The New Routine

 

I was reading back through some old blog posts and I came across this post about our daily routine when the twins were Juliet's age. I laughed out loud at how different life is now, and how much crazy has come into our lives. Here's a little look at what I'm talking about, a peek into our average every-day kind of a day:

7 AM - twins wake up, climb on top of the dresser, pull out every article of clothing in any drawer in their room, empty the trash can and laundry basket, undress themselves and attempt to re-dress themselves in swimming suits and rain boots, and spread lotion all over every available surface
7:15 - I finally realize they are awake and walk in to find what appears to be the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie and Caroline
7:16 - rush to the potty and sing "The Wheels on the Bus" for what already feels like the 57th time that day
7:20 - go rescue Juliet from her crib moments before Charlie crashes in on top of her, and remind myself that I need to put a child-proof door knob cover on her door
7:30 - make oatmeal and toast for the twins, strap them in their seats with their milk, breakfast, and "treats" (which are actually vitamins. I've conned them into thinking they are a treat.), and then sit down to feed Juliet
7:45 - clean up the kitchen which was spotless before breakfast and is somehow now coated in a layer of oatmeal, and grab myself something to eat, also intermittently interfering in Charlie's attempts to lay on top of Juliet (confession - sometimes I let him do it if it doesn't appear to be bothering her. I have to pick my battles)
8:00 - put Juliet back in bed. Brush kids teeth (this involves me pinning them to the ground and holding their head in-between my knees. Caroline's tears usually make a brief appearance.), do hair, use the potty again, and get dressed for the day. Sounds simple, but it takes a certain amount of finesse to get Caroline to allow me to touch her hair and get it done in the brief moments of light that Charlie's obsession with flipping the bathroom lights on and off allows me. Also taking care to keep the water faucet pointed toward "cold" so that Charlie doesn't burn himself when he gets bored with the lights and moves to turning the water on and off
8:15 - mop up the bathroom counters and floors from all of the water that somehow made its way out of the sink and onto everything else
8:20 - go into my bedroom and attempt to get dressed. If I'm super lucky, I might get to use the bathroom privately, and might get a bonus of brushing my teeth, putting my contacts in, or maybe even putting on makeup (ha! not likely). Meanwhile, my room now looks like it too was hit by Hurricane Char and Care.
8:30 - head down in the basement, our most kid-proof area in the house, and play. We work on puzzles, peg boards, and mega blocks. We play pretend with dolls and little people and throw balls at each other. The kids climb over the back of the couch and play peek-a-boo with each other. At some point I go and get Juju, feed her, and add her to the madness.
Noon - finally lunch time. Head upstairs, and I make one of three meals: grilled cheese, cheese quesadilla, or macaroni and cheese (somebody loves cheese a little too much..) Eat, potty, and then the most glorious time of all is here.
1 PM - Nap time!! Hallelujah. Caroline goes in her bed in her room. Charlie goes in Juliet's crib. Juliet goes in the pack n play in my room. Put them all down then sit in the hallway watching the monitors like a hawk. Go put Charlie back in the crib at least 4 times. Take Caroline to the potty once or twice more. Then finally, heaven-sent silence. If I'm lucky I get 2.5 hours of beautiful wonderful naptime. Enter the debate: nap? Clean up after hurricanes? Work on a project? Watch TV? The possibilities are endless, and yet somehow I find myself spending at least 15 of those precious naptime minutes sitting in the bathroom scrolling through my Facebook news feed. So lame.
3:30 - twins wake up from nap. Same sequence occurs as when they wake up in the morning, only this time they are in two separate rooms so Juilet's room now gets the hurricane treatment as well. I swear they get out of bed silently and destroy without making a peep.
4:00 - try to start some kind of a dinner, all while protecting Juju from her siblings and protecting the twins from hurting themselves. Charlie inevitably bring his bike over to the stove and tries to use it as a stool to get up and help me cook. Caroline digs into the drawer and pulls out two oven mitts and tries to open the hot oven saying "help you mommy!". I constantly remind myself to keep the knives away from the edges of the countertops, in the sink, or basically anywhere except for the top of the refrigerator.
5:30 - dinner. Convince the twins that they can have a "treat" (treat this time meaning applesauce, yogurt, or Almonds..) if they finish their dinner. Charlie finishes first every single time and gets his treat. Caroline cries that she doesn't get her treat yet, then finally after many tears decides it worth eating her dinner for.
6:30 - twins bath, brush teeth, potty, go on horsey rides, read scriptures, say prayers, tickle their guts out and then sing lots and lots of songs. And read lots of stories. And then some more.
7:00 - lights out, door shut, and hope they stay in bed. Sit by the door and listen to their conversations.
Charlie - Gramma!
Caroline - No! No gramma. Night night.
Char - Outside!
Care - No! No outside. Night night.
Char - Jumping jellybean!
Care - No! No jumping jellybean. Night night.
She loves her sleep, and she also loves telling Charlie no.
7:30 - Juliet bath (on the good days), feed her, and put her in bed.
And then party because all 3 kids are in bed and asleep before 8:00. Do some laundry, sleep, and repeat. That's how we roll.

