All Tuckered Out

I had no idea what a luxury and/or hot commodity sleep would be once the twins were born. Sure, I'd read the books, seen cartoons, heard the stories... but nothing really can prepare you for it until you experience it. For instance, it's 2:35AM and the kids are both finally down, and here I am blogging because now I'm awake. So I thought I'd post a collection of sleepy pics and it would also be a good time to talk about our sleeping struggles with the kids.

We're slowly trying to get them on a sleeping schedule, but it's not easy. While they will usually sleep fairly well during the night, and sleep for long stretches, they hardly nap during the day at all. This is especially tough on Sharon and her mom because while Gavin is content hanging out in the pack 'n play staring at his mirror, Evie exists in one of two states: sleeping or crying/fussing. She rarely has quiet alert time, and if then only for a few minutes at a time.

All the books say that newborns should typically get sleepy after 1-2 hours of wakefulness, but our kids fight that sleepiness tooth and nail. They'll yawn and their eyes will droop, but then they'll shoot back open and the crying starts again. After seeking lots of advice from friends (extra thanks, Robin and Caresse!) and several books, we finally decided to try a "10 minute" routine (thanks, Mary!) where we put Evie down when we see her drowsy ques, and only let her cry for a maximum of 10 minutes before calming her and putting her back down. This helps teach her to sooth herself and how to fall asleep on her own.

Sometimes she'll fall a sleep during the second 10 minute session, other times we'll give up after the 5th session with no luck. It's not always perfect, but I hope we're getting there.

As you can see in the video, they're all bundled up for napping, but not a lot of napping is going on yet!



Napping on Sharon's lap on the "Boppy." We have a much larger Boppy that is specially made for twins, but they like to snuggle on the smaller Boppy.





Content in their crib. Evie has her "frog" on her, which is a small beanbag the hospital used to keep her snug. She seems to like it, and also likes sleeping on her side.



As you can see, I end up napping with them a lot on the couch on the weekends. These shots are typically from Saturday and Sunday mornings.











Gavin sleeps anywhere and everywhere. Here his is with Nana Cermak.



I came downstairs the other day, about to leave for work, when I saw this cute scene of Mommy and Gavin all tuckered out.

Evie sleeping on Uncle David.

A full belly and ready for bed!