Adventures in Triplets

Time is moving too quickly in some ways. The boys have outgrown their preemie clothes already. I can just feel them getting bigger every time I pick one of them up. So, today we went to a photographer's in-home studio and had pictures taken for the first time. It was a pretty intensive 3 hours...so we should have lots of good pictures. We even got Mary to cooperate holding the boys, although she seemed a bit tired and hungry. Though we very rarely would use such a tactic, a mention of McNuggets and fries afterward was just the incentive Mary needed. The pictures were taken compliments of Anita Goodman of Goodman Photography and Video, and she is giving us the CD. The boys were her first multiples.

After leaving the photographer's studio, we stopped past our adoption attorney, Ray Godwin's office. Ray and his staff worked tirelessly to assist us with the progress of this placement, which has been challenging at times. We are so indebted and thankful for their work. The staff had not had the opportunity to see the boys yet, so we stopped by for a brief "peek" at the boys (since cold/flu season is still alive here in SC).

Daylight savings time, as you can imagine, had an interesting effect on the boys' schedule. Because Jeff and I had plans to attend a wedding Saturday at 11:00, we decided to go ahead and move the boys meal time from 11:00 to 10:00 am, so that Mom could babysit without having to feed all the boys while we were gone. The second benefit would have been to have them on the new daylight savings time 3-7-11 meal schedule, once the time changed. We only encountered a few unanticipated challenges.
Challenge #1 Pop quiz. If you feed a baby used to a four hour schedule a whole hour earlier than usual, what will happen? Well, the boys did not want to wake up and eat, and they did not eat well at all. Mom continued feeding for awhile after we left for the wedding. So, by what should have been the 2 o'clock meal time for the boys, they were not in the least interested. So, we waited until 3 o'clock Saturday to feed them. We were still not ready for daylight savings time.
Challenge #2 We decided to slowly adjust the boys over the next four meal times, by 15 minute increments each time in order to arrive at the new schedule. It would seem relatively simple, especially since we are shortening the time between feedings, rather than lengthening. So we went through the process Saturday evening and night. 3pm. 6:45pm. 10:30pm. 3:15am (daylight savings time). 8:00am (daylight savings time). Oops. Now, the 3:15 is correct, since you spring forward, on standard time the 3:15 is really 2:15, and means that the time until that feeding is only 3:45 minutes. But when someone forgets to set an alarm clock, or it gets turned off (no one is sure what happened), nearly five hours will elapse between between 3:15 and 8:00. And that puts you right back on the old schedule.
Not to belabor this discussion more than is necessary, throughout Sunday we re-adjusted back 15 minutes each meal time for the boys, and by 3:00 PM daylight savings time, we were on the new time. By the way, we could have just carried forward through the time change without changing the boys feeding times, but that would have been rather inconvenient for lunch (12:00) and for supper preparations (4:00).

One other miscellaneous bit of trivia. I decided to start mixing up formula in larger quantities this week, rather than to mix each bottle individually. The manufacturer says its okay to prepare up to 24 hours at a time. So, I do that. I mix 58 ounces of water with 2 1/2 cups powder formula each day to make a half gallon of formula for each day. That's 3 1/2 ounces for each bottle for Nathan, Chris, and Daniel, six times a day.

Also, in an effort to make feeding time a bit more efficient, we have begun co-feeding, predominantly at night. As you can see in the pictures, one of the two "feeders" sits on the floor in between two bouncy seats, and holds a bottle in each hand, and feeds two boys at one time. We haven't felt comfortable trying this up until recently due to the boys' need for one on one attention because of feeding slowness, and related preemie feeding issues.