I think this was a cry for help that was missed. Perhaps I was already suffering what would become more like depression as the weeks and months passed. Now – it feels like a life time ago but perhaps it … Continue reading
I am really tired today after a second terrible night with the teething twins. William is breastfeeding night and day at the moment because he is off solids because of his teeth. This is leaving me exhausted and I am worried that my allocated 1200 calories is not enough for a Mummy feeding 8 month old twins. I did tell Jenny Craig during my initial consultation that I was breastfeeding and so was sure this had been taken into account but now I feel uncertain.
It could just be that I am having a bad day. Esther and William are demanding and draining every ounce of energy that I can muster.
Must try to keep positive and keep my goal in mind, to lose weight for the wedding. Seems such a silly thing to focus on though when the babies do not seem to be doing so well.
It is taking me, my Mum and David to make things work today.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
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This is a fabulous listography from Kate Takes 5 this week, an opportunity to share books for babies. One of my favourite topics! As a mother and a teacher books are one of my best loves and I have been reading to Esther and William since before they were born. I read to them in the womb, beside their incubators and their cots, I read to them now on my knee and they have started to turn the pages themselves. They love to look at pictures and they enjoy watching my face as I read. I am certain that they recognise the pattern and intonation when I read certain books. Their favourites. Our favourites.
I have already blogged about some of these books and will link to them rather than write about the same books again.
The first books that we bought Esther and William are written by Oliver Jeffers and you can read about them here.
Our most read book, by far, is Eric Carle’s Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? which you can read about here. This one has an audio link too!
Our best bedtime book is I Love You, Sleepyhead and that can be read about here.
We also love Hairy Maclary and share our thoughts about these fab books here.
And here are 5 other books for babies, books I have already chosen as perfect for babies of my own.
The Gruffalo
This is a magical story that rhymes and encourages children to really use their imaginations as they try to picture in their minds the monstrous Gruffalo. It lends itself to being read aloud or acted out with a range of voices. It is a great story to animate too. I love this book and so do Esther and William. We read this a lot and sometimes watch the animated version on You Tube whilst waiting for our tea.
The Rainbow Fish This is a lovely book with beautiful illustrations. It tells a story with an important message about friendship and sharing. Again it lends itself to being read aloud and provides real inspiration for arts and crafts activities. (Always the teacher!)
Click Clack Moo Cows That Type
Children’s books have to be enjoyed by the adults that read them too and I find this book hilarious. It is a comedy sketch, well written and simply illustrated. Though Esther and William are still too young to understand the humour of the book they love the differnet voices and sound effects of literate cows and ducks taking over a farm. A great, fun read.
A Cultivated Wolf
A book about the importance of books and reading. A story of friendship that appeals to all the family. Great moral too, that anyone can change their ways if they want to.
Tanka Tanka Skunk
Two animals who together sound like drums! This book is great fun to read and shout out loud over and over again. I do it with increasing vloume and speed til me and the babies collapse in fits of giggles. It is great fun! Great in the classroom for teaching about rhythm and breaking words up into syllables. A book that encourages you to really play with words and have fun.
And books for another time … The Silver Sword, I Am David, The Machine Gunners, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Children on the Oregon Trail, The Secret Garden, Private Peaceful … I could go on and on.
I hope that we have another book listography soon, in the meantime, come and join in this one. I have read everyone’s posts with my Amazon account open and we will have a lovely large box of books on the way come Friday. Thank you everyone!
About a week ago I posted about amber anklets for teething. Amber Pumpkin kindly sent me an anklet for each of the twins to see if it would ease their teething troubles.
I have to say that I was keen to try them after a few terrible days and interrupted nights through two very unsettled babes.
I decided to try the anklet on William first and I have to say that after just one day his symptoms did seem to improve. He was much more settled and a generally happier baby but he was also dribbling less, not chewing so many fingers or so often. He seemed to be improved. Importantly he seems to be feeding much better and eating more solid food. I have not changed anything else, apart from the wearing of the anklet. Since this started I have used no calpol or powders on William, none at all. I cannot say for sure that any of this is down to the wearing of the amber but I can promise that it is the only thing that I changed.
Esther, who did not have an anklet on, continued to chew and dribble as before. I am going to put her anklet on tomorrow to see if it will have a similar positive effect for her.
Neither baby yet has any teeth so I think we still have many teething times ahead I am going to keep using the anklets and hope that they continue to work their magic.
For more information about the anklets you can visit the Amber Pumpkin website or read back through my previous post Twin Teethers.
The Real Supermum has started a new weekly blog hop that lets us take a look back at the week just passed and represent a snap shot of it through, well, a snap shot.
Why not come along and join in?
Here is my moment of madness from last week.
Left Luggage
This weekend the Rewind asks us to think back to August and share a post from then.
August 2010 saw me spend every day in NICU/SCBU with Esther and William.
The post I have chosen to share reflects on a very special day when the twins were reunited for the first time outside of the womb.
Please read REUNITED
After a not so cheery week last week I am back this week and full of beans. Hurrah!
