The Twins Update - One Month Old

Zoe and Leo are one month old! Actually, by the time I publish this, they'll be well over that age. I don't think we're going to be able to keep up with the monthly photos as well as we did with Sam.

I'm actually enjoying my babies and all the things that go along with them. I had set in my mind that the first year would be hell and that it was an investment in the future. I didn't enjoy Sam's infancy much at all. It has nothing to do with my feelings for her - I just didn't like the utter dependence of a baby. And with L&Z I still don't like it, but I'm more accepting of it. I also know that it will end soon enough. So I'm focusing on the good parts, and I'm finding that there are enough good parts to make the whole baby experience somewhat pleasant.

Of course, we've had a lot of help this first month. My parents have been here almost every day, doing a lot of the household chores, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, etc. My mom has also helped feed and change the babies quite a bit. We also have our "mommy's helper," I'll call her T., who has been coming some afternoons and also helping Sam get to school when Adam teaches. My parents leave in a week, but we'll still have T. I think I'll wait until then to say whether this is easier than I had expected.

There's not too much to report about Leo or Zoe themselves, beyond what I said in my earlier post. Leo continues to grow quickly. He is over seven pounds now. Zoe is still smaller at around six pounds, but she is growing steadily. They still mostly just eat and sleep. Occasionally I'll give them a bath or put them on a blanket for some tummy time (video!), but most days we change diapers, feed them, and put them right back to bed with no activity at all. They usually pass out in bliss after eating and there's no waking them.

We have Leo on Zantac now for his reflux, and he sleeps in his car seat in the crib since he simply can't tolerate being horizontal. We only have the one crib so far, so Zoe is sleeping there next to the car seat. The car seat and the Zantac are helping somewhat, but Leo still cries in discomfort a lot, which is the most difficult thing for me to deal with. We try to comfort him, but there isn't much we can do, so quite often we just have to listen to him cry. Zoe is still the "easy baby." The worst thing she does is that she seems to like to poop during a diaper change. I actually find it quite funny. Sam got to see it happen the other day and it was hilarious to see her look of revulsion after all the poopy hell she has put me through over the years. I really should make her the official diaper-changer. Well, maybe not.

Breastfeeding and Bonding

I'm a huge fan of breastfeeding, but not for the reasons you hear most often. I'm not 100% convinced that breast milk is any better nutritionally than formula. (I suspect they both have their advantages.) I guess breastfeeding is cheaper, but as Tori points out, the typical analysis ignores all the costs of breastfeeding; it is certainly not free. It's more convenient at times, but it can also be a hassle when you have to pump and deal with leakage. I could go on...

What I love about breastfeeding is the bonding. I enjoyed it so much with Sammy. It was hard to imagine having a baby and not breastfeeding. There is just something wonderful about giving your child sustenance directly from your body. But it is also the most interactive thing you can do with a newborn. You spend a lot of time looking at your baby; it's not a passive enjoyment, but a time of active observation that allows you to get to know your child's personality just a little bit. You have to learn your baby's signals and your baby has to learn yours. When you both learn how to do it, you achieve a kind of symbiosis that is very fulfilling. For those of you who've never experienced it, I'd liken it to the feeling you get when you learn how to control a dog or a horse; when you both understand each other and work together, everything becomes easy and you experience the true joy of teamwork. It's also like the concept of flow, but between two people instead of just an internal state. Everything just feels right when you are nursing.

But with Sammy, I had no differentiation for my observations about bonding through breastfeeding. I had nothing to compare it against. I only had one child, and I breastfed exclusively. Not only that, but Sammy never even had a bottle of breast milk because I was unable to pump effectively. All I knew was nursing.

With Leo and Zoe, I've learned so much more about this bonding. Mostly, I've learned that my conclusions were right.

Since Leo was born bigger and stronger than Zoe, I was able to nurse him almost immediately. I can't remember the exact dates, but I think I began nursing Zoe at least four days later. I only nursed Leo once a day, but in those days I felt much closer to him than I did to Zoe. I had a relationship with him that was simply absent with her. I've been able to continue breastfeeding both children at home and to this day, I feel closer to Leo than I do to Zoe. That could be due to other factors, but based on that early experience, I think it has a lot to do with the breastfeeding. But they are only one month old and I expect that to change.

