Three Month Twins!

Happy birthday Julia and Caroline!

Miss Caroline

Miss Julia

"Julia, get your giant head off me!"

The girls are doing really great.  They are smiling and "talking" a lot.  Lately Caroline smiles and talks more while Julia is the more serious one.  She smiles and coos too but not as quickly and easily as Caroline.  We notice Julia studying her hands and feet a lot.  Julia is a better sleeper and a better eater.  She almost always finishes her bottle first and falls asleep easier and faster than her sister.  Speaking of sleep, it is still going really well.  Tonight we just laid them down in their cribs (that's right they are finally in their cribs as of this week!), said good night, and left the room.  THAT IS IT!  It's all quiet up there now.  They made a few grunts, noises, and whines but no crying and nothing that warranted us going back up there.  It's not always quite this easy but the easy nights seem to outnumber the ones that take more effort.   We also had two nights of 10 hour sleep this week.  The girls actually slept later than my alarm clock once.  It was fabulous!

They are growing more and more.  Some 3 month clothing is starting to get a little snug. We ordered Size 2 diapers for next time.  Man, do we ever go through the diapers.

Disappointingly, I came down with a fourth mastitis infection last Friday night (right after I wrote that the pumping was really going well).  This one was complete with a red, sore breast plus the glorious aches, chills, and fever.  Luckily it didn't last long.  Saturday I was a little worn out and tired but I felt basically normal other than that.  I am on my fourth course of antibiotics now.  Given this latest infection, I have made the difficult decision to gradually stop pumping and switch to formula.  This was a hard decision to make but in the throes of my fever last Friday I knew it was time to throw in the towel.  Something just isn't right and I can't keep getting sick.  Especially now that I'm back to work.  I don't like the fear that another one might be coming on, it's a terrible feeling.  So I've talked to a lactation consultant and we came up with a plan to gradually stop.  She wants me to move extremely slow given my history of mastitis and my large milk supply. The first step was to take the herb sage 3X a day for 3 days.  This is supposed to decrease your milk supply.  It did nothing for me.  So now I am gradually shortening my pumping sessions.  Once I get them down to 8 minutes or so, I'm supposed to call her back to talk through how to start dropping sessions.

I've thought a lot about the various pros and cons of this change.  Obviously the biggest, most important con is not being able to give the girls breast milk.  But there are a lot of other considerations too.

Cons:

• The cost of formula...times TWO
• Not being able to eat insane amounts of food with no consequences
• No more poultry and fish
• Not as much reading time

Pros:

• Alcohol
• Coffee
• No more nursing bras
• Don't have to buy nursing pads, Vitamin D for the girls, or milk storage bags
• I will hopefully fit back into my old shirts after my chest goes back to its normal size
• More time!  I won't have to be tied to the pump six times a day.  More time to spend with my family and help out.  It's pretty inconvenient to have to come home and pump before dinner for example.  I'd rather be playing/loving on the kids.
• I'll be able to sleep in more during the week and go back to bed quicker in the middle of the night after feeding the girls

So I am definitely sad about it but I felt like I gave it a good try.  And by the time I actually stop and we use up the 850+ ounces in the freezer they will have had about 4 months of breast milk which is pretty good!  But to be honest, I'm also looking forward to all of those things on the pros list!

Next week a co-worker of mine is coming to babysit the kids for a couple of hours while we go out to dinner.  I am not turning down any capable hands who offer to sit for us!