A Week of Change

This week is big for the girls. Sunday was their last day in their infant car seats. Yesterday they rode in the brand spankin' new Evenflo Symphony 65 seats.

Here's there first ride...

And their last.

Also, today will be the first week they'll have all milk all the time instead of a milk/formula mix. Tim made the last full batch of formula Sunday night, so yesterday was and today will be some formula, but come Wednesday--all milk! Did you hear my big happy sigh? The idea of not buying buckets and buckets of formula is sooooooo nice.

Also, the girls are about to change diaper sizes. I just ordered Fisher-Price Happy Days/Nights, size 4. They're getting sooooo big!! I promise, when I get around to it, I will do a 12-month report. :)

How to Save a Bundle

First, don't have twins. Haha. But if you do have twins (or more!), you'll definitely appreciate this.

OK. Let's begin with diapers. My girls go through an average of 10 diapers a day. That's 70 diapers a week, 280 diapers a month. Most economy boxes of diapers are around 180 to 200 diapers. That's more than one huge box of diapers a month. If I paid full price for Pampers Swaddlers (which is my diaper of choice), I would pay around $42 for each box. That works out to about $0.23/diaper. That's $504 per year. Ouch.

The best way to save money was to not buy diapers at the store. There is no store--not Wal-Mart, not Costco, not Big Lots--that has diapers cheaper than you can get them online. When they were wearing newborn and size 1, I bought them a Diapers.com. It's my favorite site (if you'd like to get some wonderful stuff there, use my link over there to the right). When they moved to size 2, Amazon's wonderful Subscribe & Save program became my best friend. If you sign up, you get an extra 15% off your purchase. Amazon already sells Pampers for less than retail, so that brought my price of diapers down to $33.50, saving me nearly $100 over the course of a year. Not bad, right? Do you want to know what's even better? The Amazon Mom program. Through this program, you get the normal 15% off from Subscribe and Save, but then you get an additional 15% off, and now I'm paying under $30 for that 184-count box of Pampers Swaddlers, and that means I'm saving over $170 a year. That's better.

For the past few months, I've been overjoyed at my savings. Instead of paying $0.23/diaper, I've been paying $0.15/diaper. YAY! I decided that this wasn't quite enough. I'm not teaching any classes this quarter, so money is a little tight. If I can save even more, I would be a happy camper. When they were small, I tried Target brand (not cheaper than buying them from Amazon). I tried Huggies (which cost more than Pampers all around). I also checked out Luvs (which were too thin and smelled odd to me). I didn't like any very much.

Now that the girls have gone up another size, I decided to give another brand a try: Fisher-Price. Yep, Fisher-Price makes diapers! They're called Happy Days and Happy Nights. I bought a box through Amazon using the Subscribe & Save plus my Mom discount. I paid, wait for it, $13.99 for a box of 96 diapers! That's $0.14/diaper. Pampers Cruisers (their new diaper) are $0.17/diaper. That's an extra $32 saved. If I bought a 160-count box of Cruisers in a store, they would run me about $41 or $0.26/diaper. That means I'm saving $0.12 on each diaper by changing to Fisher-Price. That means I'm saving $436.80 a year.

Next up--formula. I envy all the women who are successfully breastfeeding their babies. Not only because you get to have that awesome bonding time with your kiddos, but also because you don't have to worry about schilling out $200 or so to buy formula. Our girls have been eating Similac Sensitive exclusively since they were about a month old.  Just as with the diapers, we tried different formula.  Enfamil seemed to cause more gas. The Target brand of Similac caused a really bad case of constipation in both of them, so brand name is where we stayed.

But when Similac had their huge recall, we were spending lots more to buy liquid formula and smaller cans of the powder. It just isn't cost-effective, so I looked for a new solution. We were originally purchasing our formula is the huge, huge tubs (by the case) from Costco. A case ran us about $200, that worked out to about $23 per 40 bottles of prepared formula. Since the girls are older, I decided to give the Target brand another try. I haven't researched per unit costs so much, so you'll just have to bear with me and my approximations. Two large canisters of Target brand sensitive formula costs $27. Two cans probably make 50 or so bottles. Without any complicated math, that saves us some serious cash in the long run.

So what's the lesson learned? Buy online. Second lesson? Don't be afraid to check out different brands. If your child gets sick or develops a rash, simply stop using it and return to your tried and true brand...that you're now happily buying online.

My First Failure

Let's get this straight. I do not think I'm a failure. I make lists. I make plans. If I don't achieve everything in my plans, I have failed at my plan. That doesn't mean that I have failed at the overall goal. It doesn't mean that I haven't found another route to success. What it means is that I was thrown a curve ball. Infant twin girls is quite possibly the biggest curve ball of my life.

So what's my first failure is this plan I had for parenthood? Breastfeeding. The great debate of mothers everywhere. We all know that breast is best, but some women take it a bit further than others. And those women make other women feel like--yep, you guessed it--failures.

The morning Lillie and Dani were born, a nurse came to tell me that they both had low blood sugar and needed formula to help them stay healthy. I didn't even think twice about it. I was still recovering from the surgery, and I wanted my girls to be strong and not spend one night in the NICU, so I said formula was fine. In the back of my head, I knew that I would be able to start breastfeeding later in the day.

Later in the day arrives, and Robin, the LC, comes to visit my room. She shows and tells me how to massage my breast and get the babies in a football hold so I could tandem feed. They both have a little trouble--Lillie more than Dani--but they both eventually latch on and start sucking. Success! Not only are my girls nursing, they're doing it at the same time!!!

