Parenting Check In

ATXmommas · June 2014

How was your week? Challenges? Successes? Updates?

I'm so tired that I don't have two thoughts to run together, which means I can't think of a QOTD. If you have one, please chime in!

mwagner25 · June 2014

Hello all! Looks like I am first to check in, which seems fair since we missed last week. Last week we went up to a cabin in Minnesota with my whole family. We had a blast but Oliver caught his first illness from my neice while we were there. I felt terrible for him while he was running a fever. We had to rotate Tylenol and Motrin to keep it under 102.... thankfully the virus only lasted 2 days for Oliver (granted both Mommas are still feeling the effects of it). Since we were out of town and in twin beds I did a fair amount of co-sleeping (L shockingly was okay with it) and nursing during the night to keep him hydrated and give his extra antibodies. So this week we are working on getting back on track with sleeping through the night and keeping him in his crib.

We are still waiting on those first teeth to pop through and he has been a little extra fussy because of it. We just keep trying cold teethers/ice cubes/frozen wash cloths ect to get through the tough days. Fingers crossed they pop through soon. He has also has increased his crying when we leave the room. He will be playing and happy but as soon as we walk out he cries. If we come back in he stops immediately. From what I read it is an appropriate developmental thing but it means taking him with me into the next room if I am doing small chores while he is playing. Not much else new here. This is really just such a fun age/time right now.

@ATXmommas I hope Ash is feeling better... Although I am guessing if you are super tired today that things may still be rough at your house. You will have to update us later if you are up to it.

ATXmommas · June 2014

@mwagner25‌ - poor Oliver and poor mommas! Glad he's doing better. I feel you!

Little guy will be 7 months on Saturday! How did that happen?

Last week was really tough. The infection in the right ear came back full force and Ash was miserable. And mommas were tired. It's such an awful feeling to see your baby hurting and not be able to do much to help other than Motrin and snuggles. Nights were the worst. I was a zombie last week, and lack of sleep always makes me hyper emotional. He's doing much better now and we have follow up with ENT next week. Will be interested to hear what they say.

We had a pretty good weekend and started swimming lessons. We went ahead and signed up for an 11 week class. Excited about that. He was a bit cranky again yesterday - wondering if his top teeth are trying to cut through. I'm not quite sure because his symptoms were quite different right before his bottom teeth popped through.

Requesting some input about sleep this week...

So, the 4-month sleep regression hit us pretty hard and it has not gotten better. I was trying to weather the what I thought would be a temporary storm, but I haven't felt rested in ages. This is generally what night time looks like (we bed share) -

7:30-8:00 - nurse to sleep
9:00-9:30 - wakes up; Z puts him back to sleep (lately she has been putting him down in his crib)
11-30-12:00 - wakes up, I bring him to bed and nurse
2:00 - wakes up, I give him a "snack," which means he only nurses on one side rather than both
4:00 - wakes up, I nurse
5:30-6:00, wakes up for day, nurse

I do not plan on completely night weaning until he is at least 12 months, but I would love to get him sleeping for 4-5 hours a stretch. Thoughts?!?!

PIP is from his swimming lesson (Z is in water with him)

ATXmommas · June 2014

@stringy813‌ - he typically eats every 3 hours during the day - about 8-9 times in a 24-hour period. We are doing BLW, so it is difficult to know exactly how much he is eating. During the week, we only offer food in the evenings - usually around 7. Last night he ate a couple chunks of watermelon and a pretty good amount of a quarter dollar sized bean patty. If we could get avoid his initial wake up that occurs between 9 and 10 that would be awesome. Even though I don't nurse him then and Z puts him back to sleep, it's still a big disruption in my sleep (it's not unusual for me to be asleep before 9). I'll look at Gordon's website. It would be nice to cut back to twice a night for now, then once a night in another couple months, then completely by the time he is a year.

ATXmommas · June 2014

QOTW: We haven't yet, but plan to. We're definitely interested in creating those relationships, just not a priority right now.

KH826 · June 2014

Hi Everyone!

Will is 12 days old today, and today he is very clingy and just wants to be held and snuggled. He usually loves his swing and naps there a couple times a day, but today he just doesn't want me to put him down. So I am following his lead and am cuddling him as much as he wants. Which means getting nothing else done -- not even a shower yet -- but I am ok with that if he just needs some extra lovin today.

My wife is at work today all day. This is my first day home alone with Will all day. My wife worked two half days last week, but today is a full day. I miss her. When I think about it I cry - darn hormones! She is working PT at least while I am on mat leave, then she will be a SAHM when I go back to work. I would like to find a way for us to have a few weeks at the end of my leave where she is home too. We are going to talk about that tonight...

Otherwise, things are good.
I think I have to run now because little guy is starting to stir in my arms and I think he is going to he hungry.
I will try to pop back on later!

JGY · June 2014

Gabe will be 15 months next week.

He's in an awesome stage with new stuff happening every day, but he's also incredibly challenging right now. He's super mobile, and into EVERYTHING. We've baby proofed quite a bit, but there are some things that we just can't baby proof, so like pp above we end up saying a lot of "No" and it drives me nuts. But seriously, what are you supposed to do when your kid can get from the floor to the top of the piano in about 10 seconds???

