Guess the first order of business could be a debate over that singular possessive I chose .
Ok, got my caramel macchiatto, the babies have had their 6-minute naps (arrrgh!) & are playing somewhat contentedly, and I’m ready to start. My b/g twins are almost 7 months old. He’s rolling over & scooting around, she just rolled over for the first time this week & doesn’t seem in a hurry to repeat the experience.
Anybody else remember (or going through) this no-naps-for-me phase? I swear they used to sleep better, with just occasional difficulties; lately it’s as if they’ve been sneaking sips of my coffee. Just sooo much energy! I’m don’t really want to fight with them over it, I just lay them down when they fall asleep (usually after a feeding) and pick them back up when they bounce awake 6 minutes later. I take breaks from them while they play, it’s the only “alone” time I get (besides that trip to Starbucks). Sometimes, if it’s way out of control, I load them into the car; it never fails to put them to sleep & keep 'em there.
Had an interesting chat w/my Mom yesterday (she’s turned out to be so supportive of my motherhood!). She’s reading a book called Transitions; I don’t know anything about it, but she was telling me the central point is that every new beginning actually starts with an ending, a cessation of the old. And I’m definitely feeling that, still, even after 7 months. It’s getting easier, but I grieve for my old life at times.
Let’s see, it’s a busy Saturday morning for us. I got up early to do a bunch of much-needed yard work before the area I wanted to work on got sunny. I pulled huge weeds until my hands gave up, by which time I was quite muddy. Got the kids dressed and made boysenberry muffins and showered while they baked. Now the girls (ages 4 and 17 months) are playing and listening to the soundtrack of The secret of Roan Inish, aka seal songs, while Dad mows the lawn and I’m going to take the van down to get an alignment.
As for naptimes, do they have much of a schedule? For myself, I found it easier to get them to nap if it happened at the same time every day. At 7 months, I think I usually had one morning nap and one afternoon nap, but it may have been three naps a day. Power naps are awful, aren’t they? It must be so difficult to get twins to sleep. Do they share a bed, or a room? (I’m always curious about how to manage twins.) Anyway I know other people are happy without schedules, so YMMV.
Instead of spending Chloe’s (13 months) nap time cleaning up the kitchen, I’m slacking here on the message boards.
One thing I learned about the time you’re at, fessie, is that putting her down for a nap 1.5 to 2 hours after she woke up in the morning helped her attitude and her napping a lot. It seems weird to put them back down so soon, but it worked for us. Also, a very early bedtime: 5:30-6.
That said, she still tends to nap for 30 minutes or so, tops.
This week she has been trying my patience immensely. She now has a fever as well as being cranky, and I’m hoping to Rock it’s a new tooth, and not another ear infection. The next few days will tell. My mom and dad are taking her tomorrow, thank goodness! One of the hardest things about momhood is never having an end to the day or a weekend, like with a standard job.
Cute thing of the week: when she’s upset, she’ll sit in my lap, pull up my shirt, and cuddle her head on my bare chest. A clothed chest just won’t do now that she knows how to do this.
Well it’s almost 1 and I’ve yet to have my coffee or my shower for the day, instead we lazed about in bed for most of the morning (we were all pretty tired) and Caterpie (8 months) is now having a nap in his play pen while I glance over the boards. I plan to make some soup soon, actually right after I post this because I’ll be able to eat it before he wakes up (hopefully).
Aren’t Saturday’s great?! My best memories of childhood seem to be linked to the sounds of the dishwasher and lawn mower running simultaneously! It’s interesting how much Moms accomplish - before I had kids, I never imagined I’d do a load of dishes every single day; now I don’t give it a thought!
dangermom how has raising a second baby been for you? Are you making a lot of the same choices as you did with your first?
That scheduling is a tricky topic, it seems to be the only thing twin moms ever discuss! I hate routines myself, but I do try to follow a similar pattern in the morning with bfast about two hours after they get up and a nap an hour later. The results vary wildly - some days it’s just the right thing, other days pffffffft. I blame my Mom for putting a curse on me when I was a baby & wouldn’t nap either! However, I hear you AerynSun and I’ll try anything; maybe I’ll push that cereal back an hour earlier & see what happens. My daughter, Zoe, is the holdout; Bryce usually sleeps easily & for a good spell (an hour or two).
