Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Sleep Seeking Part 2

First off, thank you so much for the supportive comments! They truly help! So I wrote the sleep seeking post Saturday and that night my mom decided to spend the night. She stayed with me overnight for the first four weeks after the twins were born and has spent the night a handful of times since then but she's never taken care of the babies on her own at night before.

The original plan was not for her to take care of the babies on her own, or at all for the overnight (she decided the stay because it was snowy), but when Sweet Potato woke up at midnight and she happened to be awake she offered to take the baby monitor. Big mistake Grandma! I jumped at the chance to get more than two hours of uninterrupted sleep and I say that because although the twins were going about three hours at a time, they were on different schedules so I would be getting up about five times a night. (Sweet Potato up at 12:30 and 3:30; the Dynamo up at 1:30 and 4:30 = Momma up at 12:30, 1:30, 3:30, 4:30!)

I told Grandma my nightly nursery routine - no lights on, no talking except a few whispers, don't even change a diaper if you can help it. Basically hungry baby cries, make bottle in upstairs bathroom, feed baby by nightlight in the nursery, burp baby (if possible), put baby back in crib, sleep! This works for me and amazingly the babies don't usually wake each other up. (I change a diaper at least once during the night though.)

Well Grandma is a very light sleeper. And a bad sleeper meaning when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she's up for hours. I am a good sleeper (fortunately) and can go right back to sleep after I've been up for a twenty or thirty minute feeding.

Grandma was up ALL NIGHT. Momma got six and a-half straight hours of sleep!

When I got up at 7 AM, it was only after she brought the monitor back in my room for the Dynamo because she and Sweet Potato had been DOWNSTAIRS in the playroom since 5 AM. She was afraid Sweet Potato would wake up the Dynamo. She said to me, "those kids are noisy at night." Well, yeah, if you have the baby monitor by your head (which she did), you're going to hear them breathe, and chatter, and move a little bit in their cribs. And the cat was bugging her too but she said was too tired to get up and kick her out of her room and close the door. Okay, daaaaaa. OH and the feedings? Not counting the midnight feeding I did, each baby was awake for a feeding ONCE. So she was up all night listening to them breath (and hum - Sweet Potato hums when he sleeps - so cute) and dealing with the cat who wanted to snuggle in her bed.

So Grandma was a cranky, tired mess on Sunday instead of Mommy and couldn't wait to go home. I felt really bad because I should have known better but my sleepy self was thrilled to have a night-time break. Of course she didn't listen to my routine and their feedings and naps (which are far from on schedule anyway) were really screwy on Sunday.

Sunday and Monday nights were a little bit better for me - I think I was only up three and four times.

Off to the pediatrician today! Wish me luck. Sleep Seeking Part 3 coming soon.

4 comments:

  1. Your mom is an angel, even if she might be regretting it now!

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  2. I feel your pain. I have been nodding off at my desk. I'm so tired I can't see straight.

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  3. That's fabulous that your mom was willing to take the night shift like that for you and you managed a good solid block of sleep. I'm sure that helped a lot. I hope things continue to get better in the sleeping area for everyone.

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  4. i'm so glad you got some rest! and thank you so much for sharing all of this by the way. i'm expecting twins so hearing what it's like after delivery is so very helpful to me. i hope they get on a better sleep schedule soon! p.s. they're very very handsome! :)

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