Unless you are the parents.

And have twins.

With one child it’s put them back in bed a few times and make the room dark and they’ll generally sleep. Playing with things too much to sleep? put them away. With twins in the same room it all changes. Who can sneak out of bed the most? Who can find something to play with? It all becomes an exciting new game and competition. “I bet I can get on top of the dresser faster than you can!” “Oh look the monitor has a light, let’s go get it!” and so on. Getting them to sleep which use to be a story, hugs and kisses and placing them in their cribs with their favorite blanket and maybe having to check on once more before they’d be out is now an ongoing ordeal of continuously placing one or both boys back into bed, pillows back on bed, covers back on bodies, rinse and repeat till you basically wear them out. Did I mention they are stubborn?

Oh and with a toddler bed comes that other fun new thing, falling out of bed. We are looking to add something to prevent this but until we do it means during the night one or both boys will fall out of bed one more more times and then cry pitifully until Mom or Dad come to rescue them. Oh and one of those falls will of course come about an hour before any sane person should be waking up at which point they of course decide it’s time to get up since they are out of bed anyway. And since one is up he might as well wake his brother up too.

And so the morning starts with two cranky boys who didn’t get enough sleep being looked after by parents who also didn’t get enough sleep.

And then there is the daughter blissfully sleeping away through it all till her princessness decides to awaken at her normal time.

In time they’ll learn to sleep in more and we’ll deal with or they’ll learn to not fall out of bed and things will be better but for now it’s an experiment in sleep deprivation.

Here is a snapshot of my night.

7:30pm– The boys start getting cranky and rubbing their eyes. Looks like time for bed. They’re wanting to nurse, so we did that and once they were done, I put them down for bed. This was about 7:45. Both boys disliked this option and began screaming. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get Lidia to brush her teeth so she can go to bed, too.

7:45-8:00– I wear a path in the carpet going back and forth. Lay Liam down, say goodnight again. Lay Gavin down, say goodnight again. Back out to the bathroom to see that Lidia is doing what she’s supposed to be doing to get ready for bed.

8:00–Get Lidia in bed.

8:15–Finally it’s quiet.

I did some cleaning and such, but then my sister called and so I spent some time talking to her.

at 10pm I decide I better bathe tonight, since I’m sure I won’t be allowed to do so int he AM (good call). Called Adam to say goodnight and I was asleep by 11pm. Not too terrible.

12:30am- Lidia starts crying. This is odd, as she doesn’t wake up very often. I went to check on her and she had quieted by the time I got to her room. I asked her if she was okay and she said yes. She didn’t seem to need anything, so back to bed I went. Took me a long time to fall back to sleep.

1:30am- Liam wakes up. At this point I was thinking I just want him to go back to sleep. Decided to nurse him. Before I was even done nursing him, Gavin woke up. Put Liam to bed, grabbed Gavin to nurse him. He starts messing around and not really nursing anymore (falling asleep?) so I put him back in bed. This was just after 2am.
About 10 minutes later (just as I was dozing off again, of course) Gavin is back up again, screaming. Over the next 2 hours, I was in and out of their room, trying to settle Gavin back down. I am not sure what his problem was. I gave him ibuprofen, I held him for a little bit (and he’d cry the nanosecond I made a move to put him down). Nothing was working.

Finally at 4am, I decided to try nursing him again. At this point he was agitated and cranky and, while he was wanting to nurse, he wasn’t wanting to do it right. He bit me 3 times. OUCH. Finally, he settled in and nursed again and I was able to put him down when he was done.

At around 4:30, I climb back into bed. At this point I’m so riled up I am having a hard time falling back asleep. I finally started dozing when, at 5:15am, Liam was back up. I tried to put him back down twice, but he was having none of that, so in my delirium I just decided to nurse him again. I put him back to bed around 5:30. Took me a while, again, to go back to sleep. Last I looked at the clock, it was 6:30am. At 7am, Liam was up again. He woke up Gavin. Guess I’m getting up now.

