Step by Step Parenting

When I was pregnant, there were a lot of baby milestones I was looking forward to, and even some I wasn’t. I daydreamed about what baby’s first smiles would look like, what I would have to do to get her to laugh, and prayed that she would be sleeping through the night by four months. I couldn’t wait to see her first crawls, watch her try solids for the first time, and be there as she learned to take her first steps.

But I wasn’t prepared, and no warned me about, some of the more bittersweet milestones. The ones that make you keenly aware of just how fast time was moving, while breaking your heart just a little bit at the same time.  No one warned me about these four baby milestones that would make me cry.

1. Measuring their feeds in ounces instead of milliliters 

My twins were born at 38 weeks, so not super early, but early enough that feeding was a struggle in those first few days. I really wanted to nurse, but they lost so much weight in the hospital — the smaller twin got down to 4.5 lbs — that we ended up needing to bottle-feed with donor milk. I remember when the nurses from the NICU brought us that milk, 100 mL seemed like so much!

For awhile, we measured their feeds, and my pumping output, in millimeters instead of ounces. Eventually, they started regularly taking 1 oz per feed, then 1.5 oz, then 2 oz. Around that time, I realized it was a little silly to log things like “275 mL” after a pump, so I started logging the amounts in ounces, instead. Naturally, this made me cry!

2. Sizing up to size one diapers

Something about switching to a diaper size with a number rather than the newborn “N” is just crushing! It doesn’t help that since the twins were so small, they actually started in preemie diapers. So by time they moved from the preemie size to newborn size, and then from the newborn size to size one, I knew that they were growing! I never thought I would find myself so emotional about diaper sizes, but here we are.

3. Transitioning out of swaddles

This one is tough, because it happens once babies grow from tiny helpless newborns to babies that are rolling, and trying to be on the move. There’s something so precious about seeing a little baby all swaddled up in their crib, fast asleep. A sleep sack seems like such a big kid thing!

And yet, this milestone seems to sneak up out of nowhere. Transitioning out of a swaddle is usually the start of a cascade of sleep-related changes, such as the four-month sleep regression or sleep training, which makes it all the more difficult. Knowing that in many ways, this marked the end of the newborn phase… you guessed it, I cried.

4. When they start holding their own bottles

I daydreamed about this milestone when the twins were small, eagerly looking forward to when I didn’t need to hold up both bottles for every feed. And before anyone goes, “Oh my gosh, how could you ever wish that away, enjoy it while it lasts, they’re only this little once!” or anything like that, respectfully, if you don’t have twins then hush. It is extremely difficult to simultaneously feed two babies, and it can often leave you feeling like you’re never quite enough for either one. Looking forward to them being able to hold their own bottles doesn’t make you a bad mom.

At the same time, that doesn’t make it any less bittersweet when they finally can hold their own bottles. A part of me was relieved when my younger twin figured it out — it made it easier to feed her and her sister at the same time — but it also immediately made me miss the tiny baby she was just months prior.

I am sure there are countless more baby milestones that will make me cry that I haven’t even encountered yet. And I know there are a whole slew of big kid milestones, too (which I wrote about here). But for now, I am going to do my best to soak up the phase I’m in, with the last babies I’ll ever have. It is so bittersweet to watch them grow up, but I am so grateful for all of the memories we’re making and lessons we’re learning along the way.

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