Last week, our morning wake-ups started extending a little later each day. During the school year once Sam and Anna had stopped their morning bottle, our routine had been to wake them at 6:50 am to get out the door and to daycare before 7:30 am. It was my dream/wish/goal to get them to start waking up later throughout the summer so I could get a little extra shut eye. Teaching both our dogs to sleep in worked- so why not our children too, right? (I am fully aware that this was an extremely lofty goal, and almost certain to fail. But a girl can dream!)
I thought the key would be to push back bedtime a little each day, and then hopefully Sam and Anna would start waking up a little later to continue getting their typical 11 1/2 hours of night sleep in. To my surprise, Sam and Anna started sleeping in on their own, without a later bedtime! Last week we had a few 8 am get ups! Then a 10 am wake up (granted, this followed an unusually difficult night with lots of time awake at night) and a 9 am wake up the morning after that! I was ecstatic!
Then Sam woke up at 5:15 on Monday morning. I don't think there's really ever been a time that he woke that early but didn't fall back asleep on his own. I managed to get him to go back to sleep at 6:15 and he slept until 7:30 am. I was worried that my streak of good fortune had ended (if there's one thing I've learned as a parent so far, it is that things are always changing- so never get too comfortable that anything will last for long!).
Lo and behold, Sam and Anna slept in until 8:30 am this morning. That's 13 hours total of nighttime sleep. Awesome! Maybe sleeping in for a few days wasn't just a fluke?
Then it dawned on me- the 4 hour one-a-day naps hadn't happened for a while. Sam had only been taking a 2 hour nap in the afternoon lately. It appears I traded nap sleeping time for an extra hour or so of shut-eye in the morning. Do I mind? Not really. I prefer getting a little extra sleep myself in the mornings. But boy, I did like those 4 hour long naps!
Showing posts with label naps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label naps. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
I Fought One Nap...
...and the one nap won.
Sam and Anna are now official 1-nap a day twinners at almost 14 months old. I put up a good fight for a good two months, and I guess I should be satisfied that I strung Anna along successfully for that long to make it less painful for Sam.
To stretch out two naps as long as possible, we were waking Sam and Anna up from their first nap no later than 1 1/2 hours after going to sleep, and letting them sleep no longer than 11:30 am. They usually took a decent first nap (being put down around 9:30/10 am), but the afternoon nap was a battle (being put down around 2:30 pm). We tried adjusting both nap times a little in both directions with no luck. Some days, Anna refused to sleep again in the afternoon- resulting in her being awake for more than 7 hours in a stretch. Not nice. Most days, it took both Sam and Anna a long time to fall asleep for that second nap, resulting in playing and fussing for awhile, even if they were showing sleepy signs prior to being put down. Sometimes this resulted in babies that wanted to keep on napping past 4 pm. Also not nice. The second nap length was all over the board too- sometimes as little as 30 minutes, sometimes 2 hours long, which made it harder to keep our typical schedule intact.
This two nap schedule just wasn't working with bedtime anymore either. Sam and Anna had begun to resist bedtime- chatting it up with each other sometimes up to an hour in their cribs. They needed more awake time before being put down for bedtime, but I still felt they needed their usual bedtime to get enough total night sleep. Nighttime sleep started becoming scattered with some night wakings on top of that. All of this added up to a nap schedule that just wasn't working well anymore and something needed to be changed, whether I liked it or not.
Truth is, after experiencing a few days in a row of only one nap, I kind of like it. I miss having the napping time in the morning to get myself ready (or take a nap myself on the weekends!), but that was just about all I was doing productively during the first nap when I was home. Now that there's a good solid 3ish hour chunk in the afternoon, it is kind of too late to take a nap myself, I'm already dressed and presentable to go out in public(or I should be by that point) so I've ended up making really good use of those three hours so far.
One nap also frees up our morning for more possibilities. Longer errand runs are possible. The struggle we've always had with trying to work in a church service between naps and meals works so much easier now. Going places like the zoo should be more feasible with the one nap plan as well.
I've found too, that by the time that 3 hour mark rolls around, I'm that much more eager to smother my little ones with hugs and kisses again. I miss them and their adorable grins and giggles. I'm excited for them to wake up and see them again, rather than wishing they would sleep longer.