I’m so exhausted and the worst thing is, there isn’t a thing I can do about it.

*sigh*

So, yah, I feel like crud and Adam is off getting actual sleep in California. Bah.

Since returning from vacation, I have seen a lot of Liam–in the middle of the night. On most nights, he goes through these 2 hour bouts of up and down. He’ll calm for a few minutes, and just as I start to doze, he’s up again. Gavin, on average, is up once a night, usually around 3:30am, wanting to nurse. At this point, I’ve been letting him, more because he won’t settle back down otherwise. Soon we may have to be a bit more insistent that he goes back to sleep without it.

At any rate, last night wasn’t *too* bad. Lids had swim lessons, so I put one boy in a sling and the other in the umbrella stroller and we managed it alright. They were just a big cranky as we didn’t get home until bedtime and the screaming began as soon as we got into the house. I was smart and put the boys in their jammies before swim lessons, so I just had to change diapers, put Lidia to bed and nurse and lay down the boys. Of course there was some screaming, but finally by 8:45 everyone was sleeping. Gavin woke once not long after I put him down to sleep, screaming as though he was in pain. He did not seem completely coherent, though. He wouldn’t even take the plug at first. Eventually, after I held and bounced him for a few minutes, he took it and sighed, then opened his eyes a teensy bit for the first time since I’d been in there. He went back to sleep, then, until his usual 3:30am (Hey, it’s better than the 11:30am we used to be able to set our watches by). Liam, then, was up at around 4, then back up at 6:30 at which point I groggily brought him into bed with me, where he finally fell asleep just in time for his brother to wake up at 7am. Bah. Oh well. (Did I mention, I am not a morning person??)

So today was Lidia’s day to bring snack for preschool. No problem, we planned ahead and I had something ready. Only, I forgot to purchase the beverage to go with it. Okay, well, we’ll be adventurous and run to the store on the way to preschool, I thought. We arrived at the store. I got all the kids out. I realized I forgot the diaper bag. Not the end of the world, except my wallet was in it. GRR.

Load everyone back in. Head back home. Get the diaper bag. Back to the store. Unload everyone. Run in, grab said beverage. Pay. Load everyone back in. To preschool. (By this time, we are already 10 minutes late). Finally, we deliver the girl to school. Not the worst morning we could have had, but a pain in my butt, none the less.

Got home and put the boys down for a nap, except now I’m going to have to wake them up as it’s almost time to go get their sister. (Did I mention the myriad of construction that is blocking the route from her to preschool? I have to take quite the creative route that adds a good 5 or 10 minutes to the trip)

Oh well.

Adam will be back Saturday night. Hopefully I can stay on top of everything.

Here is a snapshot of last night.

11:30 –You know there is something about 11:30. 6 nights out of 7, a baby will wake up at 11:30. You can almost set your watch by it. And it’s not even the same baby every night–weird.

Anyhow,

11:30pm–Just as we are falling asleep, Liam wakes up and fusses a bit. It wasn’t serious fussing, so we did not go right away. He got quiet. Ten minutes later, he fusses a little more. Gets quiet again. A couple minutes later, he gives a few more fusses. He went back to sleep, and I was off to sleep, too. This is monumental because for some reason, these guys will not usually just settle back down. Whenever we have given them a bit of time to see if they will fuss back down, it escalates into that panicked “OMG WHERE ARE YOU” cry, and well, I can’t let them cry like that.

5:00am– What?? 5:00?? HOLY COWS! Liam wakes. Well, it’s 5! I bring him in bed to feed him, because, well I’d be hungry after that long too! Way to go Liam! I dozed a bit and then put him back to bed around 5:30 or so. A visit to the bathroom and I hit the pillow hard.

6:15am– Yes, 6:15!!! Gavin wakes. Alright then! Bring the boy to bed and feed him! He certainly earned it! At this point I’m nearly ecstatic that this is only the 2nd time I’ve had to get up all night. Still, I manage to doze a bit while he’s eating, and then return him to his bed at around 6:30. As I’m coming out of the boys room, Adam’s alarm goes off. Luckily, it did not wake the boys. I went back to bed and at 7:30 the boys woke up for the day.

