I have to say I didn't think I would be writing the conclusion to this journey so quickly! Obviously with infants the smallest change can cause regression and constant reinforcement is necessary, so I know that just because they've slept good for a week or so doesn't mean our work is done. In fact, it's not uncommon to hear whining before 7:45 (our morning goal, so they'll be ready to eat at 8).
Usually it's pretty easy to get them back to sleep, though. For Levi if you just put the pacifier back in he's usually good to go a bit longer. It's going to be great when he can do that himself... And for Allie, she started sucking her fingers this week and since then we've had to wake her up from all naps and in the morning to eat! I know some people discourage it or try to stop it altogether, but if self-soothing is what I'm working towards then Allie's got it! I've done some research. It doesn't give you crooked teeth like everyone says, and it only causes problems with the child's bite, usually an overbite, if they continue to do it past age 5 when problems can no longer correct themselves. I just need to make sure Allie's not like her mommy and does it until she's 11 (The dangers of home schooling...) Anyway, jumping off of that rabbit trail. If they do wake up before I'd like them to it's not the end of the world.
The book says 12 hours' sleep on the cover, but recognizes that not all people need 12 hours of sleep, so they're actually in their beds for 12 hours sleeping or chilling (for lack of a better term). If they want to lay in there awake that's fine. Of course most babies don't just lay in their beds happy, so we got them crib soothers, which provide some entertainment for them until it's time to get up, but sometimes it actually puts them back to sleep.
When all these things fail, and they will. They win. I'm not going to keep trying to get them to take a pacifier or look at the crib soother for 30 minutes if they don't want to, so we start earlier. Actually, as I began writing this at 7am the twins somehow knew it and wanted to show me who's boss. We're not going to make it to 8 this morning.
The hardest part about this schedule is keeping them awake between short naps and feedings, which are usually 2 hours after shorter naps. If they sleep too much during the day they won't sleep a long enough time at night. This involves a lot of entertaining on our part. I can't just let them play under their floor gym for an hour and do laundry or anything else that I want or need to do. They get tired of looking at the sea horse or monkey or whatever is hanging on there and need a change of scenery. I'm not looking forward to Paul going back to work and having to do this entertaining on my own. I've done it before, but not for this long. Usually I ending up holding one or both of them because that's all that will keep them happy in the end.
Overall, I'm happy with how things are going. They eat every 4 hours and only 4 times a day. They eat the same as they've been eating just more at a time. Usually between 25-28 ounces each a day. They typically go down easy for naps and sleep through them without waking up a hundred times like they used to, and most importantly they are in their beds, usually sleeping, for 12 hours at night (not that I get that much sleep, thanks to pumping I've still got to wake up at 6:30 anyway). I have it better than a lot of people with one baby.
I can't take all the credit for how well things are going, but I do think babies like routines a lot. People always say that God won't give you more than you can handle (which is taken out of context, but you know they say this). Well, God gave me two pretty manageable babies. Not manageable enough to take them grocery shopping with me by myself, but they sleep great, don't have colic, don't have gas, or any things that make babies really difficult. Obviously, God knew I couldn't handle even one of those, and I need to remember these things the next time I want to scream out loud because the twins are both screaming and nothing I can do makes them stop!
Friday, December 30, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
The 12 Hours' Sleep Journey: Part 2
Obviously no two babies are the same. My twins are different from each other in almost every way. They have their similarities. They both think the changing table is hilarious. They look up at the wall words and shadows on the wall and laugh it up. Oh to see through their eyes for one day! They are also the same in they they seem to fall into my schedule and routine easily.
We haven't actually started the steps I shared from the book in my last post. I am still working up to 4 hours in between feedings. We are at 3.5 hours now, but just to get myself used to some of the procedures, for lack of a better word, I have started following many "rules" from the book.
Here is one challenge we've already encountered with both twins: What to do if they wake up too early? The transition schedule, the schedule I came up with for five, 3.5 hour feedings, begins at 7-7:30am. Friday morning one of the twins began crying around 5am. We waited a couple minutes and when she hadn't stopped we went into the nursery to see if we could pacify her and get her back to sleep. Here's where their differences come in. It seems that she can deal with hunger a lot better than her brother. Obviously at 5am it's been 8 hours or so since she's eaten and if we got her up she'd take a bottle no problem. But she's also still sleepy, and with her, on this morning, sleep won. We put her pacifier in her mouth and patted her for a couple minutes and she began to go back to sleep she woke up one more time, but was again pacified and didn't wake up again until we woke both of them to eat later that morning. So what would we have done if she hadn't been pacified? That is answered by what happened with the other twin the following night, in which he woke up, I believe because of a wet diaper. On any other night this wouldn't have been a problem, but we had a babysitter on this night who we neglected to tell to put disposables on the twins before putting them to bed for the night. They wear cloth diapers during the day, which aren't absorbent enough to last all night (a topic for another blog). He woke up with wet pajamas at 5:30am. Even if we hadn't had to wake him up more by changing his diaper and PJs I still don't think he would have been satisfied to suck on the pacifier. When he would wake up in the night weeks prior to this incident he would be almost hysterical until the bottle was put in his mouth, and this morning was no different. What can I say, he loves his food! So we had to give him something to get him back to sleep until the scheduled feeding. Taking the advice of the book I gave him a "snack." Two ounces to tide him over a couple more hours. He took the two ounces easily and went back to sleep. Success! Obviously we want to be able to get him back asleep without feeding him, but this was a special situation. He probably wouldn't have been up if he hadn't had wet PJs.