I've also bottle-fed both of them, and I'm surprised to find that the bonding that takes place with this kind of feeding is very similar to that of breastfeeding. You still get a lot of the interaction. Both baby and parent must pay attention and adapt to the other. It's possible that the only things missing are the skin to skin contact and the hormones. Adam never got to bottle-feed Sammy, and he is thrilled to be able to do so with Zoe and Leo. I asked him if he now feels cheated that he missed the chance with Sammy and he gave me a (friendly) sarcastic reply about how, yes, they just don't have a connection between them. (Adam and Sammy have just about the best father-daughter relationship that I can imagine and they are super-close considering that he is not the primary caregiver.)

So in the end, I don't think any of the bonding is relevant to future relationships. I find absurd the idea that, if you don't breastfeed an infant within 5 minutes of their birth, something will be forever lacking in your relationship. My relationship with Zoe is growing deeper by the day and just because it started out slow doesn't mean it won't catch up. And I don't think bottle-fed infants suffer from some kind of lack of love. Of course, I don't even buy attachment theory, so there you go. Breastfeeding can be a wonderful thing, but it's really just icing on the cake.

Songs

Both, to the tune of Mr. Sandman:

 

Mr. Leo
Wearing yellow
You eat so much
As we all know
It is your job
To grow and grow
We love you, Mr. Leo

 

Little Zoe
So very pretty
We have to clean up
Your poo and your pee
But we don't mind
It's not a duty
Cuz' we love you, Little Zoe

Photos!

Update 9/20: I fixed the link to the Picasa account.

Finally, I got all the photos and videos of Zoe and Leo uploaded and organized. Here is a selection of the best of them.

 

Zoe and Leo's First Month

 

 

If you want more, you can go to my Picasa account. (There are some great photos from Sammy's birthday there, too.)

A Little Thing

Sammy no longer calls our Honda Odyssey, the "Honda-See." But she still calls hand sanitizer, "hanitizer." You have to admire her creative contractions.

Photos Coming Soon!

I've almost got our photos organized and will have tons of pictures of the twins to share soon. But I just ran across this photo of Sam at her Montessori school from last spring and had to share it immediately. Look how grown up she is!

Pesonalities

So far, one of the most awesome things about having twins (and there are many) is that we have a much better idea about what is common to all babies and what is unique to Zoe or Leo, and even in retrospect, what was unique to Sammy when she was a newborn. We know because we can compare two babies who are at the exact same developmental level at the same time. Their differences highlight their personalities, and tell us that these things are not "just the way all babies are." And when we see something that is common to all three of our children, we have to consider that maybe that is something more universal. We've already discovered things we thought were unique to Sam that turn out to be just common baby behaviors.

Now, we don't want to make the mistake of translating infant behavior into projections of adult, or even childhood personality traits. A fussy baby does not equate to a wild teenager. And we don't want to pigeonhole Leo or Zoe by "labeling" them, something my favorite parenting authors warn against. (I put that term in scare quotes because I'm not completely comfortable with it - I'm not sure it has a clear definition and I suspect it might be a package deal. I have to think about it more before I decide one way or another.) And yet, comparing them gives us such wonderful information about them!

Some things we've learned:

• Leo loves pacifiers (we call them suckers). Zoe could care less about them. (Sammy never wanted a sucker but we weren't sure if it was her or if we just didn't push the idea hard enough. Now we know it was her.)


• Leo almost always cries first. Zoe doesn't cry much at all, but when she does, you don't want your ear within 5 feet of her mouth or you'll go deaf. Still, we call Zoe "unflappable." Nothing seems to faze her. Neither Leo nor Sammy could be called "sensitive," but they certainly react more strongly, especially in negative ways. Zoe is just chill and I hope she remains that way. It would be nice to have one like that. (We used to think that Sammy was a fairly "easy" baby, but, at least for now, Zoe seems to be proving us wrong about that. So far, Zoe is the easy one.)