I guess I would consider that sleeping through the night!! Little by little we are having more nights like this. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for a repeat tonight!

It is always strange for me to be out sans children. I spend so much time with someone in my arms and attending to them, I just feel like I surely must have forgotten something/someone somewhere if I leave the house empty handed. No diaper bag, no one tied to my body, no stroller, no hands to hold (well, I did hold the hubby’s hand… awwww).

We went to a new restaurant (read one we haven’t tried yet), Joey’s Seafood and Grill. Apparently it is a chain and it has been here in Madison for a while now–we just never really noticed it, as it’s tucked away in a little strip mall on Mineral Point. The food was reasonably priced and I had a great meal–lobster tails, yummy red potatoes and hush puppies that I will most definitely want to eat again! I would venture to say they were the best hush puppies I’ve had (not that I have had so many in my lifetime). Adam had the fish fry, which was also quite good ( I sampled it, of course). We even splurged and got dessert!

Afterward, we went to see the latest Harry Potter flick at the I-Max. The last 15 minutes or so of the move (the big finale) was in 3D, so that was fun! The movie was really good. I have not read the books yet (*gasp* –seriously, when do I have the time), but I’d venture to say this may have been my favorite of the movies thus far. I’m glad we were able to see it in the theater rather than waiting for the DVD.

We returned home just after midnight to the Grents dozing on the couch–we were probably asleep by 1am. And wouldn’t you know it, the boys had not been up since they’d gone to bed… and they didn’t get up until around 5:30am (Gavin) and 6am (Liam). They slept through, on the one night we weren’t home to go to bed early. After being nursed, they went back to sleep until 7.

Figures.

Oh well, at least they were kind to us seeing as how we were up so late.

So a good time was had by all and Mommy and Daddy need to get out like that more often! There is big talk of the Grents moving to Madison come winter…Between them and the Auntie and Uncle that live here in town, I don’t think we’ll be hurting for baby sitters in the future! More likely they’ll be fighting over who gets first dibs! ;)

I went back to bed and promptly crashed–to be awoken at 5:30am by Liam!!! WOW!!! That is nearly 5 hours of sleep IN A ROW! *Insert happy dance here* I fed Liam, put him back i bed. Gavin woke at 6am, fed him, dozed off and then put him back in bed around 6:45. I laid down for about 15 more minutes and then actually had JUST enough time to shower before the boys were up for the day! Hooray!!

Cross all your fingers and toes for a repeat tonight!

Yes, it is 4am. I don’t know what to do anymore. I am desperate. I need sleep. I have slept more than 2 hours in a row a handful of nights in the past year of my life. I am running on fumes. My stomach has been totally upset lately, I am constantly in a cloud, and my patience with Lidia and event he boys has been running much too thin…

I went to bed late tonight (last night?), which I have been trying to do better with lately. I’ve been making it to bed around 10:30 here and there–an improvement (though it takes me a long long time to fall asleep). It is pretty much guaranteed that someone will wake up as I’m falling asleep. Every–frigging–night. GUARANTEED. It’s never even the same baby, so I can’t claim to have a problem sleeper.