Every day in the hospital, we practiced. Robin was encouraging and very helpful. Sometimes there was success; sometimes there was just crying (from all three of us). I repeated over and over again that the three of us were going to be breastfeeding rock stars, and I diligently tried at least three times a day to get them to nurse. (See, with preemies, you have to worry about tiring them out. We don't want to burn excessive calories trying to get them to eat just so they have to turn around and eat more because you burned too many calories getting them to eat.) When we checked out on Wednesday, I promised myself I would pump and keep trying to get them to nurse at home.

Oh, how home is different from the hospital! There aren't nurses there to take your babies to the nursery so you can rest. All the planning you've done to set up the house for the new arrivals doesn't prepare you for the onslaught of things you need at hand right away. (It probably also doesn't help that they arrived a little early so we were completely prepared.) Babies, no matter how hard you try to keep them on a schedule, do not believe in schedules. They will wake, cry, wail, scream whenever they feel it necessary. So getting away to pump or trying to struggle through a nursing session doesn't wear well on the nerves.

So, after being home for nearly a month, I've been mostly pumping--giving them about two ounces each of express milk a day and then supplementing with formula. Well, I guess I should say they get mostly formula, and I'm supplementing with expressed milk. Eh, semantics.

We try nursing every now and again, but it still doesn't go very well. And every day I think about it, it does hurt me a little inside that I can't give my girls full nutrition on my own. I know there are ways to increase my milk production--supplements (which I'm taking) and pumping more often (again, let's go back to that babies don't believe in schedules thing). But I'm starting to come to terms with formula, breast milk, and the pump.

If the nursing doesn't work this coming week, then we're done. I'll pump until six weeks, and then they'll be formula babies. There's nothing wrong with that, no matter how many people want to tell me differently. I would rather sit and hold my babies while they drink from a bottle than struggle with them as they kick and cry as I'm trying to nurse them. I would rather be there, in the moment, with Lillie and Dani rather than be stressed because one won't go to sleep or lie quietly while I go pump.

So, even though I've had my first failure in my plan of parenting, I know that there are many more failures ahead of me. In the end, I will not be a failure at anything because I'll always find a different route to success.

Let's Talk Nipples

So, since I've pretty much decided what I want the nursery to look like, I have found a new baby obsession: breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding.

I understand the benefits of breastfeeding. You get to have an ultimate bond with your baby (or babies in my case). You're giving them the best food they can get. Breastfeeding also causes your uterus to contract which helps it get back in shape faster.

But, for all the articles and whatnot I've read on breastfeeding, there are very few on feeding multiples. Every book advises letting your baby feed on one breast until it's empty, burp, and then switch to the other breast. Unless I'm going to let one of my girls starve, I don't think I have that luxury. So I'm preparing myself to supplement with a bottle. I hope I won't have to, but I'm not going to be disappointed if it needs to happen. Babies need to eat, and I will feed them as needed.

So, with this idea in my head that I will have to supplement with a bottle, I've been thinking about "nipple confusion." Supposedly, some babies have trouble going back and forth between breastfeeding and bottle-feeding because the nipples are different. The way a baby suckles a breast is different than the action it takes to suckle an artificial nipple. So I've gone on a search for the most natural nipple out there. Hey, the girls might hate them, but I can try them out, right?

First up, the First Years Breastflow Nipples. This nipple requires baby to use the same sucking technique required for breastfeeding. Most of the reviews on Babies R Us are quite positive, and then there are a handful of "I hate them" posts as well. But since the positive outweigh the negative, they are on our registry.

The biggest disadvantage I've noticed is the fact that this nipple is in two parts--the clear outside and that less clear inside mechanism. More parts equals more cleaning, and trying to make life easier as a new mom usually doesn't involve more cleaning.


Next up, the Adiri Natural Nurser. This one doesn't have the cool compression and sucking motion of the Breastflow nipple, but the shape and feel plus the slow flow is "breast-like." They also, I must say, look kinda cool. I know that shouldn't have anything to do with feeding your children, but hey, aesthetically pleasing is a nice (unnecessary) bonus.

Besides the cool look, they are definitely designed for easier cleaning than the Breastflow. The downside? They fill from the bottom! How odd is that? You have to put a cap on it, turn the bottle over it, fill it and then put the nipple on. I'm not exactly excited about that idea,  but if the girls don't like the Breastflow nipples, I might try these.

Lastly, the Very Hungry by mimijumi which is made right here in Nashville! It's not on the market just yet, but it's coming in December. And since it's out of Nashville, I'm sure I'll be able to find it at baby stores in the area. The Very Hungry, like the Adiri, mimics the shape and feel of the breast. It's got venting that's supposed to help prevent colic, and it's a one-piece nipple (less cleaning, hello!).

My number one complaint at the moment is the color. Now the site boasts that the nipples come in "natural colors," at the moment, their natural color is Caucasian. Last time I checked, I'm not of the Caucasian persuasion. I really do hope that, when they come out, they've got more natural colors. Granted, this isn't a deal-breaker, it's just slightly annoying. It's kind of like bandages. I know the Band-Aid brand has different tones, but they're hard to find and probably cost more, so I'm hoping that mimjumi will have various colors that are all the same price.

I've fortunately found two books (a whole two!) on breastfeeding multiples. I'm going to read through those, but I also won't forget about bottles. There are women who think that it's just awful to bottle-feed, and there are women who think it's taboo to breastfeed. I again, think it's all about the babies. They need to eat, and they will.