Another day in pair...adise...
It is amazing how much you don't appreciate sleep until you don't get it anymore. I have given up on the dream of a solid eight hours of sleep. Maybe someday...
My girls have such different personalities already in their early lives. Clara is my amazing sleeper. Adelyn, not so much. From the first day they came home from the hospital they have dictated their sleeping arrangements. They didn't want to sleep in the bassinet so for the first three weeks of their lives they slept in the swings in the living room, while I slept on the couch; not the most comfortable for me but they slept, which was key.
After three weeks, I discovered that they love sleeping in their nappers. I arranged the nappers on my bed and for the next couple weeks...life was great. They were on a 3 hour schedule during the day. For example, wake up at 8, change, feed, play, then around 9, back to bed; they would sleep for 2 hours and we would repeat. Life was great for all. They were on a routine and I had a life I could work around. If I tried to get them to sleep anywhere else, crying would ensue so it was back to the nappers. At least I was back in my bed and not sleeping on the couch anymore, even if I was limited to a single width on my queen size bed; them sleeping is key however it works.
Then at 6 weeks life took us on another adventure. Clara is still my perfect sleeper. I swaddle her, place her in the napper, give her a pacifier and she is out...she is out in seconds. ahhh....heaven. Adelyn, not so much. I swaddle her, put her in her napper (she hates the pacifier..so we skip that part) and then....screams. She just doesn't want to go to sleep. She is sooo alert during the day; she stares at everything and she just doesn't want to miss out on anything by going to sleep. Now, I swaddle her and rock her for about 5 minutes until she passes out. Then I am able to put her in the napper and she will sleep for about 30 minutes and screams again. I get her and bring her to the living room and in about 15 minutes she is sleeping soundly on my chest. She is out. If I try to put her back in the napper, she wakes up immediately but if I let her just cuddle on my chest, she will then sleep the rest of the hour til the next feeding. Needless to say, I can't get things done during that time but I also love the bonding time. I feel guilty that I don't have that cuddle time with Clara because she sleeps so soundly in her napper.
Now we are at 8 weeks, almost 9 weeks old. Adelyn STILL doesn't like to go to sleep during the day; both girls are good night sleepers so I am thankful for that. We have our last feeding at 10 pm and they will both go right to sleep until 3 am and then again until 5:30 am. I am looking forward to the day we can skip that 3 am feeding.
Today...I may have found a solution....I am probably jinxing myself by writing about it but I am hoping that any mom reading this blog may have advice for me. I fed both girls at 8 and then they get twin time. They play in the crib for 30-45 minutes and then I put them to bed. Now up to this day, both girls sleep only in their nappers. So I take them out, swaddle them, and put them down. Clara went right to sleep; Adelyn, nope. I took Adelyn out of my room and put her back in the crib. I figured she could entertain herself for a while longer and then fall asleep and sure enough....at 10:15 (1 hour 15 min later) she is asleep in the crib. HALLELUJAH ! I am writing this while she is sleeping so I don't know how long it is going to last. So far it has been 10 minutes.
Update....it is 10:30 and Adelyn is awake again...she isn't crying tho....I am going to leave her in the crib and hopefully she will put herself back to sleep. Life is good when there isn't any crying :)
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