Tonight it was Liam. Finally calmed him down and was asleep *MAYBE* by 1am. 3am, Gavin is up. I am trying REALLY hard to get them to go back to sleep and not have to nurse every 2 or 3 hours (like they want to do during the day). I mean, they are 9 months old–shouldn’t they be able to go 8 or 9 hours without eating? It is extremely rare for them to even get to 6 hours without waking up. So Gavin is up and screaming and the best part is, now that he has realized he can sit up and stand in his crib, there is no way in hades he is going to lay down and put himself back to sleep. I kept going in and checking on him and laying him back down and telling him goodnight. Right.
Somehow, Liam sleeps through all of this screaming. For an hour.
So I’m sitting there wrestling with the whether or not I just give in (am I showing him that if he screams long enough, I will nurse him?) or just continue this crud. Well, I gave in and nursed him. So of course, in the middle of that, Liam suddenly decides it’s a good time to wake up (apparently it was too quiet.) If things are as usual, by the time I am finished with Liam here (currently nursing) it will be 4:30 or so, and then it will take me a good 30 minutes to go back to sleep. Well, and then someone will have to wake at 5:30 because, well, that’s when it’s time to get up, right? Even though hunger is not waking them. Yea. So again, I will end up with MAYBE 3 hours of sleep tonight. And I’m supposed to function in some sort of sane/coherent/patient parent fashion? yah…
Seriously… I just need sleep. I’m in tears here. When do I get to sleep again? I would be so happy just to sleep for 4 hours in a row…
Oh yah, meanwhile, the hubby slept through the first bit, was up for a little bit… but then… Yeah. He’s laying there snoring through it. Yeas, really easy for me to sleep with snoring in one ear and a screaming baby in the other.
*sigh*

I just want to sleep…. and it seems SO SO far away…

Oh well.

See you at 5:30am…

It seems vaguely familiar but I cannot quite place it…

Oh! I know! Thank Hypnos (or whoever may have been responsible)–I managed to get some semblance of sleep last night!

The Aunt and Uncle sat for the kids last night while I was doing the neighborhood bunco thing, and hubby had to go into work for a bit. I came home and the boys were up at 10pm and 10:30pm, so I fed them each. I was in bed or asleep by 11:30pm or 11:45pm.

Somewhere around 12:30am Liam woke up, but i settled him back down with a plug and a pat.

Went back to bed.

Gavin starts his morning fuss and I look at the clock.

5am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy hippos! I actually slept most of the night last night!

I fed Gavin, then Liam was up after him. So I fed him, too. Then we all went back to bed and I got another hour or 2 of sleep.

*happy sigh*

I feel so much better now…

This is what last night looked like:

8:00pm- The boys are fed and put to bed

8:30pm- Lidia goes to bed (fabulous bed time! No issues at all)

10:15pm- Gavin wakes up. I went ahead and fed him since I was still awake.

11:00pm- Liam wakes up. Well, may as well feed him, too. (yes, I was still up)

11:30pm- Mom goes to bed.

12:30am- Liam wakes up. Give the pacifier, settle him back down…Mom goes back to bed

3:30am- Gavin wakes up. Give him the pacifer, settle him back down…Mom goes back to bed.

4:00am- Lidia is talking. I can’t understand what she says, but then I hear “Mom. MOMMY.” I get up, to see what she needs. “My tummy is itchy, I need some lotion on it.” Well, I half laughed at that–but I obliged, rubbed a little lotion on her belly, saw her to the bathroom for a potty break, since she was up. Then went back to bed. She went back to bed after her potty break, too. Only she didn’t sleep.

4:15am-5:00am- I intermittently hear Lidia talking/singing.

4:30am-Gavin wakes up. He’s talking and acting as though it’s time to get up for the day. Feed him. Put him back in bed. He doesn’t sleep for a while, he’s too busy not sleeping.

5:00am- Liam wakes up. Feed him, put him back in bed. He sleeps again.

5:30am- Gavin is quiet again.

5:45am- I hear Lidia get out of bed and come out of her room. She then goes back into her room and I hear her climb back into her bed.

6:15am- Lidia comes out of her room again, but I don’t hear her go back in. I send the hubby to investigate. Meanwhile, his obnoxious alarm clock goes off (the one that is not really very easy to turn off if you don’t know how to do it). The hubby tucks the girl back in bed (she didn’t look completely awake) and soon after gets up to get ready for work.
I finally fall asleep again.

7:00am- Liam’s up again. In my exhaustion, I just grab him and put him in bed with me. He goes back to sleep and so do I.

