The First Year of Raising Twins: 6-9 Months

Check out the first two posts in this series:

• Raising Twins the First Year: 0-3 Months
• Raising Twins the First Year: 3-6 Months

It was during this three month period that Nathan and Lucy started to sit up on their own, crawl, and get teeth.  Lucy got the teeth.  Nathan was closer to 9 1/2 months when he got teeth.

At 6 1/2 months old, they finally started sleeping through the night, but only because I enforced it.  Up until that point they were still eating two times during the night, which is ridiculous.  10pm and about 2am  were the two times I was nursing.  And then again at around 5am.

Eliminating the nighttime feedings was hard.  We lived in campus housing and I was afraid of upsetting my neighbors over screaming babies, but I finally got over that and let them cry it out.  My only regret is not doing it sooner.  It took about 3 nights of one crying session each night and then it was over.  They slept through the night, and I felt like a new person.  I woke up refreshed and so did they.  We’ve never gone back.  And it turns out that my neighbor said even if they could hear the babies, it was a very distant sound and didn’t bother them.  However, I was under the impression that my crying babies were very easy to hear through the walls and ceiling, or else I would have done this earlier.

By six months old, I had already started giving my babies some solids.  I know, I know, it’s  advised to wait until 6 months, but I was desperate for sleep and thought that the twins would sleep better at night if they were getting more substantial food during the day.  I had so much trouble breastfeeding in the first few months, that I didn’t think I was going to nurse for long anyway.  Plus, I wanted to have them completely weened by 7 1/2 half months, so I was slowly working up to a stable solid food schedule.  I had a plan of which feeding I would drop and when.  And I knew which feedings I was going to replace by meals of real food.  It all worked out great!  Weening was not that difficult and the babies loved food.

A word about baby food:

When the babies first started eating solid food, we started with rice cereal mixed with breast milk or goat milk.  Next, we started mixing in plain yogurt because yogurt is easy to digest.  Along with the yogurt, we added in mashed ripe bananas because bananas are also easy to digest.  Then we started adding foods one by one with a few days in between each new food to make sure the babies didn’t have any allergic reactions.

Baby food is ridiculously expensive.  So I started steaming or cooking my own vegetables and pureeing them.  I put the puree in ice cube trays and only took out what I needed for each meal.  I was always careful to give the babies a good variety of vegetables and some type of beans for protein and extra fiber.  Usually I added a cube of banana puree to make the meal just slightly sweet because they ate it better that way.

Their breakfast consisted of baby oatmeal made with water and goat milk with bananas added to it.  They still eat that, but now I use old fashioned oats.

We continued to walk a lot during these warm months.  The babies also had their first swim!  They went under water, holding their breath like pros.

It was still difficult to get out a lot when I was by myself.  I guess that’s always difficult until they are walking very well and don’t need to be held every moment.  Nathan and Lucy still needed me to be by their side pretty much all the time.  Sitting up on their own took a while to get the hang of and it was impossible to get back up without mama’s help if they fell over.

With every month that went by, they occupied themselves for longer periods of time.  I loved that!  We had them watching “Your Baby Can Read” since they were 3 months old, but by now, we could tell that Nathan had a serious crush on Alika, one of the sweet girls in the video.  Every time she introduced the film with, “Hi, my name is Alika…” Nathan would get a huge grin on his face and kick his legs all about.

We were still using the Johnny Jump Up, the Baby Walker , and our Schwinn Double Jogging Stroller pretty much all the time.  I took the stroller everywhere.  It’s easy to fold down and load up.  I was still able to meet friends at coffee shops this way.  =)  I’m a sucker for coffee shops.

It was near the end of their 8th month that I finally retired the Twin-Nursing-Pillow.  I have it in a closet for the next baby!  It was a wonderful while it lasted.  Not only was it great to nurse twins, but it was a great support for one baby sitting on the floor, as in the photo below.

Nathan 7 months

Lucy 7 months

Also 7 months

7 months old and still having trouble sitting up on their own.

But not at 8 months!

Bath time is their favorite!

Using our Schwinn all the time.

When Josh had to leave we sent him this to let him know how much we love him.

The babies enjoying my Eagle’s Nest Chair.

Proud owner of two teeth.

Chewing on a teething biscuit.  These are great!  At first it would take the babies nearly 45 minutes to finish one of these.

And all I had to deal with was two messy faces to clean up.

That’s just a brief overview of the 6-9 month age. The main thing that changed was how much real food they were eating.  I’m sure I’m leaving something out.  But tell me about your experiences with this cute age!

Tagged as: twins