Sleep! I crave it and I'm never getting enough of it. I was thinking about it, and it's been about a year since I've had peaceful restful slumber. Wow, that's just depressing...
Here's an update on our twins and sleeping:
NAPPING! Nap Boot Camp was a success!!! We now rock Evan with paci and taggie for a few minutes and put him in his crib. Typically he'll roll to his side and be asleep in a few minutes. Once in a while he still needs his paci placed back in his mouth in the initial 5 minutes of being placed in his crib. But for the most part, he goes right down without a problem. FINALLY!!! He isn't laying in his crib crying for 30 minutes while mom runs around trying not to have a meltdown. Ella continues to be the champion napper. She's tired. You put her in her crib with paci, taggie and light her glow worm. Boom. The girl is out.
We finally have a predictable schedule for these two. I would have never guessed it would take 6 months to get to an actual schedule! Here's how it works: babies wake up around 5-6 for a 5-6 oz bottle and go back to bed. Babies wake up for the day around 8 and have breakfast (usually oatmeal and a fruit). Next is bathing, getting dressed and play time. We do bottles and go down for a nap around 9:30-10. Babies are up by 11 and we do more play time followed by lunch around 11:30. Lunch is typically 2 vegetables. We play more and usually have a small bottle before going down for a nap around 12:30-1 with a wake up time around 2. We have bottles and play. Around 3:30-4 they go down for the last nap of the day. The babies are up by 5 and we have a bottle and wait for dad to come home. We feed them a meal around 5:30-6 that usually consists of a grain (barley, rice or oatmeal) and a fruit or veggie. I have dinner done for us adults at this time as well so we all eat as a family. We clean up dinner and have family play time until the babies get tired (usually about 7). We do bottles and put them to bed around 7:30. We then clean up whatever is left out, throw the cloth diapers in the wash and have a few hours of uninterrupted adult time. I cherish being able to snuggle on the couch and have an adult conversation.
Not in the above schedule is all the cleaning, laundry, diaper changes, meal prepping and random other things I do throughout the day. The days are long and exhausting, but filled with so much love and joy at the same time. They are full and busy, but mostly wonderful.
When we head off to bed we both go look at both of the babies one last time. We stand and gaze at them while we have ridiculous smiles on our faces. We made those two perfect little babies....it's still unbelievable to me sometimes.
SLEEPING! Here's the deal. Evan is great at sleeping. He sleeps on his stomach with his legs crossed and his butt in the air. We both got into bed one night and tried that position...not comfortable! I don't know how he does it, but it works for him! He needs a paci one time a night 2-3 times a week. I think that's fantastic!
Ella Ella Ella....she has been a handful!! We made many unsuccessful attempts at getting her out of her Rock N Play into her crib. Finally around 5 months we decided we needed to suffer through the sleeplessness and get her into the damn crib or she'd be going off to college in a Rock N Play. Many many sleepless nights ensued...she'd be up every 2 hours crying uncontrollably. She'd be thrashing her head and kicking and seemed uncomfortable. This went on for weeks....there were a handful of nights she'd even need a bottle. Neither of the babies have needed a middle of the night bottle since they were about 4.5 months old so this was frustrating!!! Finally, one night around 3 am I had an idea. I crawled into our attic space and grabbed a quilt and we shoved in under her mattress to elevate it like the Rock N Play. Collin said we could try giving her Zantac a bit earlier in the night as well. We did these two things and BAM! The girl is sleeping MUCH better! Maybe she won't need a Rock N Play in her dorm room after all.
She wakes up anywhere from 2-4 times a night needing her pacifier. Sometimes less and sometimes not at all. Apparently the poor girl has horrible reflux and laying flat just doesn't work for her right now....she's not kicking and thrashing her head around anymore. I'm trying to stick with the 'throw the paci in her mouth' game in hopes that she will outgrow that in time as well. I think we're doing pretty well with the sleeping thing. I don't know. If anyone knows how to end the paci game please share. I keep reading all these incredibly annoying people who say 'my baby is such a great sleeper! s/he has slept through the night since 1 month of age.' Ugh...shut up! Parents can be so self righteous and annoying... I don't want to be one of those parents.
We're both feeling well rested most of the time so I guess we're doing something right. Who knows. We just make stuff up as we go.
Evan had a fever today of 101.4 and he was extremely cranky. I think he's teething? I hope he's not getting sick.... we've avoided being sick so far and we are so close to the end of the sick season.... Poor fella was a complete mess. Fingers crossed...
2 comments:
IMO, whether babies sleep through the night early (or at all) has very little to do with what we do as parents and a lot to do with the individual baby and his/her temperament and needs. So just as I don't think parents with "good" sleepers should congratulate themselves, I don't think parents with "bad" sleepers should beat themselves up. We do what we can to try to help our little ones, and it's all trial and error, for the most part.
I'm so glad to hear that you have your babies on a schedule. I think that's such an important thing with twins in particular.
Here's hoping you get some solid sleep soon. I don't think I had my first entirely uninterrupted night until my sons were about 8 months old or so. ;-)
I will never be one of those parents who brags that her kid did such and such so early, mainly because my kids are pretty normal and not so much overachievers in the sleeping/eating/etc arenas. Now when they get into Harvard and Yale that's a different story! ;-) Good to hear you got Ella back up on an angle in the crib. Poor little sweetie -- reflux sux!
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