Personality Differences

Toby and Ari might be identical twins, but they certainly don't act identical. Their personalities are similar, to be sure, but the differences are fairly noticeable. Ari is more gregarious, as much as you can say such a thing about a baby. He is all smiles and laughs for everybody. Toby gets overstimulated more easily and doesn't like to interact directly for as long; he is also smiley, but a bit more discriminating. Toby notices and smiles and coos at Ari and Ezra more than Ari pays attention to Toby; Toby will also just stop nursing and stare at me and grin (so sweet!). Ari stares at his hands and fingers more than any baby I've ever known. He also likes to sit in the swing with the toys on it, and Toby does not. Toby falls asleep in the crib much more readily than Ari; sometimes Ari will start crying and Toby will just stare at him as if he's wondering why he's carrying on like that. And the most noticeable to other people: Ari just plain loves to nurse, whereas Toby just wants to nurse to eat. My father says Ari nurses recreationally, and Toby just nurses nutritionally. My mother calls them fat (Toby) and fatter (Ari). I think Ari was about a pound more, but the difference might be a bit less now.

All of this is how they are today. They could easily change tomorrow!

Both babies are enjoying being big enough for the exersaucer. They like to spin the spinny toy. They've started to protest being put on the floor, I think because they want to sit up and move around. Neither is really rolling much because they don't want to spend much time laying down learning how! They are getting stronger and hopefully will be sitting in another month, which should make them happy.

They aren't really sleeping well at night. I'm fairly exhausted. What I'm looking forward to most is a regular nap schedule. I can't remember when Ezra did that; I tried reading his old blog, but it didn't really say. It looks like at an equivalent age to where Ari and Toby are now (3-4 months) he was still napping every 1.5 to 2 hours. The little guys are still only wanting to be awake for 1 to 1.5 hours, with maybe one 2-hour stretch per day. It means I spend a lot of the day making sure they get to sleep. I think one problem is that they won't take long enough naps, so they get tired quickly. And the other sleep issue that is exasperating is something that Ezra did too: tons of waking in the early morning, and then waking for the day too early. I wonder if bringing them into our bedroom made the problem worse.