|
|
|
| January 2001 Thomas is crawling 'properly' - ie with his tummy off the floor. We now have lots of words pinned up all over the house which they all enjoy pointing at, so we can tell them what they say. They have all begun their math programme! (More on that on another occasion!!) December 2001
Thomas is crawling commando style - ie with his tummy on the floor.
04 November 2001
Katherine is officially crawling now. Although it's more of a drag-yourself-around-by-the-hands,-occasionally-pushing-with-one-leg type of motion. Thomas is still building up motivation to get going. Lots of fun these days seeing the babies start to interact with each other; Thomas giggling with Katherine about who knows what, and Katherine chasing William around the living floor (as best she can). 22 October 2001 9 months old.
William is still the only one crawling, although Katherine is showing signs of being interested in getting about. All are standing up now, and will do so by themselves in their cots. But they haven't yet figured out how to sit down. We just went through a week of heavy colds - more disturbed sleep and disrupted feeding for us all, but we are all bouncing back now! (Dad only with the help of antibiotics.) 8 September 2001 William takes his first crawling steps. The others aren't quite ready yet. 1 September 2001 Katherine's first tooth starts showing. 21 August 2001 Enjoying a picnic in the garden
11 August 2001
Katherine is quite happy holding her own bottle to drink (provided that it isn't too heavy). She can now almost stay standing up with only a tiny bit of guidance by holding her hands.
6 August 2001
02 August 2001
William's bottom front tooth has made an appearance through his gum. This seems to herald the arrival of more broken nights. Here is William pointing to his emerging front teeth!
31 July 2001
All three babies slept through the night from 7:30pm to 7:00am, with no night time feed. They'd fed well the previous day, and seemed to have had enough milk, so we decided not to wake them to see how long they'd go. Boy, did we get a good night's sleep! All three babies have been sleeping on their tummies for the last three or four weeks. They will not sleep unless they are on their tummies, and will turn over as soon as they are put down. 02 July 2001 Thomas woke up lying on his front (and cried when he couldn't turn back!) 30 Jun 2001 Thomas managed to turn himself over (from front to back) (and turn back when on the bed) 24 June 2001 We thought we were in for a trying week - Thomas started refusing his milk. After a couple of days of rather low intake, we fixed it by changing to a 'number 4 teat' with higher milk flow. He's now back on track. He also seems to like the baby rice a lot! 17 June 2001
Today is fathers day. The babies are one day shy of 5 months old, and they gave us the best present we could have hoped for; they all slept from their late evening feed right through to the following morning. Also, we decided to start them on baby rice today - all seem to be coping quite well. They are all now using the hands to grasp objects.
6 May 2001
Well as you can tell, we've been pretty busy since I last posted anything. I won't even try to fill in all the details. Suffice to say for now that everyone is smiling and enjoying their mobiles. I even caught Thomas repeatedly batting the spinning ball which is mounted in the changing table. The thumb-nails will take you to some of the photos we took during April.
25 March 2001 I knew something was seriously wrong when LanKhanh asked me to make her tea with two tea-bags - and "leave them in the cup please". That was ten days ago - it was clear that things were rapidly spiralling down into chaos at home so I took a week off to help bring things back under control. It soon became clear that the babies were awake too much at night and were taking a lot of time to be put to bed. Using some ideas from Gina Ford's book, we revised the babies' routines to include more structured wakeful time during the day, and more structure to their feedings too. Click here to see the revised timetable. Within a few days of the new regime everyone was getting more rest, the babies were feeding better, and keeping more down. But the changes were not easy, because it involved teaching the babies to settle themselves at night. This can't be done without listening to some crying. The first night on the new program, Thomas cried for 1-1/2 hours before letting himself fall asleep. This was not easy for any of us - let alone Thomas. But his improvement was rapid. Within a few days, he was settling himself down within five or ten minutes, with very little help from us. 16 March 2001 All three babies had their jabs - one in each leg, plus polio drops. No problems. 11 March 2001
Our new family motto: "with triplets, there is always one!" it's much deeper than it seems at first glance!
