arms reach, feed. You don't have to hold either kid, they are being help upright by either the boppy or your knees which will help with swallowing and digestion and you can feed both at the same time.

If your first question is about burping after, well that goes to another lesson you're going to learn. Well, more like your twins are going to learn: You won't always be first and you won't always be last. Burping at the same time is ok, but I found you were never really able to get a good one because of the lack of control. So pick one up, burp them, put them upright on the boppy or the bouncy seat and then burp the other one.

Once you've mastered this, you will drastically cut down on the feeding time for each kid and you have more time between feedings.

Feeding

So I'll be switching gears a bit and delving into some tips for dads of twins.. I wish someone had been there to help me with these things along the way, but hey, sometimes you gotta just do it yourself and figure it out.

So we had a lot of feeding issues when the boys first came home (not to mention in the NICU). I mean, 45 minutes for one of them to take about 1-2 ounces, only to have them throw it all back up. Yeah, and at 2am it pretty much meant that life sucked.

So we invested in some bouncy seats, but they were more upright and we didn't utilize the bouncy function. We were sleep deprived, but not idiots.. So after feeding one, we would him hold upright for about 10 minutes and carefully burp hopeful not to bring up everything that was just consumed, if that was anything. Then, carefully put into the bouncy seat. This allowed the baby to be help upright as much as possible to help with digestion while we fed the other one. Then, when the 2nd one was done, we would switch them, wait another 10 minutes or so and then put the second one back in the crib.

It definitely worked..  It took a little more time overall, but it got better as time went on because they would be eating more and puking less as their stomachs grew. So if your twins (or singletons for that matter) have reflux issues, try holding upright for a bit after eating and then place in a more upright bouncy seat to let everything settle before putting back down flat in the crib. That will hopefully work as well for you as it did for us.

And this is not a one way street. If you have tips that you think other parents would benefit from, please feel free to post in the comments as the more information the better!

Running with Scissors

I have to admit, we're pretty lucky. Having twins enables us to sleep because they always have someone to play with. I also will not complain because if there is one thing we were blessed with it is good sleeping kids. On any given night they'll sleep 10 hours, straight through. And based on everything we've been through, we deserve at least that.

So we've conditioned them from a very young age that Saturdays and Sundays are for sleeping. So when they wake up, they usually either go downstairs to the playroom, go to the kitchen table and play with whatever game is available, or stay in their rooms and play with cars, build forts, etc.. But they know that Saturday and Sunday is for sleeping. Unless there's something going on, we can usually get to 8am, which is usually unheard of when you have kids.

So for Hanukkah the boys got Trouble and Sorry as gifts. How apropos, right?  Anyway, Trouble was already opened and played ad nauseum, although it is a fun game. Sorry was still in the cellophane wrapping. They came into our bedroom Saturday morning and asked if we could come downstairs, open it and play. It was too early so we said play Trouble for a bit and well come down soon, open Sorry and we'll play. I came downstairs shortly thereafter to walk the dog only to find the Sorry board game open, set up on the living room floor with the two of them quietly playing. Reluctantly, I asked how they got the game open. And of course, the answer was "with scissors".

After feeling my heart in my throat, I took a deep breath knowing that they were fine so clearly nothing bad had happened. I asked them to show me what they did. They walked me into the kitchen, opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out the pair of scissors they used. They even said, "and we carried it like you showed us", which is with your hand over the closed blades. Hey, I gotta give them points for at least listening. Since their hands are not strong enough to open the scissors, it looks like it was a team effort. They got the cellophane open, put the scissors back, shut the drawer and played the game.

Now, there is no way I can be mad really. I WANT them to be more self-sufficient. I WANT them to be independent and take care of things I know they can. I WANT them to work together to come up with solutions to problems. I just didn't think it would happen so quickly!

So I explained to them that while I was very impressed at what they did, that they always needed to be careful when utilizing scissors or any sharp object and never to run with them. They understood.

Now, if I could only get them to pour their milk for their cereal...

Energy

As in, where do they get it from?

Seriously, remember how much energy you used to have? I used to work all day on a Saturday and then go out. And when I say all day, I mean all day. 8a in the office to 7p. And this was running youth soccer programs so it was on my feet with hardly a break all day, dealing with kids ranging in age from 6 to 15 AND their parents. And then I would go out all night with friends. Now, I hardly have the energy to sit at a desk all day without taking a nap.

I don't know where kids get the energy. But they bounce back so quickly they must stockpile it or something. If I could find a way to bottle it and sell it I would be a gazillionaire!  My house has recently been taken over by some super virus that affected us all (even the dog). Both boys were better somewhere around Thursday.  I swear, for kids it only takes the # of years of their lives in minutes to be at full energy. They could be sitting on the couch looking like they could fall asleep at any moment and then PRESTO!, off they go either down in the playroom, wrestling or just being crazy.

Parents, on the other hand, I believe it takes the # of years of their lives in days, not minutes to be back to full strength, if ever. I'm 36, so therefore it should take around 5 weeks for me to totally be back at 100% full strength. It's been 6 days already and I feel ok, but I just don't have the energy level I used to have. I guess I have about 4 weeks to go. Ugh, to be young again..

The Beach, Part 2

I wrote a blog about 6 weeks ago called The Beach. This is Part 2.

The boys have pretty much always had tie-sneakers. We wanted them to get in the habit of having to have their shoes tied (whether by us or eventually themselves) and not always rely on velcro. Otherwise, it might be harder to break them of the habit later on. However, 1 pair was getting too small, very small and the other child's was falling apart. We had received a pair of sneakers for each from a relative who works in the industry, unfortunately they were too big. Like clown shoes. Even stuffing newspaper in the top would not have helped.

So I had to set out and find sneakers. I got the last 2 pairs of sneakers at Target that were their sizes, but they were velcro. No big deal, I'm sure it'll be fine.

They liked their new sneakers which is good. And the first day they came home from school I ask, like I always do "Did you play outside today"? And they answered how the usually do "yes". I said ok, you know what to do..  This means go sit on the front steps and take off your sneakers and shake them out from all the sand that we all know somehow accumulates in their sneakers (and usually ends up all over the house).

Well, I am then told that they don't have any sand. I said you played outside right? They said yes, so I said well then you have to have sand in there. It's only happened every day since they've been going to school there so why should today be any different.

I don't know what magical properties these velcro sneakers have but wouldn't you know it the little buggers were right.. NO SAND!!! And they haven't had sand in their sneakers 1 day since switching to velcro.

If I had known that velcro sneakers were the secret to not having sand all over my house, I certainly would not have worried about them wearing tie shoes.

Next up though is teaching them how to tie their shoes. However I should not be the one to do this. But that is another blog for another day.