Time for the next installment of my twin series: Sleep! Sleep has been an equally hard fought battle as breastfeeding was/is; whoever thought getting two tiny humans to sleep, at the same time, would be so hard?
A lot of our initial sleep problems I realize in hindsight were fueled by the every two hour feeding schedule I got stuck in after we left the hospital that I mentioned in my last post. Because they were used to being fed every two hours and I didn’t know any better, I nursed them around the clock every two hours for three long months. Man I’m exhausted just remembering that.
But there was more than just the nursing every two hours, we also kept them in our room for the first 12 weeks of their life; it felt right at the time but I would never do that again. Once they were in their own room they stopped smelling me and immediately started sleeping longer stretches overnight, not to mention their little noises stopped constantly waking me from the precious little sleep I actually got. Why didn’t we do that sooner?!
Additionally when they weren’t being held, they did all their sleeping in their Rock n’ Plays. (I swore they’d sleep in their cribs from day one but that immediately flew out the window and caused a lot of bad sleeping habits) So I started the RNP-to-crib transition with naps and within a week had them crib sharing happily. It took some interesting transition tactics: I rolled up a beach towel lengthwise and made a “U” shape under the sheet so they still felt a bit cuddled like they had been in the RNP’s. I also slightly elevated the mattress where their head was from underneath. The two combined worked like a charm as you can see by L being PTFO here on the left. (We transitioned her first, then J a day or two later)
I used mesh bumpers weaved through the slots to create this barrier when he started getting too wiggly. Sadly they didn’t crib share nearly as long as I’d hope because he started rolling fairly early on.
Once they were in their room, in the crib, the next hurdle to tackle was napping; we worked off the “Eat-Play-Sleep” routine during the day which definitely helped improve their sleep overnight and gave me an idea of how to plan our day, but their “naps” left a lot to be desired. While L went down easily to sleep she only napped for 20 minutes at a time, meanwhile J would take so long to go down that L would wake up from her cat nap right as he finally fell asleep. They almost never overlapped so I resorted to taking long walks and/or drives daily because it was the only way I could bank on them napping at the same time. This didn’t allow me to get anything done around the house or to shower or eat regularly, but we all got fresh air and I could hit the Starbucks drive thru, so there’s that. Heh.
Thankfully around the time J started rolling and we moved him to his own crib he started sleeping on his tummy and sucking his thumb which instantly made him a better sleeper overall. Unfortunately L continued her 20 minute cat naps and was generally an ornery little thing. Ultimately I learned I just had to stop going to get her the instant she’d wake up unless she was completely losing her mind because I realized she’d either play quietly for a little while or she’d fall back asleep. She’s still the first to wake from naps, averaging about 45-60 minutes on a good day, but I’ll take it after all those cat naps the first five months.
Now back to bedtime, as I said, getting them in their own room and crib made an immediate difference. Carrying over from naps, L has always gone right to sleep without any issue, I’ve always put her down awake but drowsy and she just rolls to her side and PTFO. Unfortunately J was a whole other story, he would have insane meltdowns when we’d put him down to bed, he could be fast asleep from being rocked or nursed and yet the minute I’d lay him down he’d snap awake and lose his mind. We tried everything and finally had to resort to CIO. I really didn’t want to have to do it because once asleep he’d sleep so good, we’d never hear a peep from him, he just couldn’t figure out how to get there. Thankfully sleep training took all of two nights before he figured it out and now he goes to sleep with little to no issue. Now don’t get me wrong, we definitely still have our bad nights where he regresses and puts up a fight, but they have been few and far between.
They’ve been sleeping through the night for about a month now and I owe it all to L finally rolling on to her tummy to sleep, which curbed her waking for no reason every few hours, and the formula bottle before bed we started giving them. That’s not to say this won’t all go to sh!t with the 8 month sleep regression looming, but for now, everyone is much happier and less sleep deprived here in Chicago.
Look For Rainbows 
