Our Five Month Schedule

Since I’m using this blog to journal about the girls, I’m posting their schedule so that months from now I will be able to remember what this time was like. If you’re bored, feel free not to read it. Our day usually goes something like this: Sometime between 6:45 and 7:30am, we all wake up (usually L. first). It only really happens at 7:30 on a day that it’s very important that Rob or I am somewhere very early and are counting on the fact that the L. and E. always get up at 7 or earlier. Since I’m typically up at least once in the night to pump, Rob is most often the one who does their 7:00 feeding. Since they’re twins and, consequently, get a little less snuggling and individual time with us, I like to feed them one at a time so we get a little extra cuddling and one on one talking time. However, they have absolutely no patience with this early in the morning, so we put them in their Boppy pillows and sit between them and talk to them both while they’re being fed. L. has recently been experimenting with holding her own bottle, which has been fun to watch. I try and get an extra half hour of sleep. When they’re done eating, Rob gets me up and I shower and then pump and eat breakfast while I play with the girls. We change them out of their pajamas and into their daytime clothes. This is actually the time of day they are at their most fun- they smile and laugh a lot and their favorite morning activity is what we call “going to the gym” where they play in their Gymini (thanks, cousin Jamie!) They are least likely to regard tummy time as the cruel oppression that they believe it to be early in the morning, so while Rob gets ready, we do some of that. They’ve both been rolling (mostly front to back) really well during the past few weeks, so eventually they usually turn themselves over and put a stop to it all. About 8:45, I wrap them up in their blankets and lay one on each side of me on the couch to read a couple of pre-nap books. Right now, our favorite is The Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton. I sing their nap time song for them and they roll in to rest their faces against my leg until they fall asleep. This nap usually lasts anywhere from one to two hours. I take this as an opportunity to sleep myself, which sometimes means my sleeping with whichever baby is in the pack and play in our room (which ever daughter goes down first gets put in their room). About half an hour before they wake up, I pump and get their lunch bottles ready. Sometime between 10 and 11, everyone gets up (again, usually L. first) and I feed them their lunch. Then it’s play time. Since it’s always exotically hot here in Atlanta, usually we’re inside having some blanket and toy time or sitting in our Bumbo seats reading and talking. Often, there is singing and dancing. When I first read in Weisbluth’s Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that small babies had a hard time tolerating more than two hours of being awake until about six months, I assumed that it was a lie- but I believe it now. An hour and forty five minutes or so after they get up they start to get sleepy and cranky again. They are soooo much happier and fun to be around when we keep them on a schedule that ensures they’re only awake for a couple of hours before we try and put them down. So between 12:30 and 1, we read and they’re back down for their afternoon naps; this one only lasts about and hour or so. Keep in mind that when I say they “go down for a nap,” I mean that within a half an hour of each other they fall asleep- they seem to take turns waking up a fair amount still. I pump while they sleep; when circumstances permit, I also try and each lunch. Between 2 and 3 they are up again. They eat their 3:00 meal, have a diaper change and get ready for our big activity. This is the time of day we put on our sunglasses and go for a walk and do things outside. Or we go places like Target or anywhere that gets me out of the house. We’re back by 4 or so for their mini-cat nap, which usually lasts around 45 minutes and which I usually let them take lying beside my legs on the couch. Then it’s time for Rob to get home. He plays with E. and L. while I pump again. Then it’s time for baths, a massage and their 7:00 bottle and, finally, bed. We co-bed them in one of the cribs- during naps, when they sleep more lightly, they wake one another up, but at night it seems like they initially sleep better when they’re together. E. likes to roll over and lean her head on L.-it’s really sweet to see. They’ve been going down pretty well, but E. tends to wake up every 45 minutes or so until about nine. Every night, one of them, (and it’s usually someone different each time), wakes up in the middle of the night. She’ll go right back to sleep if we bring her to bed with us.
All the infant books say that we need to put them down sleepy but awake, but we have the hardest time doing that without a lot of crying. Our house is so small, that even with white noise machines, any amount of yelling wakes everyone up. If any of the moms out there have any advice for getting E. and L. to go to sleep without assistance from Rob and I while minimizing crying, I would love to hear it. Any non-moms opinions would be appreciated, too. An occasionally a baby sleeping with us is fine, but the fact is for people who are less than three feet tall, they take up a phenomenal amount of space, so I think co-sleeping is out. Rob and I are both tempted to sleep on the floor some nights when they try and come to bed with us. Any suggestions?