Nighttime sleeping isn’t that bad, they go down at 7:30 (give or take an hour) and wake up 11 hours later. Usually one feeding overnight. Since you asked about arrangements, dangermom, I’m still cosleeping but we have two cribs that I use for naps (trying to cover all bases in the sleeping arrangement lottery!) - right now one’s in their room & one is in the living room, which is incredibly handy but a nuisance when I’d like to make some noise.
Here’s hoping for that tooth, AerynSun, and not an ear infection! Don’t you wish you had one of those instruments to look in her ear yourself, versus shelling out the copay for the pediatrician? Hope you have plans for your free day & excellent weather, that sounds wonderful!
I think there are 2 things going on with them, Fessie:
You say you lay them down after they’ve fallen asleep. Getting to sleep on your own is a skill everyone should learn as babies. Sleep has stages, from very light, almost-awake to very deep. And people do wake up momentarily several times during their sleep. Kids that are put to bed after they’re asleep don’t learn the skill to get themselves back to sleep if they awake momentarily, which is the reason many parents have older babies and kids that still waken during the night.
At this age, your babies would have to be trained to get to sleep by themselves using the Ferber Method, which can be difficult for a couple weeks but is so worth it.
Also, most babies need and do well with two naps a day- one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
When my youngest was born I didn’t want to go through the getting-to-sleep nightmare I’d gone through with my other two, and researched the subject heavily. One thing I’d read was that sleep begets sleep. Hard to believe, and I was skeptical at first, but I found it to be true. The more rested your baby is, the more he sleeps, and the happier and more alert he is when he is awake.
Well, I gave up on cloth diapers at about 6 months this time. Which makes for about 3 solid years of cloth diapering, since we got DangerGirl trained about a month before the baby came. I was diapered out. And we’re out and about quite a bit more, but little of it is for my personal entertainment.
Otherwise, some different things have worked for this baby that didn’t with DGirl. I can’t remember them right now, though. It’s all kind of a blur.
But it’s been good. There wasn’t nearly so much culture shock, and the girls love each other (plenty of screeching, too). I’m becoming more organized and scheduled with each one (I never was before), it seems to keep me sane. We’ll probably do it again next year.
I would second the advice about teaching them to get to sleep on their own. It’s important to their long-term well-being, and to yours as well. It’s not too late at all; my SIL had trouble with her baby and she suddenly became a sleeping angel at 9 months, and mine started cooperating at 6 and 7 months–everyone was happier. Good luck with that!
Honestly, it’s usually less of a getting-to-sleep nightmare & more a staying asleep for naps problem (I am for 2 per day). At night I do often lay them down sleepy, I just ignore them while I read a magazine in bed. However, I know you’re right trublmkr about the sleeping skills issue and I think it’s good that you brought it up.
That the naps have been worse lately has made me wonder if it’s a 6-month developmental milestone issue; when they were 4 and 5 months old there were times when each of them would fall asleep on their own, once I laid them down in a quiet state. Lately they’re just so ornery!
But I hear you guys saying it’s important for them to be able to sleep on their own, and I believe you. I’ve just never been clear on how to go from being a prompt AP responder to letting them cry. Wouldn’t they wonder what on earth was going on? I have known excellent parents who have used CIO, and their kids are great; I just don’t know that I could do it. Some of that is probably twin mom guilt - they already have to wait and fuss in the course of an ordinary day.
I do appreciate everyone’s suggestions and input; I don’t mean to hijack this into a big sleeping debate thread. I’m curious as to how devotees of Dr. Sears have managed this phase; however, I know that people use a variety of methods quite successfully.
CIO was simply Not An Option for me so we never did it. I’m not convinced that babies need to learn to sleep alone – my 11 yo transitioned to sleeping alone quite easily several years back. He was a nightmare non-sleeper BTW. Slept about 6 hours out of every 24 and not in one block either. He’s just wired not to sleep.
I was hardcore AP, co-sleeping and feeding my babies until they self-weaned. M was bf until about 3 1/2 years, K until about 4 1/2 years.
Ultimately you gotta do what works for you. There’s a lot of people out there who are AP’ing and having perfectly fine outcomes – it’s not written in stone that you need to switch over to CIO or your kids will never sleep. At 6 months if I were comfortable as an AP parent, there’s no freaking way I’d be thinking that my babies needed to learn to sleep.