If he had been doing this constantly for any other reason we would follow the books' advice and slowly decrease the amount of "snack" each night and try to get him to last a little longer each night using the pacifier until he made it to the scheduled time. And by the way, don't you know he still pretty much ate his whole 6 ounce bottle I would normally feed him without the snack later that morning. That boy is going to be moving up those percentiles quickly!
I'm pretty confident that once we actually begin the steps toward 12 hours' sleep at night we will have success. Naps will be another issue, although those are getting better every day!
We haven't actually started the steps I shared from the book in my last post. I am still working up to 4 hours in between feedings. We are at 3.5 hours now, but just to get myself used to some of the procedures, for lack of a better word, I have started following many "rules" from the book.
Here is one challenge we've already encountered with both twins: What to do if they wake up too early? The transition schedule, the schedule I came up with for five, 3.5 hour feedings, begins at 7-7:30am. Friday morning one of the twins began crying around 5am. We waited a couple minutes and when she hadn't stopped we went into the nursery to see if we could pacify her and get her back to sleep. Here's where their differences come in. It seems that she can deal with hunger a lot better than her brother. Obviously at 5am it's been 8 hours or so since she's eaten and if we got her up she'd take a bottle no problem. But she's also still sleepy, and with her, on this morning, sleep won. We put her pacifier in her mouth and patted her for a couple minutes and she began to go back to sleep she woke up one more time, but was again pacified and didn't wake up again until we woke both of them to eat later that morning. So what would we have done if she hadn't been pacified? That is answered by what happened with the other twin the following night, in which he woke up, I believe because of a wet diaper. On any other night this wouldn't have been a problem, but we had a babysitter on this night who we neglected to tell to put disposables on the twins before putting them to bed for the night. They wear cloth diapers during the day, which aren't absorbent enough to last all night (a topic for another blog). He woke up with wet pajamas at 5:30am. Even if we hadn't had to wake him up more by changing his diaper and PJs I still don't think he would have been satisfied to suck on the pacifier. When he would wake up in the night weeks prior to this incident he would be almost hysterical until the bottle was put in his mouth, and this morning was no different. What can I say, he loves his food! So we had to give him something to get him back to sleep until the scheduled feeding. Taking the advice of the book I gave him a "snack." Two ounces to tide him over a couple more hours. He took the two ounces easily and went back to sleep. Success! Obviously we want to be able to get him back asleep without feeding him, but this was a special situation. He probably wouldn't have been up if he hadn't had wet PJs.
If he had been doing this constantly for any other reason we would follow the books' advice and slowly decrease the amount of "snack" each night and try to get him to last a little longer each night using the pacifier until he made it to the scheduled time. And by the way, don't you know he still pretty much ate his whole 6 ounce bottle I would normally feed him without the snack later that morning. That boy is going to be moving up those percentiles quickly!
I'm pretty confident that once we actually begin the steps toward 12 hours' sleep at night we will have success. Naps will be another issue, although those are getting better every day!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The 12 Hours' Sleep Journey: Part 1
With twins it is extremely important to have a schedule and routine that you follow everyday. Especially if you're like me. I need to have a plan or goal and not feel like I'm blindly stumbling through each day. Things do not always go as planned. I know that is a shock to you. I plan on taking a nap everyday, but it rarely happens.
The twins have been on a good feeding schedule, and go to bed surprisingly easy at night, but naps have become a nightmare as both twins had become cat nappers, which if you have experienced this you know you can't get anything started much less done in this length of time. I am in the process of breaking them of this habit.
I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to have them sleeping and eating when I want, but I have a tinge of self-doubt when it comes to these things I guess because I want a book to tell me what I am doing is going to work. I was told about a book that sounded amazing Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old. I was skeptical and couldn't wait to read what unrealistic things it was going to tell me to do to accomplish this. Before the book even arrived I came up with a new schedule with not only set feeding times, but also set nap and awake times that I was determined to follow. When the book arrived, I was surprised to find that I was already doing several things it said to do. Not only that, but (to me) it didn't really have any unrealistic expectations or suggestions. It was so simple! I can do this, I thought!
