Sleep

Whenever anyone hears that we have twins they automatically assume we are the worst sort of sleep deprived.  And sure, we have times when we don't get much sleep, but overall I feel pretty blessed to have children who seem to like to sleep.

At first, of course, they slept a maximum of 4 hours at a time, usually during the day.  Usually it was every 2 hours we would change, feed, and return to sleep each baby.  If they were off cycle, it could mean 1 hour intervals. 

During the first two weeks my mom, husband and I decided the only way to make sure everyone got some sleep was by running shifts.  Two people needed to be on at all times.  We camped out downstairs and worked in 4 hour shifts.  That way everyone got at least 4 hours, but occasionally 8 hours of sleep at night.  We would also take naps during the day, so it all kind of worked out. Emotions did run high sometimes, as we were all exhausted, and forgiveness and understanding was quick to follow, because we all recognized that we were not fully functioning.

After 2 weeks we decided it was time to move the babies into their hammocks in the bedroom.  They were, at this point, pretty colicy.  It seemed like they were either allergic to the formula, or something I was eating, but they would wake up screaming in pain.  We went to our pediatrician, who we have since fired, who told us we were feeding them too much.  At this point Tim was sleeping around 6 hours at a time, and Ryan would sleep in 4 hour increments. 

Our new pediatrician, who we love, recommended probiotics.  The next night Ryan slept 8 hours straight, and stopped waking up in pain.  He has since worked himself up to 12 hours and almost always sleeps at least 10 hours straight.  Tim hasn't much improved.  He would wake up so soaked, often we would need to change his pajamas. 

We switched to our "super-duper" diapers, soakers that do a good job keeping everything in the diaper cover.  We got a few nights of 8 hour increments from Tim, but he's pretty much back to 6 hours, then another 3, then another 3.  Not ideal, but we're working on it.  It's nice that he wakes up all happy and smiling, but we hope the sleep times increase.  Last night he fitfully made it through 8 hours, but we were constantly running over to help sooth him back to sleep.

But all of this might change soon.  We've already introduced cribs for naps.  Today their naps include sleep sacks in their cribs.  But for nighttime, they've yet to try out the cribs.  Thanksgiving will be a first, but we need to get them used to cribs before their trip overseas.  Currently they sleep in hammocks that are mounted with springs.  When they begin to stir, they move around, and end up bouncing themselves back to sleep.  I don't know what will happen when they move to cribs at night.  We might end up back to shorter sleep times. 

My hope is that they've learned that it's nice to sleep all the way through the night.  They're getting enough food during the day that they don't need a night time feeding.  I'm hopeful that they will remain tired enough that they will be able to sleep without the spring action.  Only time will tell.  In the mean time, I'm enjoying only waking up once in the middle of the night (Gerd wakes up once too). 

Now if only we could work on the naps.  They get so tired, and want to take naps, but they're frequently only half an hour.  When they get 3 separate hour long naps in, they are much better about going to sleep happy, and actually sleep better through the night.  As long as we don't go anywhere during the day they seem to nap okay, not great, but if we go anywhere their routine is shot and it'll be a rough bedtime routine. 

At around 6:00, although we are trying to start a little later, we begin the bedtime routine.  First one gets a bath and is then dressed for bed while the other plays with the other parent or hangs out in a bouncy chair in the bathroom. They then they get a bottle and lullabies while the other gets his bath, pajamas, bottle and songs.  One is always in bed around 30 minutes before the other.  We've given up on bedtime stories for now, they're too hungry to listen to a story, and then too full and tired to listen to a story.  We're thinking of doing stories before baths, but right now it doesn't entirely work out.  They get independent story time at least twice during their day routine, so they are being read to daily.

Hopefully I'll be able to write about their daytime routine next time I write.  That's a work in progress, but things have been pretty good lately.  It helps that I think about the day as a group of mini-lesson plans :)