(Our daycare provider also thinks the one-nap plan works better for her routine with her other kids.)
This former one-nap hater might just be warming up to the idea a little. Now if I can just figure out what to do when an event happens right in the middle of our one nap a day (like Sam and Anna's great-grandma's 90th birthday party in a few weeks) I might just become a one-nap lover; as long as they continue to last for 3 hours in a stint, that is!
Sam and Anna are now official 1-nap a day twinners at almost 14 months old. I put up a good fight for a good two months, and I guess I should be satisfied that I strung Anna along successfully for that long to make it less painful for Sam.
To stretch out two naps as long as possible, we were waking Sam and Anna up from their first nap no later than 1 1/2 hours after going to sleep, and letting them sleep no longer than 11:30 am. They usually took a decent first nap (being put down around 9:30/10 am), but the afternoon nap was a battle (being put down around 2:30 pm). We tried adjusting both nap times a little in both directions with no luck. Some days, Anna refused to sleep again in the afternoon- resulting in her being awake for more than 7 hours in a stretch. Not nice. Most days, it took both Sam and Anna a long time to fall asleep for that second nap, resulting in playing and fussing for awhile, even if they were showing sleepy signs prior to being put down. Sometimes this resulted in babies that wanted to keep on napping past 4 pm. Also not nice. The second nap length was all over the board too- sometimes as little as 30 minutes, sometimes 2 hours long, which made it harder to keep our typical schedule intact.
This two nap schedule just wasn't working with bedtime anymore either. Sam and Anna had begun to resist bedtime- chatting it up with each other sometimes up to an hour in their cribs. They needed more awake time before being put down for bedtime, but I still felt they needed their usual bedtime to get enough total night sleep. Nighttime sleep started becoming scattered with some night wakings on top of that. All of this added up to a nap schedule that just wasn't working well anymore and something needed to be changed, whether I liked it or not.
Truth is, after experiencing a few days in a row of only one nap, I kind of like it. I miss having the napping time in the morning to get myself ready (or take a nap myself on the weekends!), but that was just about all I was doing productively during the first nap when I was home. Now that there's a good solid 3ish hour chunk in the afternoon, it is kind of too late to take a nap myself, I'm already dressed and presentable to go out in public(or I should be by that point) so I've ended up making really good use of those three hours so far.
One nap also frees up our morning for more possibilities. Longer errand runs are possible. The struggle we've always had with trying to work in a church service between naps and meals works so much easier now. Going places like the zoo should be more feasible with the one nap plan as well.
I've found too, that by the time that 3 hour mark rolls around, I'm that much more eager to smother my little ones with hugs and kisses again. I miss them and their adorable grins and giggles. I'm excited for them to wake up and see them again, rather than wishing they would sleep longer.
(Our daycare provider also thinks the one-nap plan works better for her routine with her other kids.)
This former one-nap hater might just be warming up to the idea a little. Now if I can just figure out what to do when an event happens right in the middle of our one nap a day (like Sam and Anna's great-grandma's 90th birthday party in a few weeks) I might just become a one-nap lover; as long as they continue to last for 3 hours in a stint, that is!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Good Updates
Sam's Milk Drinking:
We seem to be over the memory of the milk-vomit, hooray! Yesterday both Sam and Anna drank two full cups of whole milk by 4 pm (14 oz total each) and I'm thrilled! I know that it takes time for little ones to get used to the change and the taste but I also know that my husband still can't eat cocktail sauce due to a vommiting incident many years ago, and I can't eat strawberrries on a salad for the same reason. I'm glad that Sam's memory of similar things seems to have faded faster.
Anna's Sleep:
A few days after our trip we seem to be back on track. After several nights of multiple night wakings and being awake for hours at a time in the dead of night, last night I didn't wake up at all... which either means she slept straight through or that I'm becoming desensitized and slept through her crying. I'm going with the first one. We decided not to travel with the little ones for Easter. Next traveling trip is probably going to be at the end of May for their great-grandma's 90th birthday party and a wedding, so that will give me time to work up the nerve to go out of town again.
