Well, it was good to finally have the boys home. And it was nice to get home on Wednesday. I was set to return to work part-time on Monday and this gave us five days at home with the boys before I had to go back to work. Unfortunately, Spencer was having a little trouble adjusting to the car trip and the change of environment and he started eating less. He was only eating about 1 - 1.5 oz per feeding (30 ml is 1 oz—they use ml in the hospital, but once we got home, we did everything in oz). It was a little discouraging at the time and we were worried. We didn’t know what was causing it and whether there was something wrong, and being afraid of the worst—in other words, being first time parents. J
Now being first-time parents, we had had no idea how to find a pediatrician. Once again, CAMOMS (Columbia Area Mothers of Multiples club) came to the rescue. I searched through the web-archives of the CAMOMS bulletin board and found a thread where one member was looking for a pediatrician in Laurel and some members had recommended one practice which was pretty close to home (actually even closer to where we used to live). So we decided to go with Primary Pediatrics in Laurel. So, on Friday, 9/23, we had our first well-baby checkup with the pediatrician. The boys were 18 days old. We found that Spencer had lost a little weight from his discharge weight, but they were still healthy and above average in weight. Dexter was 6 lbs, 9 oz (up 11.5 oz from birth) and 18.75” length (1/4” shorter than birth). Spencer was 6 lbs, 7 oz (up 6.5 oz from birth) but had gained more before and lost some in the last few days. He was 19.25” length (1/2” longer than birth). We expressed concern that Spencer wasn’t eating, but the doctor said that it was not uncommon for babies to have adjustment issues when coming home from the hospital. She said the monitor him and if his appetite had not gone up in a few days to call the office again. If need be, we could schedule an intermediate appointment. Otherwise, we had a good visit and the doctor was pleased with their general health. We set our next appointment for 2 weeks later when they would be one month old.
We took them home and by the next day, Spencer was adjusting. Suddenly both of their appetites went up. On Saturday, they both started eating enough that by Sunday night, we had increased them to 3 oz of formula for every feeding. What a relief to new parents!
Now I know that this is probably completely uninteresting to anyone but new parents, so, for those who have no interest in diapers, please skip this paragraph. J First, we thank our friends Jen and Casey who were kind enough to gift us with two large boxes of diapers. What a wonderful gift to new parents of twins. We were going through about 15-20 diapers per day with the two of them and the two big boxes of diapers helped a lot (and helped us get through our first week at home)! However, we decided that we were going to try to find which diapers worked best for us. The NICU had gotten us using Pampers Swaddlers, but they’re the most expensive. First, we wanted to try the eco-friendly brands. We tried Earth’s Best, but the materials were not very good and I found that with a struggling baby (and neither one of them liked their diaper changed, so usually both struggled during a diaper change), that the diapers ripped easily. Next. We tried Seventh Generation and they were pretty good, although the tabs on the side were really wide and made for an awkward fit, especially while the boys were newborn size. They were usable, but not the best. We tried both Huggies little snugglers and Huggies Pure & Natural (the P&N were the eco-friendly option). We did like the wetness indicator, but they did not fit snuggly. We also had a couple of accidents because the waistband did not close tightly. If we pulled the tabs so that the waistband was tight, then the boys were uncomfortable, squirmy and we needed to release it. We also had a couple of times that they soaked through. The other major problem was that everything on Huggies brand were white. White on white. And that meant that it was very hard for Barbara to see where the tabs were and slowed her down a lot. Not good when you have two squirmy, squally babies to change. We tried Target brand. And while we liked the wetness indicator, they also were too much white on white and harder for Barbara to see. They also didn’t fit perfectly. They were okay, but not great. So after all of the trials, we ended up going back to Pampers…oh well. At least I can get them in the large quantity at Sam’s Club for a cheaper price per diaper.
One nice thing was that the weather was nice on Saturday and I wanted to get the boys out in the nice fresh air and try out our fancy-schmancy stroller. We saved on a lot of things by getting hand-me-downs or buying used at consignment sales, but the one item we splurged on was a fancy stroller. We got a Baby Jogger City Select stroller because our car seats snapped into the frame with the car seat adapter and we could move the boys from car to stroller easily if needed. We also loved a ton of the other features on the stroller including the telescoping handle (so that we would both be comfortable pushing this), the brake system, the large wheels (especially good on bumpy terrain including bumpy walking paths) and the option to switch the seats so that both boys could face forward or backwards or each other. I had planned to take some walks with the boys and their grandma when she came to visit and I wanted to “test drive” the stroller before she arrived. So off we went and the stroller was great. It had no problem when we had to go off the sidewalks or on uneven pavement and the boys slept the entire walk. Oh well…they’ll be up and active all too soon. The one “lesson learned” was that I needed to put sunscreen on the boys for these walks.
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