A lot has changed since my last blog. People would always tell me, "It gets easier," but I didn't feel that it was really all that hard. Until sleep deprivation. The beginning of last week, C and O simply stopped sleeping at night. I don't know why. They never seemed to sleep all day or not get enough calories, but suddenly they were just AWAKE. Both of them, all night long. One night I didn't ever get more than 45 minutes at a time (Sleep Sheep is on a 42 minute timer. Every time I went in, he was still on). There were two nights were I did not get more than 5 hours with those nights combined. I was sleeping on the floor of the nursery. I didn't have it in me to go months on that kind of schedule. So I started asking other twin moms what they did to get their babies on schedules. People suggested several things. Some things were too scheduled for me, some people were blessed with babies that just figured it out on their own, some people weren't getting sleep, but several of the women who were getting sleep suggested "12 Hours in 12 Weeks." I went to the bookstore that day and bought a copy, reading it in under 45 minutes and madly scrawling out a schedule as I read. That afternoon I had a plan. I got the recommended calorie intake in that afternoon for the boys, which was 4 more oz a day than I was giving them, and it gave me a 2 hour stretch of sleep that very night. The next couple days were difficult, with D's birthday and his party, family in town, and an unpredictable schedule. However, I had extra hands and I put them to work keeping babies awake at the right times and feeding them at the right times. Today is day 3 of the schedule and last night BOTH babies slept COMPLETELY through the night. I did not go in their room once for any reason. They self-soothed, no long crying jags. I heard one of the babies at 2 am, but he just babbled for a little while, before falling back to sleep on his own. Today I jacked the schedule up with D's swim lessons and so the babies are having a hard time with this afternoon nap time. But I am determined. I will stick to this and we will be sleeping through the night within a week. I will have the afternoon naps coordinated so I have alone time during the day and all the boys will be asleep by 8 pm, giving me quiet time at night before I sleep soundly every night. I highly recommend this book to any moms looking for a schedule. It is roughly what the babies naturally fall into; it was actually close to the schedule we were doing anyway, just with more structured nap times and a different feeding schedule (more each feeding, less feeding times). It is an easy read and it has already helped me get MUCH more sleep than I was-- last night a full night! Here is our schedule:
0600 D awake
0630 Make D breakfast
0645 Wake babies up
0700 Feeding 1
0730 Get boys dressed/"stations"
0900-1000 Morning nap (babies)
1000 Momma and boys ready for the day!
1100 Feeding 2
1130 D lunchtime
1300-1500 Afternoon nap (babies)
1330-1430 D "Quiet Time" (resting quietly in room)
1500 D snacktime/Feeding 3
1530-1815 BABIES MUST BE AWAKE
1700 Family dinnertime
1815-1900 Get babies ready for bed
1900 Feeding 4
1920 Get D ready for bed (Daddy does this)
1930 Lights out! (babies)
2000 Lights out! (D)
This weekend when I first started the schedule I had a lot of extra hands, as I said. I'm hoping that with the large block of awake time happening in the late afternoon/early evening, I will have W's help keeping both of them awake. It's hard to keep TWO babies awake and entertain D all by myself, as I found out this morning.
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