Making the move

I had mixed feelings last night when we put E and A down for the night in the nursery rather than in our bedroom. I was actually quite surprised how sentimental I felt about having them in the room with us, and I really really missed them when I went to bed. I didn't realise how much I liked waking up and hearing them sleeping. On the flipside I'm very keen to reclaim our bedroom and it'll be lovely to be able to potter around our room in the evening with the light on, and read my book before I go to sleep.

Another dilemma we had was whether to sleep them in separate cots in the nursery (they sleep side-by-side in one cot at the moment, separated by a rolled up towel), but we decided to leave them together for now. One step at a time!

We toyed with the idea of having the monitor in our room, but as the nursery is right next door we decided to rely on hearing them naturally in the night. I woke to hear A chatting to himself about 4am and was getting myself ready to get up and feed him but he settled himself back to sleep and woke crying an hour later. He needed comforting a bit before I gave him his bottle - I'm not sure if he was upset about waking up and not hearing us sleeping? - but he was fine after that and greedily downed his bottle. Unfortunately E woke at the same time so Young Daddy had to get up too, but both babies settled back to sleep and amazingly didn't wake again until 8.15am - a record lie-in for us! I hope it wasn't because neither of us heard them crying earlier, but I'm pretty sure one of us would have stirred if one of the babies had been screaming. I'm totally prepared for the lovely lie-in to have been a one-off, but it was much appreciated today and I'm sure we'll get another one at some point in the future....

Present from Great Gran

One of the best presents the twins got this Christmas was these Taggies Take Along Taggie Hugs from their Great Gran (available from Kiddicare). I've often noticed that babies seem more interested in the labels on toys than the actual toy itself so the design of Taggies is perfect, with lots of labels in different designs. A and E love gripping and chewing the teether ring and the fleecy Taggie squeeks when squeezed. And I love it because it's machine-washable!

Chuckle brother

Mr A has discovered the giggles and it's giving us all lots of laughs. The other evening he had a little giggle when Young Daddy tickled him at bathtime, but last night he got a massive fit of giggles that had both Young Daddy and I crying with laughter! He often seems to have his happiest moments on the changing mat - I think he really likes the one-on-one attention in a quiet environment.

Raising genius babies

Young Daddy bought A and E the boxset of Baby Einstein DVDs for Christmas and we sat them down in front of Baby Santa on Boxing Day and Baby Beetoven yesterday. The loved it and sat through pretty much the whole thing. I always said that my children wouldn't be sat in front of the TV, but all those preconceptions have gone out of the window now we actually have babies. Now, anything that keeps them quiet is a welcome addition to the Young household! I will obviously be careful not to let them watch it too much, but it'll be really handy if it keeps them occupied long enough for me to do a couple of chores round the house.

Holding hands

 Mr A still resolutely ignores E when she tries to befriend him (she smiles and chats to him), but the babies have started to hold hands when they're close to each other now, which elicits a big chorus of 'aaaaahhhh', from those around them.

A white Christmas for E and A

Snow and ice didn't stop us making the journey up to County Durham on Christmas day to spend the day with the Young family. We had an amazingly quick journey - not many people on the roads at 5.45am on Christmas morning! The sun was shining by late morning when we arrived and the snowy views were absolutely stunning!

Predictably, E and A got the largest haul of presents under the tree and behaved impeccably all day, going down for their lunchtime nap in time for us to eat our lunch, and being very good-natured while we opened our presents. The only part of the day that they didn't enjoy was bathtime - I think it was one new thing too many for them. When they went down in the evening I was concerned that the long sleep on the journey up in the car would interfere with their sleep, but they did really well and each only woke once in the night. E even let Young Daddy give her her bottle at 11pm (I gave him my cardigan to drape over his shoulders so she could smell me and either that worked or she was just so tired she couldn't be bothered to argue!). The babies were in bed when we had a new dusting of snow, but it still means that their first Christmas was officially a white one.

Today was another gorgeous day and so we headed out for a walk in the snow this afternoon. Young Daddy and Uncle Sam took a baby each in the Baby Bjorns, and E and A both loved it, and stayed awake taking in the views for almost the whole time we were out. The fresh air also wore them out so they went down for an hour's afternoon nap, meaning their good moods lasted right up until bathtime (we opted to top and tail this evening rather than do a full bath, which seemd to work much better).

Miss E leads 2-0

The battle of the bottle continued this evening. I smugly thought we'd regained the upper hand after I managed to put E down to bed after her bottle without having to breastfeed her to get her to settle. She fell asleep straightaway and I thankfully got into the bath, but less than 45 minutes later a familiar cry came through the monitor and though Young Daddy tried his hardest to rock her back to sleep, it wasn't until she'd had a couple of minutes on the boob that she settled again.

Young Daddy will get to spend a lot more time with A and E over Christmas, and hopefully that will mean we'll be able to crack E's clinginess. It's really easy for me to spend more time with E because I entertain her once she's finished breastfeeding, and Young Daddy and A do the same after he's had his bottle, but over the holidays we'll make sure to keep swapping babies!

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