Napping:
For the meantime we've found a temporary solution to Anna being ready for one nap while Sam clearly is not. Over break I experimented with one nap and it had its good points, but was overall disasterous. They still want to start their nap at about 9:30, which is way too early for one nap! They did sleep for 3 1/2 hours (glorious!) but that still meant they were awake from 1 pm until 7 pm. Too long, especially for Sam! So this is what we're doing that is working okay for now to keep them both on two naps a day: We don't let them nap longer than 1 1/2 hours or later than 11 am for their first nap. That helps ensure that they will be able to take another nap in the afternoon... typically for an hour. For the first nap they can both be laid down at the same time, but for the second nap (at home at least) Sam has to be asleep before we put Anna in her crib in the same room if we want her to ever fall asleep. At daycare they are in different rooms so that isn't a problem there. For now it works. And that's all that matters.
We seem to be over the memory of the milk-vomit, hooray! Yesterday both Sam and Anna drank two full cups of whole milk by 4 pm (14 oz total each) and I'm thrilled! I know that it takes time for little ones to get used to the change and the taste but I also know that my husband still can't eat cocktail sauce due to a vommiting incident many years ago, and I can't eat strawberrries on a salad for the same reason. I'm glad that Sam's memory of similar things seems to have faded faster.
Anna's Sleep:
A few days after our trip we seem to be back on track. After several nights of multiple night wakings and being awake for hours at a time in the dead of night, last night I didn't wake up at all... which either means she slept straight through or that I'm becoming desensitized and slept through her crying. I'm going with the first one. We decided not to travel with the little ones for Easter. Next traveling trip is probably going to be at the end of May for their great-grandma's 90th birthday party and a wedding, so that will give me time to work up the nerve to go out of town again.
Napping:
For the meantime we've found a temporary solution to Anna being ready for one nap while Sam clearly is not. Over break I experimented with one nap and it had its good points, but was overall disasterous. They still want to start their nap at about 9:30, which is way too early for one nap! They did sleep for 3 1/2 hours (glorious!) but that still meant they were awake from 1 pm until 7 pm. Too long, especially for Sam! So this is what we're doing that is working okay for now to keep them both on two naps a day: We don't let them nap longer than 1 1/2 hours or later than 11 am for their first nap. That helps ensure that they will be able to take another nap in the afternoon... typically for an hour. For the first nap they can both be laid down at the same time, but for the second nap (at home at least) Sam has to be asleep before we put Anna in her crib in the same room if we want her to ever fall asleep. At daycare they are in different rooms so that isn't a problem there. For now it works. And that's all that matters.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Newest Stage of Nap Woes
Naps have been tenuous around here lately. I am afraid that Anna's going to be an early transition-to-one-nap girl. According to most of what I read, this change from 2 to 1 nap occurs usually between months 12-18, typically around 15 months. Anna's only 11 months old!
Sam is no where near ready for one nap. The other times we dropped a nap, Sam was pretty close behind his sister. Going from 3-2 naps we only had a few days when Sam got an extra 30 minuter in the evening, but it didn't disrupt the synchronizing of the other two naps during the day. I'm a little clueless how to do naps if Anna's only taking one, and Sam still needs two. Their naps would be at completely opposite times. Right now this is what's happening:
2.) Although Sam is now pacifier free, Anna is not. We gave up trying to get rid of hers when her nighttime sleep was destroyed without it and resigned to trying sometime in the future. After all, at the time a month ago, we were just working on getting rid of the pacifiers because we wanted to, not because they were causing any problems. But now Anna's pacifier is causing a problem. During naps, if she's fighting sleep, she will throw them over the side of the crib... and then can't go to sleep without it. This doesn't happen at daycare because they don't use them at daycare. I wish I understood why she can sleep just fine without a pacifier at daycare, but not at home. I'm sooooo not looking forward to trying to wean her from the pacifier again.
Daycare has a different problem though- this week Sam climbed out of the pack n play during his nap. Twice. She caught him in the act the second time: He used his arms to pull up and pushed against the mesh with his feet to climb the side. Once he got to the top, he swung his foot over the top. The first time, he let her know he was done with his nap by knocking on the door.
