Monday, June 27, 2011

Sleep: Back to square one

While Travis was gone and I was home alone there were a lot (a lot) of prayers on our side.  We were all praying that the boys would be good and happy (they always are) and sleep really well (they sometimes do.)
The first night, my girlfriend Lauren slept over with me, and that is the night that I accidently sleep trained the twins.
It was 10pm. Micah was asleep, and Grey was close to sleeping. Lauren said "You go to sleep, and I'll finish putting Grey to bed and then come to bed too."
So to bed I went.
At midnightish, I awoke because I heard the boys crying but Lauren wasn't in my room sleeping so I thought "Oh, she's still out there with the boys." And I quickly fell back asleep.
I woke up again at 3am when I heard the boys cry. Lauren still wasn't in my room, but this time I realized that meant that she was probably asleep somewhere else.
I found her in the guest bedroom and enlisted her help feeding the boys.
"I can't believe they slept for so long!" I said.
"I know, I put Grey to sleep at 10 and neither has made a peep until now!" said Lauren.
Oops. Ten?
That's when I realized that I accidently let my boys cry themselves back to sleep at midnight.
I felt bad, but the night after that they both slept right through midnight until 3am again.
And the night after that.
Suddenly they would eat their bedtime bottle at 7pm, be in bed by 8:30 and not wake up until 2:30 or 3:00, and then they'd go back to sleep until 6:30 or sometimes 7:00am.
It was amazing. It was life changing.
It was too good to be true.

Suddenly in the middle of last week the boys starting getting up and it's like we have two newborns again!
They eat at 7pm, 9pm, midnight, 1:30am, 4am, 6am.
Kill me.
They nearly have.

Okay. So the last two nights have been better. I'll admit that.
They ate at 7pm, 10pm, 3:30am and 6am.
So just one extra feeding.

But I had kind of gotten used to four and a half hours of sleep in a row.
And I was pretty sure that sleeping through the night completely was just around the river bend.
I kept saying "When they get up at 3am it's not because they're hungry. They only eat for five minutes and then they conk back out. They just want me for a few minutes. I have to figure out how to keep them from wanting me."
I tried to let them cry again, but I couldn't knowingly do it.
I know they can soothe themselves to sleep. I've seen them do it a hundred times.
So if they are lonely I like to be able to say "Don't worry. I'm here. Go back to sleep."
But why do they think they're lonely?

And this last week while they've been getting up so often, they have been acting starved. They latch on and eat for thirty minutes straight.
Maybe it's a growth spurt and soon they'll go back to being almost perfect sleepers?
Or, even better, actually perfect sleepers?

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

When my son was at this age was when he started his crummy sleep again. Same thing as you mentioned - just lonely. Not hungry, just wanting to see me, nurse for a few minutes and go back to sleep. I ended up sleep training him on purpose with SleepEasy and we've never looked back. It gets old really fast (for me anyway) to wake up every 2-3 (or more) hours just to say "hi, baby(ies) go back to sleep now!" :)

Polly said...

Babies, you just can't trust them. They get their own ideas about things and don't listen very well to advice from mom. Just wait till potty training. They will be doing great for a week and then not so great. It is a constant roller coaster.

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Little Gray Pixel said...

Sounds like a growth spurt to me! You'll know when it's over and they are waking up out of habit again when they grin at you instead of eat. Sigh. Baby sleep is so frustrating.