Sleep Schedules

I am somewhat of a stickler when it comes to the sleeping schedules of my kids. I didn't used to be, what happened to me? Twins. Twins is what happened to me. There is nothing that will take your sanity right to the edge quicker than twins popping into your world, especially when there is also a 2.5 year old as well.

I wasn't always like this. I used to be footloose and fancy free. OK. Well, you're right, I shouldn't go that far! But I was better. Or worse. Depends on how you look at it.

Child 1, A-Dog. Terrible sleeper as an infant. Terrible. So terrible I won't even admit to you that I ended up co-sleeping with him, nope, won't even admit that. Totally MY fault though. Someone one should have gifted me a book on sleep and importance of a *scheduled sleep pattern*. Yup, that would have helped. But, no one did. By age 2.5 he was actually a pretty good sleeper and I trained him to only get up with there was a *7* on his clock (I taped over the other numbers). He was/is exceptionally smart and a TOTAL first born achiever, so it was an easy task. :-). Now, being pre-teen, I have to worry about him waking up :-)!

Child 2 - Agent P. Better sleeper. Sleeping all night long by 5 months (at least) and putting himself to sleep. No rocking this one, bedtime was for getting in bed and that's how he liked it.  We have always been able to play around with nap and bedtime without him falling apart or having fits - and when his brother's baseball games went until 10pm, that was a good thing!!! We occasionaly struggle with staying in bed, going right to sleep, getting up before the chickens.... He is a restless child and is certain that *one more hug* will do the trick. He is also a master at squeezing one last drop of pee out if he needs to. It's impressive actually, but still annoying.

Children 3 and 4 - Mini P and Monkey have very different sleeping habits which creates new challenges. They have slept thru the night (in their bed/s) since they were 3 months old. We decided that it really wasn't an option NOT to sleep all night. So they do, I guess, if I hear movement, I turn the monitor down/off. (bad mommy).

Monkey is a morning person and loves to fool around in bed with trucks. The boy loads his bed up with trucks. We've tried to draw the line. Really we have. But, we have 4 kids. We pick our battles. 

At nap and bed (and I've even found lately if you say the word nap this happens...so I have to be more careful) we tell them "time for bed" - Monkey will frantically start swooping up all his favorite trucks and cars and trailers and making deliveries to his bed.

See the full arms? That is just the first load. He will get at least 1 more and sadly, Mini P will carry some for him too. She picks out all his favorites and puts them in bed for him (how sweet is that???). He will try to climb out of his crib  SCREAMING if he doesn't have *just the right ones*, which is why we don't fight it. (Don't worry, when he heads out for a 2nd/3rd load, we do remove some).

Mini P loves loves LOVES to sleep. Adores it. At almost 22 months she will run to her crib (nearly always) and try to climb in. She typically has just her blankies and her baby. She lays down and goes to sleep (90% of the time) while her brother plays trucks and sings.

We have found with the twins, that a very rigid sleeping schedule is the only thing that works.  It's a fine line of compromise to finding the right schedule that meets both their needs. She can go right to sleep and he can play if he wants to (she honestly doesn't care - and we think she fetches his trucks so he will play and stop bugging her...only a theory tho!)

Truly tho, I think the hard core scheduling is selfish on my part. I have to know that part of my day will have some sort of quiet. It's like my own piece of serenity :-).