8:30am- My brain wakes me up and says “It must be getting late.” Though everyone is still sleeping, I force myself out of bed because we wanted to go to Story Time at the book store today. Ugh.

The kids wake up, and I proceed through the day in my usual sleepless haze.

Anyone know of a good instant cappuccino?

Enter the Teeny Twosome.

Somewhere around 20 weeks gestation, the sleep patterns began fluctuating. What was once a full 9 hour stretch was now interrupted by 10 trips to the bathroom, the inability to become comfortable, achy hips, achy knees, restless legs and sore back. The bigger I grew (they grew) the worse it became. By the end, I had added about 7 pillows, what seemed like a 20 lb belly and uncontrollable scratch-till-you-bleed itching. On a good night I came up with maybe 3 hours of sleep.

Of course, having a newborn home (as there was only 1 for the first 5 days) was no more conducive to sleep. Add another into the mix and well, why bother sleeping? At that point it was 5 months of sleeplessness–and no end in sight.

How about today? Well, let’s do the math. 5 sleepless months of pregnancy + 7 sleepless months of baby twins = 12 months of delirium. The hubby can attest to strange behaviors this sleeplessness has brought out in me. There is this feeling of constantly floating in a cloud and a strange slight pressure in between my ears. It is difficult to describe. Suffice it to say, these days it’s difficult for me to recite my own phone number without thinking about it for a moment.

One would think that this utter exhaustion would have me falling asleep standing up, or at least as soon as my head hits the pillow. Being that I never have 3 children sleeping at the same time, naps for Mom are out of the question. I live for bed time… or at least I would, if I could sleep.

Over the past year, much to my surprise, I seem to have developed some mild form of insomnia. On a given night, I don’t even go to bed until at least 11 anymore. Why bother? It takes a good 2+ hours to fall asleep. I am not sure when this started happening. When the boys were first home, I was in bed the second they fell asleep (and asleep within 5 minutes). The other night, I went to bed at 10. I was still awake at 12:30.

This has become a huge source of frustration for me. It isn’t something that I can take drugs for. We’re still breastfeeding, coupled with the fact that I need to be awake enough to care for babies who wake up in the night (any kind of sleeping pill puts me in a dazed stupor). Once I do go to sleep, I am quickly interrupted by the first round of waking babies.

So how are they sleeping? Bleh.

Last night was a good night.

The first baby (Gavin) woke at 10:30 (before I had gone to bed). I thought, “Okay, I”m still up, I’ll just feed him quick and maybe buy myself some time later.

Went to bed at 11:30 and for once was able to fall asleep, probably by midnight.

12:30am, Liam starts his screaming. Got up, fed him. Put him back in bed. Put me back in bed. Finally fell asleep again probably around 1:15 or so.

2:30am, Liam is up again. Laid there for a minute, see if he’d settle down himself. No. Got up, settled him down, went back to bed.

5:30am, Gavin again. Oh, *and* Liam. Okay, well Gavin did well, went 7 hours, he’s probably hungry now. Try to settle Liam back down enough to feed Gavin. Feed Gavin. Liam is still awake and whining. Put Gavin back in bed. He, of course, thinks it is now time to wake up. I leave him there to chat to himself and take Liam to feed him. Finish that. By now it is 6:30. Try to put Liam back in bed. He’s not too happy about that. Spend 5 minutes or so settling them back in with paci’s in a desperate hope that *maybe* they’ll go back to sleep. Sneak out and get back into my bed. Babies talk/fuss/coo/whine for 20 minutes or so–Liam gets quiet, Gavin does not. Look at the clock. 7am. Ugh. Gavin gets MAD. In desperation I grab a Gavin and a pacifier and bring him to my bed. Nestled in the crook of my arm, he’s out like a light. Eventually I doze.

8:00am *click*
Here comes the princess.

*sigh*

But hey, this was a good night, I got a good 2 hour stretch at least once.

Needless to say, though–I will be happy when these little guys are sleeping through the night. I only hope that I will be able to teach *me* to sleep through the night again…