This week has been a good week and I am hopeful that next week is going to be a good one too and so we are full of cheer in the Nairn/Henley household. Here are the main reasons why …
We have a beautiful new addition to the family. Our beautiful niece Diya Isabella was born on the 21st February, a very special and healthy baby girl, weighing a little over 7lbs. We were lucky enough to go and meet her on Saturday and she is just so cute. She is all tiny and curled up and new to the world. She has the softest, darkest hair that curls round the nape of her neck. She has long crinkly fingers and such delicate little features. She is still all floppy and new and it is impossible not to love her. We are so pleased and proud to welcome her to the family and especially pleased that Esther has a little girl cousin who is so close to her in age, and will be even closer in development. Welcome to the world Diya Isabella, we look forward to watching you grow x
My Mum is staying with us at the moment meaning that David has more time to work and I am able to get out and about more with the twins. So far we have been to Ashford shopping, Leeds Castle for coffee and cake and today we are going into Maidstone for a walk around. All of this outing and abouting has been made even more special by the fact that the sun is shining and spring is definitely on its way. This also signals the end of cold and flu season and a slight relaxing of our self imposed isolation. The twins can come out of hiding and finally embrace the world!
Esther and William had some professional photographs taken with Paul Barsby in Ashford and the results are stunning. We had the session as part of the Cherubs programme but could not resist buying some extra prints of our own. The portraits are great, don’t you agree?
Have you had a week as cheery as mine, perhaps you need an extra slice of cheer this week, whichever, why not pop over to Mummy From The Heart‘s Linky and see what is making a smile this week.
Esther and William are now almost 8 months old!! I cannot believe how quickly the time has flown. They are growing bigger and stronger everyday and developing very distinct personalities. This has become apparent recently as they have started teething.
Parenting premature babies can be very confusing as you are always trying to provide for them to two ages, their actual age and their adjusted age and you are never sure which to apply to what, for example weaning, sleeping, routines and teething.
I am now confident that I know that anything related to feeding and digestion, including teething, is marked against their actual age whereas anything that is developmental such as crawliing, rolling, talking etc is measured against their corrected age.
And so at almost 8 months actual we are well into the zone of teething though have nothing to show in the way of teeth. I am quite distressed to learn of some prem babies who started going through the motions of teething at 6 months, as ours have done, but not been rewarded with teeth until well into their first year!
The reason I find this idea so terrible is that our twins, and William in particular, are really struggling with growing their teeth. They are very unsettled during the day, constantly chomping and chewing anything that they can get their mouth on apart from their food. They often seem to find feeding painful particularly their solid food. William has had an earache linked to his teething and repeatedly tugs at the infected ear. Both babies have struggled to get to sleep and to stay asleep once finally gone. It has been very tiring and emotional for all concerned and is still going on.
One of the problems I have foudn is finding anything that can be used to soothe Esther and William’s tiny mouths. Though they are really now quite old babies they are still very tiny, Esther only weighs 11lbs. Finding teething toys to ease their gums has been impossible. I twitted about this a week or so ago and was very pleased to receive a helpful reply from @Amber_Pumpkin
Amber Pumpkin suggested that I might like to try an amber necklace for the twins to soothe their teething symptoms. I naively asked if they would be able to fit the beads into their mouths as we had been struggling with other products. Amber Pumpkin kindly pointed out that in fact amber necklaces are not chewed but worn so that the healing properties can work their magic.
Babies do NOT chew on the amber – it works by warming against the skin and releasing minute amounts of soothing oils which is absorbed into the bloodstream.
A natural analgesic, amber will help calm a baby without resorting to drugs.
Amber is a resin, not a stone. It is therefore warm to the touch, as well as very comfortable and light to wear.
Scientific investigation into the therapeutic effects of amber is ongoing.
Currently, there are two different theories that attempt to explain how wearing amber on the skin can have a soothing and calming effect on teething babies and toddlers.
One theory suggests that when amber is worn on the skin, the skin’s warmth releases minuscule amounts of healing oils from the amber which are then absorbed via the skin into the bloodstream.
Amber’s anti-inflammatory and therapeutic properties are also recognized by allopathic medicine. In Austria, Switzerland and Germany, you will find amber teething necklaces sold in local pharmacies. Pharmacists and doctors have long known about the healing properties of amber which include calmative, analgesic, antispasmodic, expectorant, and febrifuge (anti-fever) functions.
A second theory is based on scientific findings which have shown that amber is electromagnetically alive and therefore charged with a significant amount of organic energy. Its special attribute is the fact that it is electronegative. Wearing amber produces negative ionisation on the skin’s surface. This, in turn, has a positive influence on the human body. The negative ions assist in the in the prevention of illness. These health-promoting effects apply to babies, children and adults alike.
http://www.amberpumpkin.com/amber-teething-necklaces-do-they-work.html
David and I have tried Calpol and teething powders on Willim and Esther with very little effect and so we were, or I was, keen to try something new. I asked Amber Pumpkin if I might trial one of their products and wrtie about our experiences on my blog. They kindly agreed and sent me two tiny amber anklets for Esther and William to try. They sent anklets rather than a necklace to ensure that the babies could not pull them off of themselves or each other as the anklets will be safely hidden in their baby gros.
We are going to start wearing the anklets tomorrow and I am going to write on my blog each day about how we are getting on.
I have to admit to being a bit sceptical but also really hoping that they do work as I love the idea of them.
If anyone else has exprience of using amber jewellery to help with teething then I would love to hear from you.
If you would like to know more about Amber Pumpkin then you can visit their website at http://www.amberpumpkin.com/
Here’s hoping that an end is in sight for the terrible twin teething troubles!
Hmmmm ... Beer!
WONDER WEANER!
Life is full of simple pleasures
like good food and fine wine (or other such beverage!)
“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”
Samuel Johnson