The Witching Hour

You know what I'm talking about. That time of night when your baby is so tired, but they won't sleep. When all they can do is cry. And all you can do is cry. The Witching Hour.

It hit us especially hard once the twins were about 8 weeks old. Forrest would come home from work and I'd be a mess. And so would the house. The kids would be either in their beds crying or in their swimgs screaming. I didn't know what else to do. Sometimes I would put one in a pack on my belly and try and rock them while I cooked/cleaned. That rarely worked. I moved the bouncer into the kitchen and put them in there while I cooked/cleaned. That didn't work either. Finally I got to the point of just putting them in their beds and shutting the door. Because I couldn't hold them both (not that holding them really helped anyway) and just listening to them cry was torture. So I would shut their door and turn on some music. Sometimes if I got lucky they would actually fall asleep. Usually they didn't. But whatever was going on, things always got better when daddy walked through the door. I remember many nights calling him in tears hoping he would be home soon to help me. 

I don't know what changed. They just got older I guess. But finally when they were about 3 months old things got far better. I borrowed a second swing from my mom and set both swings up in the kitchen. Then every night when the kids got fussy (usually arond 4:30 or 5:00) I would put them in the swings, turn on some quiet music for them, and turn on Netflix for me. (Psych. The. Best. Show. Ever.) They would swing happily for an hour or two and usually took a little nap. And I could cook, clean, do laundry.. whatever I needed to do. It was amazing. We still have the same ritual, though it is changing a little bit. Caroline isn't content to just sit in her swing anymore. She sits up, throws her binky, and tries desperately to escape so she can go get it again. So now I often just let her crawl around on the floor while Charlie swings. One of their favorite activities involves Caroline sitting on the floor in front of Charlie's swing, waving her hands and singing/squealing while he watches her intently and laughs histerically at her show. It's completely adorable. Those swings transformed my evenings. No more witching hour for us, hallelujiah! Those early evening hours are now some of the best of my day. Moral of the story, swings = awesome.

The Schedule

When I was pregnant, I got a lot of advice on how to raise my kids. Some of it really was helpful, some not so much. Most people told me just to trust my instincts and do what felt right, which is what I would tell a new mom. I had decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to read any books on baby sleep etc. However, I had a few friends recommend Baby Wise and I was given the book to read. So I read it. And it made a lot of sense.

By nature I'm not the most structured, rule-following person. But I do like to have a plan, even if I don't strictly stick to it. I liked reading the book because I felt like it gave me a plan - something to shoot for. It wasn't always perfect, and still isn't, but by now I feel like we have a good routine down.

When the twins were newborn, I did not stick to a schedule. I was big on the routine - we always did things in the same order. Wake, eat, play, sleep. They didn't eat at the same times every day, but it was always 2-3 hours apart. Around 6 weeks I started being a little more consistent. I still didn't feed them at the same times every day, but we developed a consistent nighttime routine that seemed to help them sleep longer at night. We started doing baths at bed time, then getting them in bed at the same time every night. 

Up until that point, I had fed the babies at the same time even in the night. If one woke up to eat, I woke the other up too. But by 6 weeks, I wanted them to start sleeping longer. I let them sleep as long as they would sleep, and in the night I fed them seperately. For a few weeks, it meant that I woke up twice as often during the night, but it helped them not get into the habit of eating if they didn't need it. Then for the first morning feeding (which still wasn't at the same time everyday), I made sure to wake them up and feed them at the same time. The days when I didn't do that were some hard hard days. Those were the days when I would wake up, feed one baby, then play for about an hour and put them down for a nap. Right then, the other baby would wake, play for about an hour, then go down for a nap. Then if I was lucky, I'd have about 30 minutes of them both sleeping before the first baby would wake up again. And that would go on all day. Sometimes those days were fun because I'd get to spend more time playing individually with my kids. But generally, they were just exhausting. For that reason, it was super important to me to keep them on the same schedule! In my opinion, there's no other way.