I haven’t read Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution but it seems to be used by a lot of AP parents of babies. Might be worth looking at. Sears never really floated my boat.
Ferber makes me wanna cry, let alone doing that to a baby.
Actually… no, no I don’t. My Dad bugs me about this but I say his Mom was one of those supermom types and not to hold me up to her standards. (Grandma has an opinion about EVERYTHING. I got the whole why’s he not eating solids yet at 4 months… uh cuz he’s not. I waited till he wanted to but she was all ‘well I did that with my kids and I made your mom do that with you and you all are fine’ bah takes a breath It’s not MY Mom I have to worry about telling me I’m doing things wrong it’s my Grandma’s)
Mostly I shower every other day, because I need it, but soon I will have to shower every day. Going back to school Monday and my hair looks so bad by noon the second day. Today is my shower day, but I have decided to dye my hair and after that’s done I will shower.
My son would cry and scream unless someone was holding him or patting his back while he was in the crib. He gradually grew out of it (we did push things along a bit but pushing too hard only made it worse), but it didn’t seem like it would ever end at the time. My daughter went to sleep great right from birth and me and the Mrs. didn’t orchestrate any plan to get her to that point.
I can remember Mrs.G rocking my son one evening and I was mentioning that we should put him down and let him cry a bit. She responded that soon he wouldn’t need her to fall asleep. She said that, unless it got really out of hand, she was not going to miss out on this blessing. Yup, my wife is an angel.
At present, my three year old son is trying to convince me to get him a pet. He just got potty trained in the last week
My 15 month old girl is far too adept at flashing her big blue eyes. We went to a beacch and people were stopping to stare at her and make comments on how pretty she is. Daddy’s chest could not have expanded any further.
Saturdays calls for pancakes and a playtime morning regardless of what I have to do that day. The afternoon is usually worktime, with my son doing all he can to help.
Of course, you must make your own decisions regarding your babies. Your gut will tell you what’s right. But here’s my experience:
We did the cry-it-out method with my son at about 8 months - but in baby steps, so to speak. The first night was the worst (for me if not for him). I think I lasted 2 minutes before I had to run in there. Then it was pat, pat, soothing talk and a million kisses. Then leave again, this time for 5 minutes. Pat, pat, soothe, soothe. 10 minutes. OK, that’s it! Pick him up and love him to pieces.
Second night: 5 minutes, pat, soothe, 10 minutes, pat, soothe, 10 minutes again. Pick him up and give it up.
Third night: slept right through. I woke in a panic at about 3 AM - ran into his room, certain he had smothered or something. He was just fine. Slept 9 hours a night after that. :eek:
I have no idea what the recent books are saying, but I would not leave an infant for more than 10 minutes, and I would not do more than 3 rounds of crying. Yes, they need to learn to put themselves to sleep, but you also don’t want to generate trust issues. I wouldn’t do it before 6 months, and I would expect it to take longer with twins, since they’re likely to wake each other up.
Well, people, how do we do this? 'Cause I see points I’d like to comment on in every post, but then I’m afraid I’m going to be annoying or seem like I’m trying to be the ringmaster or something! What’s the protocol?
I’m just gonna toss these out for the moment; my babies are asleep & I enjoyed reading everyone’s posts! Greenback that is so sweet about your pride, you made me smile! What’s the pet going to be? WhyNot it sounds like that really worked for you. I don’t think my daughter has that temperament (she’s massively stubborn like her father!) but it’s interesting how you adapted the technique. Flutterby what are you studying? Good for you, staying tough when the critics howl! Primaflora I agree about the individuality, and I love co-sleeping - although I’m concerned that my son is becoming too active and might need to be in the crib to be safe. I do have NCSS - oddly, it was given to me by a dear friend whose husband is hard-core CIO!
I’m so glad that we can come together and discuss our differing approaches and perhaps disagree; I made a comment on another message board that wasn’t in lockstep with the prevailing view, and people just went bananas. Just because I’m more comfortable with, and sometimes advocate for, a particular choice doesn’t mean I’m not interested in what other parents have chosen, or ambivalent about what I’m doing (or just frustrated with the whole gig!).
Hi all. Another Saturday night, and I’m at home at the computer! :dubious:
Actually, ValleyGirl’s asleep in her crib, and I have free time, so all’s good.