• Leo seems to have reflux, or some kind of digestive system issue. Zoe doesn't. (Sammy did.) He arches his back and cries in a way that sounds like he is in pain and spits up much more than Zoe. Related to the previous point? Quite possibly.


• All three of our children are great breastfeeders. Either that, or I'm good at it. Or a combination of the two.


• Both Leo and Zoe can be calmed quite easily just by picking them up. (When Sammy would get herself wound up, there was really nothing we could do but let her work it out on her own.) I hope this is not something that changes when they get a bit older - I can't remember when it started with Sam.


• Leo really, really needs to be swaddled. Zoe is happy in a swaddle or a loose blanket. (Sammy needed the swaddle.) Again, I wonder if this is related to reflux, or whatever the problem is.


• Apparently, all babies make essentially the same faces when they have to poop. And they won't poop while they are eating. It's a whole big production which is fascinating to watch. (Leo is the cutest pooper because he makes these grunts that are absolutely adorable.)


• Zoe and Leo can sleep through just about anything. Zoe sleeps through Leo's crying right in her ear all the time, and they both sleep through the dog barking, the vacuum, and Sammy's high-pitched happy squealing during tickle-time. Sam was awakened by any loud noise when she was a baby. Do you remember the scene in Marley and Me when Jennifer Anniston puts the kids down for a nap and lies on the bed and takes a huge, deep breath, and you see the tension just flowing out of her into the mattress and you know she's about to fall asleep in an instant but then she hears the beeping of a truck in reverse and she bolts upright and says, "Oh no, oh no," in absolute horror because the dog is about to go crazy barking and wake the kids and that is indeed what happens and she totally loses her freaking mind? Well, that was me when Sam was a baby. Toby is lucky to still be among us. Thank goodness for the NICU with all of its noise.


• Physically, they are looking more and more different as they fill out. Leo has a triangular face with a pointy chin which I believe he got from The Italian (as I call our egg donor). His nose, so prominent when he was born, now seems just right for his face. Zoe has a rounder face and is kind of jowly. She also has much darker skin and hair than Leo which obviously comes from The Italian.


• Leo's Big Thing - the thing that stands out the most about him - is that he is physical. He moves, he squirms, he uses his hands in amazing ways for a 4-week-old infant, and he is strong. Within a few days of his birth, he had a reputation in the NICU. We kept hearing how he would escape his swaddle and his diaper and then pull off his leads. We were told "He's all boy." When I asked what that meant, the nurse said that he was very physical. She warned us that he'd be climbing the refrigerator in a year. He was also called a "superstar" in the NICU because of his quick progress in becoming strong enough to go home. (Premature girls usually do better than boys so it was doubly impressive.) He can already hold his head up for quite long stretches. At his first pediatrician appointment, the doctor suggested that we put his mattress up at an angle to help with his reflux, since, "he can't really move around yet so you don't have to worry about him ending up upside-down." Well, we had already put the mattress at an angle, and he is perfectly capable of ending up upside-down, thankyouverymuch. Leo is The Mover. And I love that about him.


• Zoe's Big Thing is her vision. She looks at everything. When she was first born, she'd open her eyes and her eyeballs would roll up in the back of her head because she couldn't control them yet, but she'd open those lids anyway. By Day 2 on this planet, this tiny little 4 pound baby had her eyes open all the time and was focusing on anything that was close enough. She keeps them open much more often that Leo does, and she looks at faces much more intently than he does. Her eyes are very prominent, and there is something about the way she uses them that is utterly captivating and endearing. Zoe is The Looker. And I love that about her.


• I wish I could look back and compare Sammy as an infant to these two, to determine what her Big Thing was. But the details are gone now. I remember my own judgments about her - my conclusions - but not so much the facts that gave rise to them. What I do remember is that we always called Sammy "highly opinionated." From the beginning, she seemed willful, stubborn, and independent, and the term "highly opinionated" actually came from one of our midwives and was seconded by her pediatrician. But what particular behaviors made them and us see her that way, I don't recall. Still, I think we were right, because I can't imagine calling either Leo or Zoe "highly opinionated," but it still describes Sam to this day. Sammy is The Rebel. And I love that about her.