5 months

No Dr appointment at 5 months but wanted to provide some updates on how things are going.

I'm still pumping 2-3 times a day (that is seriously all I have time for!)and supplying 40% of their milk with the rest being formula. Most of the formula is still the preemie formula but we'll stop that at 6 months (thank goodness it's $4 more per can than regular formula).  We just started Cooper on oatmeal cereal with Brinley to follow next week.  They each take 4 bottles a day with Cooper taking 6 ounces per bottle and Brinley 5.5 oz.

We took Brinley to the physical therapist on Friday and she didn't think she had much torticollis (tightening of neck muscles) so doesn't think that's the issue with her flat head.  Brinley showed off and loved playing with the therapist and showed her the full range of motion of her neck (by following a light up musical toy back and forth).  She even rolled from back to front for the first time as the therapist moved the toy up behind her head, and she couldn't keep her eyes off of it so kicked her legs over (with a little bit of a push) and rolled over completely to see the toy.  She's done this a few more times, again with a little assistance to get those hips over. Oddly enough, Cooper has shown little interest in rolling. He's always ahead of her on things so it's funny that this fairly big milestone, Brinley is ahead! UPDATE:  Since I originally wrote this a couple days ago, Cooper is now rolling too! Guess he didn't want to be out done by his big sis. We are supposed to do some stretches with her neck daily to keep it from tightening and just try to keep her always looking towards the right side. We see the PT again in one month and then back to the plastic surgeon in 6 weeks to determine if a helmet is needed. I don't think it will be though. It already seems to be getting better. We were given a light up mobile thing that attaches to the side of her crib and so she turns and watches that and falls asleep with her head on the "correct" side, and I already think this is making her head shape better.

They push up great on their arms now, as you can see from the pic, and really do like tummy time better now.  They both love to play on their playmat and use all of their concentration to grab the items dangling down from it, especially the rings.  They love to grab on to everything now.

They still sleep amazing! They go down so easily between 7-7:30pm, and we've mostly transitioned Brinley to having her arms unswaddled.  She will sleep til almost 8am the next morning, and Cooper gets up a bit earlier usually about 7:30am.  Cooper will wake about 1/2 hour before and lay in bed looking at his mobile, the wall decals, etc before finally letting out a little cry that he's ready to get up. They both wake up super smiley and happy, and it's my favorite time of the day by far.  They are super happy all morning.  They take a couple 45-min catnaps in their bouncies or swings an hour or two after they wake up, then again around lunch time, and then we're working on longer naps (1.5-2hr) in their cribs mid-afternoon.  After we've had a busy day, usually on Saturdays, they will sleep a ton the next day which is so nice on Sundays when we ALL get a nice afternoon nap!

They love looking at each other and get very intrigued when the other one is crying.  Cooper always has to be touching her in some way (usually pulling on her clothes) when they're beside each other, and Brinley just loves to stare and smile at him.  He doesn't usually stare at her, he just likes to be touching her.  Brinley likes to pull on her clothes too and is always showing her belly off to people.  We've gotten a few great giggles out of Cooper within the last week or so and one maybe giggle from Brinley.  They love funny faces and sounds and love to be talked to and read to.  Cooper has strong opinions on things now and gets very upset easily but calms down pretty easily too. Brinley rarely full-on cries, just a lot of grunts and whining when she doesn't like something.

Our nanny has worked out great! She does so great with them, and even loves our dogs just as much too. She has been doing just 2 days a week with family filling in the rest but she starts 4 days a week next week with Brandon's mom watching them on Fridays.

Miles the beagle is starting to show more interest in the babies (smelling them) but still acts out by chewing pacifiers, their stuffed toys, and even chewed up several of my plastic breast pump parts.  He's also started eating/grabbing people food really bad if you don't watch him.  Ty still greatly loves his babies and loves to give them lots of wet kisses.

People always ask us how hard it is to have two babies, but we honestly wouldn't have it any other way.  I think we were lucky that these were our first two in that we don't know any different or how it feels to just have one baby (and we don't have an older child to take care of as well). Two babies is just normal to us, and I think it'd be boring with just one!  We've also been blessed with the two best babies ever who have been sleeping 11-12 hours a night since they were 12 weeks old and who never cry for just no reason.  Whether that's because of how they came into this world with their 5 weeks in the NICU or just because we're awesome parents :), who knows, but we just know we are so happy and lucky to have the babies we do.  It's even better than we'd imagined.