I don’t want to turn this into a debate on sleep, but I just want to speak up as another mom who has a 7 mo old girl who has never CIO’d or “sleep trained”, and is perfectly fine. Of course, all babies are different, blah blah blah.
Can I just tell you that ValleyGirl is the cutest baby in the known universe? People come up to me everywhere I go and tell me this too. (Her pediatrician says, “I tell all parents that their babies are cute, but this baby is just gorgeous!” Gotta love him. ) I actually felt bad the other day – I was out with a friend and her son (who is 1 month younger than VG). Three people told me how beautiful VG was, but no one said anything about her son. Now why would anyone do that? Good thing the kids are too young to notice, and it’s just the parents’ egos getting bruised.
I’m taking Business Administration… two year program. I had orientation on Friday and so far things look cool. I’ll probably be whining that I don’t want to get up at 6am on a Friday in the middle of winter though. I got the luck of the draw in getting the 8am classes grumbles
Yeah when I had Grandma bugging me I basically told her. “Well the doctor says he’s doing good, he’s sleeping through the night, he doesn’t show any interest so we’re waiting.”
As to the sleeping thing what I do is put him down, with a bottle of milk (yeah I know bad bad, but it works) and he goes right off to sleep. Usually. Right now he’s sitting on my lap, chewing on my monkey an hour past his usual bedtime. I think he’s teething again, my wrist bears teeth marks from when he was gnawing earlier. He doesn’t bite (again, usually) just gnaws a little.
I totally agree. (Thanks for not going bananas on me!) I also have to say that my son is almost 12 years old, and I was barely 18 when I had him. I’m not sure I would do the same today. I think every mom and every baby is different. Anyone who tells you what you “should” do really needs to keep their eyes on their own plate!
WhyDad and I decided last night to have a WhyBaby! (He’s not my son’s biological father.) I’m really excited and scared! I keep thinking, “Do I really want to do this all over again, now that WhyKid is old enough to be independant and I’m pretty much getting my life back?” But I really want to do it now that I’m actually an adult! Of course, I love WhyKid like nobody’s business, but I was WAY too young when I had him, and while I did the best I could, I look back on some of it and cringe. I’m just incredibly lucky that he’s such an awesome human being - he could have turned into a little monster.
Three of my dearest friends have newborns and two more are expecting in the next year. Not to cave into peer pressure, but it seems that if we do it now, I’ll have great support and company! (Maybe it’s just the hormones talking…)
Hey, that’s nice, WhyNot. I bet you’ll have a lot of fun.
Sleeping-wise, we did pretty much the same thing as WhyNot, with the crying for several minutes, back-patting etc., rinse and repeat. It’s horribly painful to just sit there and let the baby cry! Only since I was nursing, it was often DangerDad who had to go in there and do the soothing, if we were trying to get rid of the 5am feeding or something.
As for the end of my day, I got some quilting done this afternoon (am working on a Christmas tree skirt, I’ve only wanted one for about 8 years now) and we went on a date, which involved burritos and shoe-shopping. Staying out past bedtime is a huge thrill for us, and the girls love their babysitter. I have to teach a class tomorrow, so I’d better go to bed.
My little one, GypsyTot, always went to sleep on his own and slept fine, but now, at 3, he’s decided he doesn’t need naps anymore. I disagree, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Yet now that he’s gotten all independent, I get to start all over! Yep, another one is on the way. I’m suddenly getting flashbacks to bottles and burping and those darling teensy-weensy little socks that always vanish in the washing machine…
So anyone have any advice on how to handle a three-year-old whose world is about to turn upside down?
Hey Fessie, you’re about a year ahead of my curve. Going into week 20 with about 17 weeks to go on twins. Last ultrasound suggests twin girls but still kinda early to be conclusive. Not that I care as long as babies and Mommy is healthy. I’ve got a 4 year old girl already who’s looking forward to having two slaves to boss around.
Domestic help is real cheap here, so I ain’t leaving China until school age minimum. I’ll probably dodge many of the issues around new borns/twins by virtue of having a live in nanny and a full time maid/cook.
That said, any advice or ancedotes on twins are welcome.
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– it’s not written in stone that you need to switch over to CIO or your kids will never sleep. At 6 months if I were comfortable as an AP parent, there’s no freaking way I’d be thinking that my babies needed to learn to sleep.
Now why would anyone do that? Good thing the kids are too young to notice, and it’s just the parents’ egos getting bruised.