I'm not sure how we are going to solve this problem. I am also afraid that means my not-even-one-year-old baby is going to be climbing out of his crib in the very near future. This scares the sh*t out of me- I cannot imagine trying to get him to sleep on a mattress on the floor, and I can't imagine a crib tent successfully containing my little monkey either.
Sam is no where near ready for one nap. The other times we dropped a nap, Sam was pretty close behind his sister. Going from 3-2 naps we only had a few days when Sam got an extra 30 minuter in the evening, but it didn't disrupt the synchronizing of the other two naps during the day. I'm a little clueless how to do naps if Anna's only taking one, and Sam still needs two. Their naps would be at completely opposite times. Right now this is what's happening:
- Up at 6:30 am
- Ready for naps signs at about 9:30 am.
- Put both down, Sam falls asleep fairly quickly, Anna plays and then fusses for almost a half hour and finally falls asleep at around 10 am. (I'm taking this as a sign that although she shows sleepy signs, she needs more awake time. But if we push it too late, that messes up the afternoon nap even more.)
- Both want to keep sleeping until 11:30/12, but getting too close to noon delays the afternoon nap.
- Afternoon nap at around 2 depending on when they woke from the first nap.
- While at home Anna fights and fights the second nap and sometimes falls asleep around 3:00- or sometimes stubbornly evades sleep completely until Sam is ready to be up, so we give up. Sam sleeps fine. Both up at around 4:00 pm.
- Put down Sam at 9:30 am, get him up at 12
- Put down Anna around 12, she gets up around 3 (hypothetically)
- Put Sam down around 2, He gets up at 4
See how that just isn't a great plan? In theory we'd get an hour of them both sleeping- but in reality, Anna would probably wake up at 2 when Sam got put down... and then we'd get zero time all day with both babies napping. My bet would be that Anna would be cranky by our usual bedtime and need to go to bed earlier too, if she got up at 2 pm.
Two things are also happening that are posing a problem during naps at home:
2.) Although Sam is now pacifier free, Anna is not. We gave up trying to get rid of hers when her nighttime sleep was destroyed without it and resigned to trying sometime in the future. After all, at the time a month ago, we were just working on getting rid of the pacifiers because we wanted to, not because they were causing any problems. But now Anna's pacifier is causing a problem. During naps, if she's fighting sleep, she will throw them over the side of the crib... and then can't go to sleep without it. This doesn't happen at daycare because they don't use them at daycare. I wish I understood why she can sleep just fine without a pacifier at daycare, but not at home. I'm sooooo not looking forward to trying to wean her from the pacifier again.
Daycare has a different problem though- this week Sam climbed out of the pack n play during his nap. Twice. She caught him in the act the second time: He used his arms to pull up and pushed against the mesh with his feet to climb the side. Once he got to the top, he swung his foot over the top. The first time, he let her know he was done with his nap by knocking on the door.
I'm not sure how we are going to solve this problem. I am also afraid that means my not-even-one-year-old baby is going to be climbing out of his crib in the very near future. This scares the sh*t out of me- I cannot imagine trying to get him to sleep on a mattress on the floor, and I can't imagine a crib tent successfully containing my little monkey either.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
I'm Here! and Latest Happenings
I'm sure my absence in the last week after my last post was misleading- but unintentional! Our router died, and so my internet usage has been minimal for a few days. I am hoping to get back in the saddle and get back to posting and commenting asap!
Latest news:
After my MIL stayed for a week while my husband was gone, my mother came to visit for a few days this week. I am glad that our visitors are over for a while now. My husband's next work trip is in 3 weeks, and I plan on doing it completely solo. I may just take a few days off of work during the week, but I think I can come out on the other side without having a mental breakdown (all bets are off if Sam and Anna are in the thick of teething, which is highly likely).
I signed our babies up for swimming lessons which start in a week, so I've gotten really excited for that! I have a friend enlisted for help during the week my husband is gone, since there needs to be an adult per baby at all times. Just yet another way life with twins is a little more involved than with a single baby- all four of us will be making swimming lessons a family event!
