Friday, January 10, 2014

7 Months

How old? 7 months

Our weights: 

Alexis: 12 lbs 14 oz (+1 lb from last month)
Jack: 13 lbs 8 oz (+1 lb 2 oz from last month)
Faith: 12 lbs 6.5 oz (+1 lb 2.5 oz from last month)

Although Jack's weight gain has been steady, the girls have had a little more trouble gaining weight (especially Faith). I feel like everyone has done great eating and gaining weight over the last month! 


Size clothes: The girls are still squeezing into some of their 3 month clothes but they do wear 6 months clothes as well.  Jack is wearing 6 month (and even a couple of 9 month things). All of their 6 month PJ's have become really snug but the 9 month ones are huge, so the girls are still squeezing in the smaller size for now.


Eating schedule: I'm trying really hard to keep a consistent schedule for the babies, although it is hard to force myself to get up in the morning if I've gotten up multiple times during the night for crying babies. Everyone is getting 5 bottles a day and we feed every 3 hours. The first bottle of the day is between 6:30 and 7:00, so if I actually start feeding at 6:30 a.m. they also get fed at 9:30, 12:30, 3:30, and 6:30 p.m. Over the last month the girls often were fed again around 10:00 p.m. to help them get in more calories. Jack has been getting almost 7 ounces (our bottles only hold 200 ml and 210 is 7 oz), Alexis has been getting 6 oz, and Faith 5 oz. A few days ago we bumped Faith up to 6 oz as she has started finishing 5 oz most of the time. They do not always drink the whole bottle, but they have been doing a lot better!


Naps: The babies get a nap after their first, second, and third bottles of the day, and they sometimes get a short "cat nap" between their fourth and fifth bottles if they did not nap well that day. Usually one baby gets off schedule from the other two as they don't all nap for the same amount of time, so the naps end up being at slightly different times (which means I always have a baby awake), but I strive to put them down for a nap about 1.5-2 hours after they wake up depending on how tired they seem. In total everyone gets between 3-4 hours of naps in each day. We are still trying to separate them as much as possible during nap times as they tend to sleep better when they're not in the same room, but this was a little more difficult when we had family in town and we were traveling.

Bedtime: We start feeding the 5th bottle between 6:30 and 7:00 and we put the babies in bed between 7:00 and 7:30. Over the last month we have continued to give the girls a bottle around 10:00 p.m. if they didn't eat enough during the day. Lately, though, they have been eating greater volumes during the day so we have not had to do this, and I believe it helps them sleep better at night as their sleep cycle isn't being interrupted to eat. 

Night Sleep:  Most nights we get up between 4-6 times to give the girls their pacifiers. Every once in awhile (about once a week probably) one of the girls seems to need a bottle in middle of the night as the pacifier, diaper change, and rocking is not enough. We are trying to be more consistent with our feeding schedule as I've read that helps babies sleep better at night (especially if there is a consistent wake up time every day). There have been a couple of nights that we have only had to get up once, and that felt amazing since it is hard to have our sleep interrupted so often, so we're hoping we have many more of those nights in the future! Recently we have been separating everyone at night again (Jack in our room, Lexi in the guest room, Faith in the nursery) so that they don't disturb each other at night. I think we need a bigger house so they can all have their own room consistently (and we have started looking, but who knows how long that search will take!).


Favorite foods:  On December 19 we tried feeding rice cereal to the babies for the first time, and no one was that excited about it. We haven't been giving them solids every single day as they haven't really caught on yet, but we've also tried pureed apples several times and pureed peaches a couple of times. I've heard a lot about "baby led weaning" recently so I plan to read up on that so that we can start giving the babes food off of our plates as they do seem interested when we're eating. Maybe that will go over better with them than rice cereal (which is disgusting by the way) and pureed stuff.


Our likes? Really no changes from last month. Singing is the best way to calm them down. They love to play in and with all of their toys (we got some great new things for Christmas!). They also enjoy stroller rides, which isn't new, but we have started to push them in the triple stroller while running and they do great! When they were so small we were worried it would jostle them too much, but now that they have great head control we aren't worried and they fall asleep pretty quickly.
 One other thing they've started doing during the last few weeks is grabbing our faces, which is pretty funny and can be a bit disgusting if their hands are slobbery (which happens a lot with Jack as he is constantly sucking on his hands).


Our dislikes? Again, not any big changes from last month. They really are great babies, and they like most things!


Our favorite games/toys? They still like the same things as last month, and we have now determined that their favorite book is "Pajama Time" by Sandra Boynton. Every time we read it they get huge smiles and are totally entertained. In fact, Micah and I pretty much have it memorized so even if we just recite it to them they get really happy. Although I've heard mixed reviews on tickling, they do seem to enjoy a limited amount while getting changed. Their laughs are priceless, and they always get us laughing too! 

 
Our milestones? Alexis has gotten much stronger with her tummy time and no longer needs to use a Boppy. Jack has rolled over a few times from back to front. Faith has rolled over from back to front too many times to count! The only bad thing is that Faith has not figured out how to go from front to to back, so there have been a few times she has woken us up crying at night because she was stuck on her tummy. Alexis and Jack watch Faith roll all of the time, and I'm sure they will get it down soon too. 


Things we do to make Mom and Dad smile? Seriously they are just so cute all of the time that pretty much anything makes us smile (except for this annoying moaning noise that the girls make when they get tired or bored, but most of their noises are cute). 

Our Pictures:



FAITH













ALEXIS









JACK











ALL TOGETHER (L to R: Faith, Jack, Alexis)






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