While we have made some good progress with sleep, it does continue to be an issue. We had a run of great nights, but now we seem back to the twice-nightly wakings. I'm clearly NOT the authority on sleep and should offer no advice to anyone else.

Last week I thought we had made some decent progress on the car seat issues as well, but alas we are back to full-on screaming fits every time we need to go anywhere. This morning I let him do up his own buckle which seemed to be a big hit, but before I can do that I have to literally wrestle him into submission. Ugh.

QOTW: I'm likely overthinking things (who me? never), but I feel like anything having to do with half-sibs, or really anything to do with the donor, is Gabe's business. I have gone on both the DSR and the cryobank websites anonymously, so I know that there are at least 6 half-siblings out there. But I feel like whether or not we have a relationship with those families should be up to Gabe. Plus, honestly, doing that research and making those connections is something that Gabe will be able to do for himself prior to the age of 18, the age at which he'd first have access to donor information. So if I take the steps to make contact with those sibling families now, it leaves less steps that Gabe can take on his own when he's ready. Does that make any sense? Sometimes I feel like I'm just talking bunk. I do have a LOT of curiosity though ...

Filmfanatic82 · June 2014

Hi Everyone!

@KH826 -- Good luck flying solo with Will! I remember the first few days were a bit rocky when Danielle went back to work and my mom finally went back to florida, but soon we just fell into a semi-schedule and it's been pretty smooth sailing ever since.

Charley turned 3 months this past weekend and we spent it bouncing between a few family functions. Love Danielle's family but they tend to be a bit on the loud side (it's the old school Italian in them) and love to play hot potato with Charley. We ended up having to stay outside on the porch for most of the party just so Charley wouldn't be too overwhelmed.

(PIP) Here's our 3 month photo. We did it at bath time, so we ended up doing one naked and one in an outfit.

QOTW: Both Danielle and I feel pretty strongly that we'll let our kids track down any half-siblings or even their donor if they want to when they are older but we have no interest in knowing ourselves nor want to establish a relationship.

Jazibel · June 2014

Sorry for being MIA today - a pipe burst over the water heater in the garage flooding everything. The repairperson is here now fixing it, and I hope that its something that can be repaired this evening. A night with two kids and no water is not something I'm looking forward too.

Owen is 6 weeks old and Kaden will be 2 on July 13th!! I feel like time is truly flying by, my little newborn is already in 3 -6 month clothes and size 2 diapers (we're doing a mix of disposable and cloth). Owen is cooing, smiling and laughing. He's been able to hold his head up since birth and he just gets stronger. He loves to sit upright and face other people or us and look around. I love and cherish every second we spend together. He's losing that newborn look and starting to look more like a "baby" ;-)
Kaden is a little chatterbox. I'm starting to work on more formally teaching him things, counting, letters, colors. I know he's young, but he loves learning and so I figured why not? Today we did some very messy finger painting outside and worked on color recognition. Tomorrow I think I'll make a shape game. The activities also keep us both busy. He's high energy and needs to be active (physically and mentally) to be happy and engaged otherwise I have a tense, emotional toddler on my hands (well MORE emotional ;-) ). Anyway its super fun.

QOTD: We'll maintain a relationship with our friends and their daughter (who is K & O's half-sister on the donors side). I'm not sure yet how we'll talk about it. We discussed this months ago when making our initial plans to share our donor, but we adults will likely discuss it again to come to a consensus. Right now we're informally calling all the kids cousins. I grew up with "cousins" that were the kids of my parents close friends. I didn't have many actual cousins so it was nice to have this extended chosen family. I guess I view this arrangement to be similar. Of course we'll be open with all the kids when they're ready learn/talk about it. I'm excited about seeing little H grow up, and for O & K to more family. Our friends K & A may chose to have a third child (with A carrying the next time) if that is the case they may use the same donor again. So perhaps even more "cousins" in the future.
When we were using donor sperm we were using WTBK donors and did want to be in the family network too. With "strangers" it could be more complicated but we still wanted to be able to reach out, in particular if people were local.
Our donor is currently unmarried without kids of his own. I'm assuming one day he will chose to have a family and I'm open to introducing those sibling as well as our kids grow up, but I also realize that his future spouse will play a role and EV and I are willing to face those decisions when the time comes. Our donor has such an exuberant personality though that I can't imagine him with a closed-minded spouse - but we'll have to wait and see.

ATXmommas · June 2014

So, this might be a total fluke, but I put Ash to sleep in his own crib at bedtime (which was about 45 minutes later than normal) and we're just now up at close to 3am. This is amazing. I love bed-sharing, but if he/we are able to get more sleep with him in his crib, I'm totally ok with that.

Pinkspark · June 2014

Sorry for coming to the party late guys!

My mother in law has been staying with us the past 2 1/2 weeks, and my wife is dropping her off at the airport now. I'm really sad to see her go back to FL. I'll miss her terribly and now I'm really flying solo with the twins.

This past week has been a bit rough feeding-wise... I'm hoping I can get them back into a schedule sooner than later so I can handle both while I'm alone.

Aside from that- everything is good..sleep deprived- but good!!

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