Now, I know everyone is different. It's easy for me to have a routine because I'm organized. I also don't feel like I have to do everything the book says. I can adjust it to work for me and my babies. But I have a dream that my children will sleep long and hard, and that I can just kiss them and say I love you and goodnight, and not spend hours putting them to sleep. I know this is possible, but it doesn't mean it's easy.
So, back to 12-hours' sleep. I hear stories about peoples' kids waking at the crack of dawn and getting them to sleep later in the morning means putting them to bed later. But the twins were already sleeping 9.5 straight hours, so another 2.5 hours didn't seem out of reach. I'm not going to re-type the book, but basically you do four things once your children meet the weight/age requirements and can eat at least 24 ounces in 24 hours: 1. Feed every four hours in a 12-hour period, 2. Eliminate night feedings, 3. Sleep/rest quietly in crib for 12 hours at night, 4. Nap one hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon (I apologize if it's annoying you when I switch from typing the number and spelling it out. I know there are rules, but I forgot them).
Like I said I was already beginning to try to do these things, so this doesn't seem out of reach. The challenges will be there, though. They are learning to self-soothe, which means I don't pick them up as soon as I hear them cry I wait 3-5 minutes then I go in and try to pat them, put the pacifier back in, etc, whatever I can do to help them, but avoid picking them up unless I feel necessary since I aim at picking them up when they're happy, not crying, although that doesn't always happen. Another challenge is keeping them awake. They can barely stay awake for an hour and a half without wanting to sleep again. Right now they still take an evening nap, which will have to be cut out if I want them to sleep long periods.
I will have many more challenges and will be sharing them (along with victories, I hope!). It's going to take a lot of work and sacrifice on my part. I may not be able to do things that interfere with our routine, since that can hinder progress. For example, I may not be able to attend bible study on Wednesday nights because keeping the twins awake, but also quiet would be very difficult! However, I am willing to do it if it means I can know they will sleep 12 hours a night and take naps so I can have me time!
Feel free to pray for me or offer any suggestions that might help me!
Here goes nothing...
The twins have been on a good feeding schedule, and go to bed surprisingly easy at night, but naps have become a nightmare as both twins had become cat nappers, which if you have experienced this you know you can't get anything started much less done in this length of time. I am in the process of breaking them of this habit.
I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to have them sleeping and eating when I want, but I have a tinge of self-doubt when it comes to these things I guess because I want a book to tell me what I am doing is going to work. I was told about a book that sounded amazing Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old. I was skeptical and couldn't wait to read what unrealistic things it was going to tell me to do to accomplish this. Before the book even arrived I came up with a new schedule with not only set feeding times, but also set nap and awake times that I was determined to follow. When the book arrived, I was surprised to find that I was already doing several things it said to do. Not only that, but (to me) it didn't really have any unrealistic expectations or suggestions. It was so simple! I can do this, I thought!
Now, I know everyone is different. It's easy for me to have a routine because I'm organized. I also don't feel like I have to do everything the book says. I can adjust it to work for me and my babies. But I have a dream that my children will sleep long and hard, and that I can just kiss them and say I love you and goodnight, and not spend hours putting them to sleep. I know this is possible, but it doesn't mean it's easy.
So, back to 12-hours' sleep. I hear stories about peoples' kids waking at the crack of dawn and getting them to sleep later in the morning means putting them to bed later. But the twins were already sleeping 9.5 straight hours, so another 2.5 hours didn't seem out of reach. I'm not going to re-type the book, but basically you do four things once your children meet the weight/age requirements and can eat at least 24 ounces in 24 hours: 1. Feed every four hours in a 12-hour period, 2. Eliminate night feedings, 3. Sleep/rest quietly in crib for 12 hours at night, 4. Nap one hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon (I apologize if it's annoying you when I switch from typing the number and spelling it out. I know there are rules, but I forgot them).
Like I said I was already beginning to try to do these things, so this doesn't seem out of reach. The challenges will be there, though. They are learning to self-soothe, which means I don't pick them up as soon as I hear them cry I wait 3-5 minutes then I go in and try to pat them, put the pacifier back in, etc, whatever I can do to help them, but avoid picking them up unless I feel necessary since I aim at picking them up when they're happy, not crying, although that doesn't always happen. Another challenge is keeping them awake. They can barely stay awake for an hour and a half without wanting to sleep again. Right now they still take an evening nap, which will have to be cut out if I want them to sleep long periods.
I will have many more challenges and will be sharing them (along with victories, I hope!). It's going to take a lot of work and sacrifice on my part. I may not be able to do things that interfere with our routine, since that can hinder progress. For example, I may not be able to attend bible study on Wednesday nights because keeping the twins awake, but also quiet would be very difficult! However, I am willing to do it if it means I can know they will sleep 12 hours a night and take naps so I can have me time!
Feel free to pray for me or offer any suggestions that might help me!
Here goes nothing...
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