This probably belongs on my still-missing 7 month post, but in the last month we dropped a nap and went down to 2 naps a day, which magically improved the quality of their naps. We had been doing well on 3 naps a day and then they started to turn into short crapnaps again. I took that as a sign that they were ready to transition to 2 naps, and lo and behold- on two naps a day, the actual time asleep during naps ended up longer than they 3 crapnaps they had been having. Right now, Sam and Anna seem to have fallen into a nap around 9 am (usually 1 1/2 hours-2 hours) and a nap around 1 pm (usually 2 hours long, sometimes 2 1/2 hours). When switching to 2 naps, we lengthened our feeding schedule to 4ish hours between bottles, which has also helped them drink better each time.
In the last week, we also added in a third meal. With two meals, Sam had started drinking in the high 30's for ounces on top of the 2 solid meals, and one day even drank 41 oz (which puts too much strain on his little kidneys to process), so we added a meal in the hopes it would drop his formula consumption. I find it incredibly ironic that after our long issues of drinking too little and working so hard to get every little ounce in our babies, that our current problem was that they were drinking too much. Go figure. So Sam and Anna now get a breakfast, lunch, and dinner in between their bottles. They still drink around 6-9 ounces each bottle though. They aren't huge solid meal eaters- usually a little more than 2 oz before they get full/bored. (hard to tell, since we have homemade food and I split the food between the babies. It also depends on if the food is a fav or not.)
This is what our schedule looks like right now:
Latest news:
After my MIL stayed for a week while my husband was gone, my mother came to visit for a few days this week. I am glad that our visitors are over for a while now. My husband's next work trip is in 3 weeks, and I plan on doing it completely solo. I may just take a few days off of work during the week, but I think I can come out on the other side without having a mental breakdown (all bets are off if Sam and Anna are in the thick of teething, which is highly likely).
I signed our babies up for swimming lessons which start in a week, so I've gotten really excited for that! I have a friend enlisted for help during the week my husband is gone, since there needs to be an adult per baby at all times. Just yet another way life with twins is a little more involved than with a single baby- all four of us will be making swimming lessons a family event!
This probably belongs on my still-missing 7 month post, but in the last month we dropped a nap and went down to 2 naps a day, which magically improved the quality of their naps. We had been doing well on 3 naps a day and then they started to turn into short crapnaps again. I took that as a sign that they were ready to transition to 2 naps, and lo and behold- on two naps a day, the actual time asleep during naps ended up longer than they 3 crapnaps they had been having. Right now, Sam and Anna seem to have fallen into a nap around 9 am (usually 1 1/2 hours-2 hours) and a nap around 1 pm (usually 2 hours long, sometimes 2 1/2 hours). When switching to 2 naps, we lengthened our feeding schedule to 4ish hours between bottles, which has also helped them drink better each time.
In the last week, we also added in a third meal. With two meals, Sam had started drinking in the high 30's for ounces on top of the 2 solid meals, and one day even drank 41 oz (which puts too much strain on his little kidneys to process), so we added a meal in the hopes it would drop his formula consumption. I find it incredibly ironic that after our long issues of drinking too little and working so hard to get every little ounce in our babies, that our current problem was that they were drinking too much. Go figure. So Sam and Anna now get a breakfast, lunch, and dinner in between their bottles. They still drink around 6-9 ounces each bottle though. They aren't huge solid meal eaters- usually a little more than 2 oz before they get full/bored. (hard to tell, since we have homemade food and I split the food between the babies. It also depends on if the food is a fav or not.)
This is what our schedule looks like right now:
- 6:30 am wake and bottle (about 6 oz)
- 8:30 am ish breakfast meal: fruit+ cereal
- 9:00 am ish down for nap
- 10:30/11:00 am ish 2nd bottle (7-8 oz usually)
- 12:30 pm ish lunch meal: fruit and veggie (or 2 veggies if dinner is just a fruit)
- 1:00 pm ish 2nd nap
- 3:00/3:30 pm ish 3rd bottle (7-8 oz usually)
- 5:00 pm dinner meal: new food + sometimes something that goes well with it
- 6:30 pm bedtime bottle (9 oz)
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