10 March 2001
7 weeks old! (Or one week, if they had been born on their 40 week due date.) Still no 'official' smiles from the little ones, although they do seem to be practicing. Everyone is filling out. Thomas is over eight pounds, Katherine is nearly seven pounds, and William is six pounds - almost double his birth weight! Despite all our worries about sniffles, vomiting, straining, etc, our health visitor says they are doing fine as long as they are gaining weight well. 25 Feb 2001
A wonderful but tiring weekend with lots of vistor-helpers! Mindy's Grandma stopped in on her way back to CA for a nice photo with her great-granddaughter, 86 years younger! Mindy's cousin, Jessica, helped with the babysitting. We all managed to have fun.
12 Feb 2001
Today Debbie came from the nursery nursing college. She was wonderful - confident and yet respectful with the babies. She'll back twice a week until Easter - she gets great work experience - we get much needed help! 11 Feb 2001
Luckily Mum & Dad, Keith and Lauriane came to help us at home for the first weekend with our babies. As planned, dad (me) helped with the 'heavy lifting' over the w/e. One thing we discovered is that not all baby bottles are equal. The bottles we had bought don't let the milk out as fast as the ones we used at the hospital. Our babies were getting too tired to get their full feed, which was messing up their schedule. Switching to medium-flow teats seemed to do the trick... 9 Feb 2001
William discharged today. Now we can really play happy families.
7 Feb 2001
William moves onto 4 hourly feeds. Mum is shown how to bath the babies. Rooming in went fine, so T&K were finally discharged at 6pm. Still hands-off for Dad, but luckily he's ok to drive everyone home. Yipee!! Only one more to go!
6 Feb 2001 Dad has gone with a bout of 1-day flu. Mom spent the night at the hospital 'rooming in' with T&K. Everything went well. 2 Feb 2001 Katherine and Thomas have feeding tubes out now, so it's breast, bottle, or nothing! William is taking 23ml every 2 hours. T&K could be home next week. W the week after. 1 Feb 2001
2 weeks old today! William in a cot today & feeding well by bottle!
30 Jan 2001
William went on the breast for the first time and sucked really well for 15mins! Katherine and Thomas had a go with a bottle for the first time today - no problems! Dad's first ever bottle-feed was with Katherine. They both coped perfectly! 28 Jan 2001 William is doing really well - all his drips and lines are out now, and his weight is up to 1.69kg (compared with 1.49kg at birth). Pretty soon he'll be ready to have a go at the breast. 27 Jan 2001 William is up to 7ml per hour and progressing well. He is visibly filling out nicely. Thomas and Katherine are both sucking quite well now, but get tired and fall asleep after a few minutes. William is getting pure EBM (expressed breast milk), Thomas and Katherine are getting mostly formula with two go-s on the breast each day. 25 Jan 2001
Our babies are one week old. Thomas has graduated to nursery 4. When babies leave this nursery, they go home. William is a little jaundiced, so is getting UV treatment. (This is normal in premature babies.) William is up to 2.5ml of milk every hour. 24 Jan 2001 Katherine has graduated to a cot, and Mindy was discharged today. William is now on 1ml of milk (that's 1/5th of a teaspoonful) per hour. One home, three more to go! 23 Jan 2001
William has begun to be fed 0.5ml every hour. He is tolerating his feeds well. The intravenous feed is still in place. Katherine is now on a 2-hourly feeding schedule.
22 Jan 2001 Thomas is out in a cot today and drinking 28ml of formula every 2 hours. Katherine had a good munch on Mindy, and managed to squeeze out a few drops. The nurse introduced her to Thomas by putting her in the same cot for a 5 mins. (I wish I had had my camera!) William had a fractious morning, but was calmed for the rest of the day when Mindy gave him a nice long cuddle. 20 Jan 2001
All three babies are doing fine, and getting excellent care at the Special Care Unit. Katherine is taking milk along with her intravenous feed. Thomas is up to 11ml per hour milk - no drips or intravenous feeds. William has a small tummy problem, so has to settle with the line-feed for 5 days, whilst his system is scrubbed by antibiotics. Mindy is up and about today, and has had made it down to Special Care a couple of times today. Dad changed Thomas today. 19 Jan 2001
Mindy happy but very sore today. Made it down to special care but it was a tough trip to make. Dad changed Katherine and gave her a cuddle. Mindy was able to give her a cuddle later on. Both parents were equally smitten with their daughter!
|
|
This page was last updated on Thursday, 07 February 2002. email me, Copyright © 2000 James Vernon. All rights reserved. |
