the road to change sleeping positions

Around the end of four real months both of my girls learned how to roll over from their belly's to their backs. Since they are belly sleepers this created a nightmare for bed/naptime. We have spent the past month and a half running back and forth to their room to constantly flip them back over so they can sleep as they are screaming. this was going on repeatedly throughout the night and I was getting even more sleep deprived. After talking and reading whatever I could on the subject, we decided to Ignore and Teach. Let them cry till they fell asleep on their backs. I didn't have much choice, we've always gone the Cry It Out way but more Check and Console mixed in. We do 10 minute intervals depending on the severity of the screaming. If its a certain cry or sounds different I check more frequently. It had always worked for us, bedtime was a breeze after 12 weeks, they slept through the night and naptimes were relatively often and easy.

Three nights ago we decided to try simple Ignore at night. The first night Mallory played for almost two hours and cried for 10 minutes, my husband forgot about the Ignore part and went and rolled her over. The second we completely let them be, Mallory again played for two hours starting at 3am and then cried for 25 minutes at 5am before falling asleep. Only to then wake up for the day at 6am.

What then proceeded was the worst day in the past six months. They cried, I cried, but in the end I think mission accomplished. By noon, we'd already had three naps and three bottles (which is absolutely not normal) and they had cried for 25 minutes each time before falling asleep on their backs. They rolled themselves that way, I put them down on their bellies. And the day went on like that, although I will say each time the crying got a little bit less. By the time bedtime came, M went down without a peep and Emily let out a few little yelps after rolling to her back and went to sleep.

And not a cry out of them all night. I heard Emily playing for about 20 minutes around 3am and then she went to sleep without a single yelp. I couldn't believe it.

However they've decided to punish me back by saying Ha, I will then just sleep with my blanket over my face (the knit blanket I through on their legs after they fell asleep to keep them relatively warm without waking them up to get the other one out of their hands.

My poor husband just doesn't understand.

By the time he gets home, I've spent the entire day with twins ... feeding, patting bums, bouncing, shhhhhhh'ing, playing, changing multiple shitty explosion diapers, patting more bums and I really really some days would love nothing more than to just hand him a baby when he walks in the door and go to bed.

I don't feel like talking. I want to sit down in a quiet room and drink something (tea, wine, whatever is handy). I don't want to go for a walk, I can barely make the decision on what to cook for supper, I don't want to go out and run errands. Do you not realize that we have a schedule and bedtime is at 7pm?? It just doesn't work for us to leave the house after supper. I'm with babies all day, I understand the significance of running off the routine.

I don't feel like talking. I want to take a bath in a quiet room. I can't think, I can't make decisions, I can't plan our vacations, my brain is tired.

I fully understand his day starts just about as early as mine and if I poke him long enough he will get up once in the night to roll a baby back over on her belly. But I can be up for hours ... and then my day starts at 6am for good. I understand its only an extra 45 minutes of sleep he's getting but that would be heaven for me. Hell, I could definitely start my day at 6:45 and be happy. But 5:50am?? Not fun.

I don't feel like talking. I want to go to bed at 9pm. I want to sleep straight through to 6am even. I feel one hundred times better when I get to sleep before 10 o'clock however that leaves very little time for him and I.

Yes, work is stressful. But can it really be as overwhelming as being home all day with six month old twins?

I love being home, LOVE IT. However, its tiring. I don't feel like talking by the time 5pm rolls around.

The best part of being home on maternity leave (besides seeing my babies grow) ... is not having to put on a bra.

Ahhhhh heaven.

Six Months

This August long weekend we decided to go on our first camping trip with M&Em. I tried very hard to make sure that I packed lightly and in little bits over the entire week so that Friday morning wasn't a bomb waiting to go off. We wanted to leave just after the second feeding at 10am ... I'm inside busting my ass trying to get babies, the house and myself ready. Where's my husband? Outside - shining tires on the camper. Priorities hunny!! The babies don't care if we have shiny tires and neither do the dingy permanent residents of the campground.

Overall the trip went really well. It was by far my favourite camping trip to date. Even though we didn't even leave the camper for the part, certainly never left the grounds. For the first time in five weeks both babies slept through from 7pm to 6am without even an eyelash flutter. Mama too.

I swear if we come home and they start waking up/rolling over all night long I'm shipping them back out to sleep in the camper.

On a side note, Em's second bottom tooth has slightly broken through and M's bottom two are showing but not yet pierced. Can't believe they have teeth at only 4.5 adjusted months. Seems so little!

I HAD good sleepers

I shouldn't say that, I still have relatively good sleepers. They love a good three hour nap even still. And I still get at least three naps out of them in a day.

At six adjusted weeks (12 real) my twin girls "slept through the night". We started our bedtime routine at this time ... play on the mat with M&D, bathtime, bottle and straight to bed awake. It worked very well even from the first night. At that time they would go to bed around 9pm and wake up at 5am for a very quick bottle and back to sleep until 9am. Twelve  hours people.

Where in the hell did that go? We are four months adjusted now, bedtime has been moved up to anywhere between 7 and 8 but they've discovered how to roll over to their backs and it has completely disrupted their entire nights and naps. We're up three or four times a night. They awake at five am but its for the day now, if I can get them to go back to sleep its for never more than 45 minutes until after they eat again at around nine-ten. We do practice "graduated extinction" waiting five minutes, then ten minutes and so on. However they very rarely return to sleep after 5 am.

Is this normal?? Am I going to have 5am raisers? I can't handle it. Mommy just can't handle it. Daddy can't handle it when Mommy can't handle it.

The rolling over has also disrupted naptime. I put them in, they roll over and giggle at me. At times she's soooo tired she's rubbing her face into the blanket and crying but she STILL rolls over.

And being the amazing mother that I am, I've taught them "crib to sleep". They refuse to be rocked in a chair or in a swing and they won't even sleep in the car if THEY don't feel like it. I thought it was a good thing, they were always put to bed to sleep, I mean HELLO! I have TWO, I can't rock them to sleep, I would get nowhere. I would die. But then, times like now, I wish I could rock the little tired baby to sleep.

sleep in a non-moving stroller? No.

Every week or so I get this email in my inbox that talks about what my twins should be up to at this point in time of their development. And after the one that I received today I'm really wondering whether or not the person writing them has any knowledge of babies or if mine are just the exception.

At 4.5 months (adjusted) this email says "at this point in time you may have noticed regular sleeping patterns emerging and you may feel some relief in knowing it will be now possible for you to get out of the house. Go have coffee with a friend ... when its time for the baby to sleep just pull the shade over the stroller and she will automatically fall asleep at her scheduled time." or some such shit to the effect.

ahhhhhhhhhh ... no.

Not my babies anyway. I have wonderful sleepers for the most part - if the house is relatively quiet, they are in their own cribs and the room is slightly dim at least. But go to sleep in the stroller while mommy has a coffee all by their little selves?? Don't think so. If you so much as even slightly slow down on the movement of the stroller or car the four little eyes pop open and its game over.