2 Month Immunizations

The babies had their 2 month well-child check with Dr. S. on Friday. Everything went well. The babies had to get their first round of shots so I was a bit nervous about how things would go. No one wants to watch their baby get jabbed with a big needle. In this case, it was three separate shots and one oral liquid that they drink. Since the liquid is sweet they start with that and then move onto the more painful immunizations. Poor babies!!

Dad was at the appointment with us. Three nurses came in to help administer the shots and Ben managed to hold Simon while Solomon and Isla were put on the exam table. Isla and Simon bled from the injections. I was busy warming bottles in the exam room so we could feed them right after the shots. I did this for two reasons. 1 - it was time for them to eat and 2. I read that babies do better after shots if they are offered a bottle. They all cried but the process went much better than we ever anticipated. We came home and they slept for about 4 hours. We woke Isla up to eat and she was just screaming and screaming. She was letting us know how much she did not appreciate the shots. Anyway, we got her to take some of her bottle and gave her some infant's Tylenol and she feel asleep. The boys didn't seem to act different but we gave them Tylenol just in case. No one ended up with a fever and Isla began acting normal later that night. Whew. Another prayer answered!!

Friday night went really well. The babies were put to bed after their 6 pm feeding and they slept until 11:30 when we fed them again and they slept for quite some time. Isla woke up at 3 am for a bottle and then slept until 8:20 am. The boys woke up at 5:30 and 6 and then fell back to sleep. So, it was a pretty successful night. I still had to get up three times to pump but I still was able to get more sleep than normal. Saturday night was similar. So either they are beginning to sleep longer stretches at night, they are tired from their shots on Friday, or this is a fake out and they'll begin getting up a lot again tonight. Who knows. I guess the positive note is that the last two nights were decent. Praise God!

Here are some pictures of our first neighborhood stroll:

Our help this week - Bompa, Nanny and Papi

The babies have been enjoying this week getting spoiled by their Bompa (my Dad) and their Great Grandparents - Nanny and Papi (My Grandparents)! Nanny and Papi have been looking forward to meeting their great grandchildren since the day Ben and I found out we were pregnant. The babies love them so much. We even got to celebrate Grandpa's 91st birthday this week! Happy Birthday Grandpa/Papi! Here's a picture of Nanny and Papi with the triplets:



My Dad has also been in town since last Friday to help out with the babies. We have enjoyed his company so much. Ben and I were alone for 2 weeks and it was definitely tiring. With Dad in town we're able to get more things done around the house and also sleep a bit more. Praise God! Here's a picture of Bompa with the triplets:



Our home health visit on Tuesday went really well. The boys remain off of oxygen during the day and only get put back on when they are sleeping. Isla was finally able to handle room air so she has started going off oxygen during the day except for nap times. If they continue to move forward like this they might be off oxygen in a couple of weeks!! Hooray!!

Here are the weights as of Tuesday, 9/22.
Isla: 7 lb 6.8 oz
Solomon: 8 lbs 12.2 oz
Simon: 8 bs 5.2 oz

Here are a couple of pictures:

Isla

Solomon

Simon

Simon and Solomon

Sleep? What's that?!?

If it's not the babies waking us it's something else.

Our nights don't leave us with much sleep so when we wake up from something other than the babies it's frustrating. A couple nights ago we had a hard time getting some shut eye. Simon was awake FOREVER and crying really hard. We couldn't seem to get him to sleep. After hours of rocking, etc. he fell asleep and we ran to bed to catch some sleep before one of the others woke up to eat. We slept for about a half hour when we woke up to a loud beeping sound. We figured it was a low battery in the smoke alarm so we ran around the house searching for the source. Ben changed the battery in the alarm in our room and just as we crawled into bed again the beeping was back. It was the carbon monoxide detector in our room. I ran down stairs to bring that CO alarm upstairs to see if it would go off and it didn't. Ben ran a test on it and the alarm went off and said the CO level was 254. We thought that would be strange to only have CO problems in our bedroom so we took it outside and ran the test again. Turns out the test falsifies the CO level to make the alarm go off and what we were really dealing with was a low battery. The level wasn't 254 after all. Whew. We changed the battery and crawled into bed for about 30 minutes before our 2 am shift began.

