Nightly Routine with Twins
Our boys are nearing the 6-month mark, which means they've been testing out many different solid foods. We started with a thickened cereal around the 4 month mark, and began veggies and fruits at 5 months. They've been pretty adept to everything they've tried, including green beans, squash, broccoli, avocado, carrots, sweet potato, blueberry and banana. We started with greens, because once they try the sweet fruits, there's no going back to greens so our doctor advised we do the veggies first and that's exactly what we did.
Making Baby Food
In this routine, our babies were eating sweet potato. To prep the sweet potato, we cut them into 1" cubes, steam them for about 10-15 minutes and then puree using the Nutribullet Nutrient Extractor (https://amzn.to/3hLxu2O). Most veggies take 5-10 minutes but sweet potato's require a tad more time to soften up. After puree is made, we let it cool for a few minutes, until warm to the touch, and then its feeding time. We prep our purees each day before feeding so veggies and fruits are fresh. We usually buy and use within 2-3 days of purchase. Our doctor recommended we purchase organic whenever possible to avoid fruits and veggies exposed to pesticides and fertilizers. Fruits and veggies with protective outer layers need not be purchased organic. Check out PARENTS.COM FOOD SHOPPING GUIDE for recommendations for produce to purchase organic, and the clean 15 (shown to have less pesticides).
When it comes to feeding, we usually remove all clothing, except for their diapers, and cover them with a bib or body cover of some type. Our favorite to date is the KidDazzle Tiny Tux, shown in our YouTube video below. It's the cutest baby cover we've ever seen! Not only does it contain a bib with a silicone pocket, but its also a full body cover to keep any food from falling on their bodies, or the floor. Technically, they can be fully dressed because it protects them that much! Because it is made of food grade silicone and is 100% waterproof, its easily wipeable and machine washable, a parents number 1 need and want! It can be purchased using our affiliate link: http://bit.ly/2Lk0Fhi (USE COUPON CODE MARZOA10 for 10% off). It's a phenomenal product and we use it every time we feed spoon feed our babies! They currently only have two styles, one for boys, and one for girls, but are working on many more amazing products for the baby market.
We also highly recommend the Baby Mate Silicone dispensing squeeze spoon. I can't tell you how much time this spoon has saved us. We first started out using a standard baby spoon and it was just an incredible mess and labor intensive. With the Baby Mate spoon, you can fill the bottle with the puree of choice, and you simply squeeze and it pours the product onto the spoon, ready to serve! We were gifted this product by our good friends, after they used it with their baby. So grateful to all the helpful parents and friends who have given us so many tips and tricks. With two, we definitely can use all the helpful advice we can take!
Dads Routine
We usually try to cook a few times a week and when we do we make sure we cook plenty so we have for 2-3 days, albeit we change it up and eat it differently, whenever possible. During this routine, we made Cuban dishes: Picadillo, Frijoles Negros, Arroz Blanco (ground beef, black beans and white rice). Here's a classic recipe to make a similar picadillo to the one I made, although I changed it up and added a few more components for an even more flavorful dish (http://bit.ly/3906QPt). After we eat, we clean up the kitchen, pack up the leftovers, prepare our lunch plates and its time to continue with our babies routine which usually means some play tummy time, before baths and their final bottle of the night.
They've come to enjoy baths, although you can't tell from their faces in this YouTube video. We usually keep the daily baths to quick baths and warm water. When we have more time on the weekends, we like to soak with our babies in our freestanding tub in our main bath and let them splash and kick as they please. They love bathing with their daddies!
For babies nighttime bottle, we usually up the ounce intake from 6 to 7, add in cereal, as we do with all bottle feeds. If they are having constipation issues, we add a spoonful of prune baby food to their bottles and they love the extra sweet flavor it provides. We prefer Beech Nut brands organic prune baby food for this use. Our boys are on two different formulas, Dean on Similac Alimentum and Devin on Similac Neosure. Dean developed an allergy to milk protein in the Neosure early on and would not drink formula, so after many medications and tests, with our pediatrician and specialists advice, we changed his formula and it solved all his problems! He now drinks just as much as his brother and has gained some considerable weight.
Time to Wind-down
After their last bottle, we usually like to wind them down and read them a book while in their rocker and it just lets them ease into a more calming sleep. We don't rile them up during this phase of the day in order to keep them nice and relaxed and hopefully fall asleep quickly (fingers crossed). We have been quite lucky to have twins who sleep the entire night, from about month 3 onward. It isn't the case for many so we are extremely lucky, but we worked hard at keeping them on a schedule and it has sure paid off for us. Not to say that there are nights where they may wake up in the middle of the night, but those nights are now few and far between. After book-reading, it time to put them in the cribs. They are usually still awake, and fall asleep naturally on their own. It's been the best way for us. We don't like to rock them to sleep and place them fully asleep. If they are partially asleep, they soothe themselves into a complete sleep and they usually do so several times throughout the night. Our Owlet Smart Sock 3's keep track of their sleep cycles, and they wake up or go into light sleep a few times during the night, and somehow manage to put themselves back into deep sleep without crying or waking up their daddies. Pretty incredible!
YouTube Video
Check out our nighttime routine video blog below as we discuss our cooking and baby food routine as well as how we chose our babies names! As always, a like and comment are greatly appreciated! Let us know how we're doing and what you'd like to see from us in the future. If you haven't already done so, subscribe to our channel as well!
