Thursday, January 20, 2011

Sleep Seeking Part 3

To continue where we left off, Baby A and Baby B were wonderfully sleeping through the night at about two and a-half months and a few weeks later started waking up again like they were fresh out of the hospital. This just so happened to coincide with my full-time return to work. Lucky for me I am a pretty good sleeper and even getting up a whole bunch of times throughout the night, I am able to go right back to sleep. Another bonus is just shy of the three month mark, I switched to the number 2 nipples and the feedings that used to take about forty minutes dropped to twenty.

Before I start to complain (cuz it's coming), let me say I am a lucky, lucky girl. I get to work from home two days per week (although that's ending soon) and I have full-time childcare in my home so I don't have to take the babies out in the dead of winter to daycare. My mom watches them three days per week and Fabulous D's mom watches them two days. Let me say it again: I am a lucky, lucky girl.

On the days when I work from home, I literally start my day fifteen minutes before I have to work. My office is in the basement and I am trying to win employee of the month while I'm home* so I barely head upstairs except to pee, get coffee, repeat. I get to play with the babies through my lunch hour and see them the minute my work day ends. This makes for a very happy momma. As much as I hate to leave them the mornings I go into the office (they are so happy in the mornings!), I like getting out of the house and seeing my co-workers.

Okay, so back to the sleeping -or in Sweet Potato's case, the no sleeping. We started cereal last week. It hasn't gone well -

He would much rather do this -

And the Dynamo prefers this -

I tried the rice for a few days and then the oatmeal and Grandma tried mixing the two together. The Dynamo will eat it but he's not happy about it and Sweet Potato will push the spoon away from his face in defiance. I've been mixing it in a bottle with the formula (still on Enfamil until it runs out), and cut a bigger hole in the nipples and that has been helping.

In fact, two nights ago the Dynamo slept nine and a-half hours straight!!

His brother did not.

But the Dynamo slept nine and a-half hours straight!!

His brother was awake every TWO hours. Sigh.

Last night the Dynamo woke up once and Sweet Potato woke up three times. Today, fortunately a work-from-home day, Momma is a tired mess.

When my mom saw me this morning she knew how the night was. She suggested cutting their naps shorter during the day** and I said with no emotion, "No naps. No more daytime naps. Ever." (kidding of course).

Then the Dynamo smiled with his mouth wide-open and I was suddenly awake and smiling too.

I plan to keep trying the cereal, first with a spoon and then in the bottle. It has to get better, right?


* I'm hoping if I kick-ass while working from home, my boss will let me keep doing it. It doesn't look promising though.
** The twins are not really on a schedule but usualy sleep for one and half to two and sometimes three hours in the morning around 9 AM and then one or two hours around 2 PM.

3 comments:

  1. God, sleep issues suck. Henry's sleep schedule definitely started resolving around 3 months - where his sleep times had been erratic, they started being predictable. And I've actually found that napping better during the day seems to lead to better sleeping at night? Doesn't make total sense to me, but it does seem to work out that way. Regardless - I hope that your little ones get their sleeping schedules worked out quickly - and I'll be interested to hear how the rice cereal experiment goes - I'm looking forward to starting mine on it, but am waiting another month or so since he hates it so...

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  2. I love your blog! I'm a so-called "lurker," and I felt the need to tell you about a good book for helping with sleeping: "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Twins," by Marc Weissbluth. I have 11 week old twin girls, and they are sleeping through the night! Like sprogblogger said, napping during the day helps with sleep at night. The gist of the book is that sleep begets sleep. The more and better naps during the day, the longer better sleep at night. Good luck with the sleeping and the move to solids! BTW- if you call 800-BABY-123, Enfamil will send you 24 free bottles of formula! Call before 1-31. Mine's in the mail. Take care!

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  3. Lurker here, too. Just wanted to jump on the bandwagon from above: sleep begets sleep! Don't worry about their naps, they need them. I would really get Weissbluth's book. It's a super-fast read and should help. Right now, they are still sorting out their sleep/going through a growth spurt or...maybe starting to teeth.
    You'll find that JUST when you have a schedule in place, the babies make up a new one:)
    Good Luck.

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