Nights are long in our house right now since the babies aren't sleeping through the night yet. Isla almost always sleeps 6 hour stretches (hooray!) and the boys range from 3 hours to 4 hours. Occassionally a 5 hour stretch sneaks in there. We love those little gifts. :) It sounds like we should be getting decent sleep if they are sleeping those stretches but we don't. If one wakes up and we feed them all we are up for 1 1/2 hours with feeding and then add another 30 minutes to an hour to get them to go to sleep again and it's almost time for the next feeding shift to begin. If we don't feed them all at the same time it seems like a hungry baby is awake almost every hour throughout the night with a few non-consecutive hours as a break. Add pumping in there for me and bottle making for Ben and it's that much more sleep we've lost throughout the night. We still have our shift times but if a baby isn't waking up, the shift doesn't happen. Ben takes 11 pm - 2 am and I take 2 am through the rest of the night. Ben usually feeds a baby or helps make the next batch of milk before running off to work. In the evenings we share the responsibility until 11 pm. It's tiring but we're surviving. We know this phase won't last forever and knowing that helps. Here's a picture of our bottle counter right before we pour the milk (3/4 breastmilk + 1/4 formula) for the next few feedings:




The babies are continuing to grow like weeds. We had a moment where we thought we might have to begin adding rice cereal to Isla's bottles since she was spitting up a lot and she's a pokey eater too. Fortunately her last weight check showed that she gained 7.4 ounces in a week which was .4 over the minimum. Hooray Isla!! Isla and Simon are taking 80 mls in their bottles now and Solomon is taking 90 ml. We don't have to do bottle refills as much anymore but every once in a while they will eat as much as 110-125 mls in one feeding. This typically happens after a longer stretch of sleep at night.

Here are their weights as of last Tuesday (9/8):
Isla - 6 lbs 10.4 oz
Solomon - 7 lbs 10.2 oz
Simon - 7 lbs 8.4 oz

Milestones:
All three have rolled over during tummy time. They are all beginning to play with the toys on their playmat by swatting them or grasping them. They track items with their eyes and turn their heads toward our voices. Their head and neck strength is excellent. The home health nurse has said several times that they don't act like preemies. She was very impressed with their muscle tone and head/neck strength. Hooray!!!

Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Mommy feeding Simon and Isla playing in her boppy pillow.


Simon and Isla playing with the toys on the playmat.


Daddy and Solomon cuddling on the couch.


Solomon and Simon hanging out together after tummy time.

Day 2555 of my captivity (guest post from Oliver)

Since my parents are neglecting the blog, I'll submit a post. This month has been horrid. First, my parents came home after being gone for a couple of weeks and showed up with three babies! Ugh!! I've never been around so many babies before but let me tell you... they are disturbing my beauty rest with all their crying. I try to cuddle with Mom and Dad at night but can't because they never have time to sleep anymore. Worse than not getting to cuddle is having to wear this crazy cone thing around my head. I was trying to keep myself clean but Mom and Dad didn't appreciate how I would lick and lick my sore on my belly and never give it time to heal. To torment me they have put this nasty e-collar on my head. I try really hard to get it off and as soon as I do Mom comes running around the corner and stuffs it back on. Grrr. Dad freed me by taking it off me the other night and I was soooo happy. I made sure to give him some nice headbutts to show my appreciation. Then the next thing I knew Mom came around the corner holding it and on it went again. I was not happy about wearing it again but at least Mom had cleaned it for me. As much as I hated this cone, Mom and Dad seemed to think it was a great opportunity to adopt a new nickname for me. I'm not so sure I appreciate being called "conehead". I guess the only good thing is that the cone was removed again yesterday and so far, I'm free from having it put on again. I tried to locate my sore to clean it but couldn't find it. I'll keep looking. If you don't believe how ridiculous they have made me look the last 10 days - just check out the picture I posted.


Oliver