Twins Turn 10 Months This Week!

Twins
Originally uploaded by Allan & Cheryl

It's hard to believe that the twins are almost 10 months already. Time as flown by, yet at the same time, these have been the longest 10 months of my life!

Megan and Maribeth visited the Neonatologist on Friday for a follow-up appointment. Megan is 17 lbs 6 oz and is 3 cm taller than Maribeth. Her head circumference is actually 1 cm SMALLER than Maribeth's. Though I forgot both the numbers for length and heads. Maribeth is 14 lbs 10 oz (with a VERY full bladder/bowels). She blew out her diaper afterwards. So it is likely she is closer to the 14 lbs 4 oz she weighed in at last week at our family doctor. Maribeth is still right on the 3rd percentile for adjusted age & weight. That is down quite a bit from the last appointment at 6 months (where she was just under the 10th percentile line). Her curve overall has been just under/over/at the 3rd percentile since before birth. So doctor thinks she is doing just fine as she seems happy and healthy.

The girls have cereal 2x/day and usually either a pureed fruit and/or a veggie plus a few cheerios and some of whatever we are having at suppertime if they are awake. Maribeth has about 4oz formula in the evening, and breasfeeds other than that: probably about 4 times in the day and once in the middle of the night. Megan is about half formula/half EBM at this point in bottles except for being nursed once in the middle of the night. She still won't nurse when awake.

The doctor has stopped Zantac completely for Megan and dropped to bedtime only for Maribeth. He also recommended switching Megan to a follow-up formula instead of a starter formula as she is eating quite a lot of solid food. We need to keep up with the Vitamin D drops over winter. We can drop the iron drops for Megan entirely (as long as she is eating iron fortified cereal and drinking iron fortified formula), but will continue with Maribeth for now as she doesn't eat enough cereal a day to get her iron in.

Both girls are: picking things up with a pincher grip, crawling, getting themselves to a sitting position, pulling to standing, and Maribeth is cruising on furniture. They now have just barely enough hair in to put a little barrette into and one bottom tooth each!

The Dr. said that from looking at what they are doing - he expects BOTH girls to be walking within the next 6 weeks! ACK!!!! I'm NOT ready for that!

Both are babbling and have some words: Megan says: mama, dada, baba. Maribeth says: Mama, UP, Baba. We were told that developmentally they have caught up with their actual age - we can consider them normal 10 month olds!!!

We will need to bring the twins back in about 6 months for another follow up just to check on how they are doing with language, walking and also he wants to follow up on Maribeth's blood pressure. I forgot that number too - he said she was at risk for having problems with high blood pressure. Also she still has a heart murmur - but he said it was a harmless one. He does not plan on taking off her "tail" at the point as it doesn't seem to cause her pain at this time and when she's sitting it doesn't make contact with the surface.

Oh, and there will be no green Milupa spoon for our girls. The next batch of Milupa boxes have no free spoons. The quest for the green spoon has ended unsuccessfully.