Now that they are a little older, we are on a bit more of a schedule. A flexible one, but still a schedule. So here is the way we do things now:

7 AM (give or take a little) - wake, nurse, get dressed and eat breakfast

9-11 AM - nap

11 AM - nurse and lunch

1-3 PM - nap

4 PM - nurse

4-6 PM - usually spent in their swings in the kitchen while I cook, do laundry, make baby food, clean...whatever :) they generally take a 15-30 minute cat nap during this time

6 PM - dinner

7 PM - bath, nurse, in bed by 7:30 

Occasionally Charlie will wake up for a 3 AM feeding (especially when he's teething) but for the most part they sleep about 12 hours/night straight. I do realize that I am extremely blessed and that not all babies do this! But also, we worked really hard in the beginning to get our kids to sleep. We started sleep training when they were 6 weeks old. It was really hard to let them cry it out (reasonably), but so worth it. My theory was that I can't physically rock two babies to sleep at the same time, so I needed to be able to put them down for naps and have them fall asleep on their own. It was hard in the beginning, but it didn't take long for them to get used to it. And now they rarely cry when going down for a nap. Hooray for good sleeping babies!

I loved the flexibility of our routine when they were little. But I do have to say that I LOVE the predictability of our schedule now. It is so much easier to plan my day and know when I can go grocery shopping, go on a walk, or do whatever I need to do. And seriously, twins on the same schedule = best thing ever. Twins on opposite schedules = misery and exhaustion. Wake the sleeping baby. It is so worth it!

A day in the life..

The most common question I get is people asking me how I do it. The short answer is, well I just do! I don't know any different since the twins are my first children. But just because I don't  know any different doesn't mean it's been easy. Seriously, the first five weeks were just a blur of sleepless nights, dirty diapers and endless nursing. Yes I am breast feeding my twins. Both of them. At the same time. Nursing was the part I was most nervous about. I wanted to try it but I wasn't confident that I would be able to successfully feed two babies ever, let alone do it for nearly 6 months. But here we are 5 1/2 months after they were born still nursing away. The trick is getting a good pillow (I use the My BreastFriend Twin nursing pillow) and holding them both in football position. It took a lot of getting used to but in my opinion there is no other way to do it. It saves so much time. So much. 

In the beginning, the babes were on different schedules. And that was hard. My husband, Forrest, and I worked so hard to get them sleeping and eating at the same time. Yes, that meant that we constantly had to wake up sleeping babies so they could eat at the same time. Which also meant that we would go entire nights sleeping less that 2 hours total. I remember just praying for morning to come. Thinking "just wait until the sun is up - I can last until then." Then 4 AM would hit and I'd feel a major sense of accomplishment and relief at having made it through another night. I remember thinking how easy it would be if we only had one. Which I know is not true - having a new baby in the house is hard regardless of how many of them there are. And then when they were 5 weeks old we moved from Southern California to Salt Lake City. We finally had two bedrooms so we immediately moved them into their own room. And then they started sleeping. And we started sleeping. The first night they both slept for 6 hours straight was one of the best nights ever. I thought it was a fluke, but they kept doing it. Then at 8 weeks they started sleeping for 8 hours straight and taking good naps during the day. That was when I started feeling like a normal person again.

Now they are great - mostly. Of course we have our bad days and rough nights, but generally speaking my babies are really happy and content and are excellent sleepers. Thank goodness! They wake up in the morning and play happily in their cribs until I go get them out to eat. (They sleep in different cribs. When they were little I sometimes put them in the same bassinet/crib but they just wiggle way too much now.) I usually pick up Charlie first because he is a little fussier in the mornings. He gets really excited and smiles until I lay him down on the ground to get Caroline. Then he cries. Hard. Caroline smiles and reaches her arms up for me and snuggles with me while I carry her to her brother. I put her on the ground next to him where they play while I'm getting set up to feed them. I clip my nursing pillow around my waist and sit down Indian style on the ground against the wall. Then I pick them up one at a time and lay them down on the pillow to eat. Even if Charlie has been crying hard, he always laughs when I do this because I swing him forward before putting him onto the pillow. It's his favorite. While they eat, their bottom hands meet in the middle in front of my chest. Caroline usually grabs on to my shirt and Charlie puts his hand on top of hers. Sometimes it's the other way around, but either way they are always holding hands. It melts my heart! If they ever take a break from holding hands, it's usually to pull the others' hair or ears or to poke their face. They are so curious about one another! I love to see how much they love each other. After they eat I change diapers and get them dressed, then carry them into the kitchen to eat their breakfast. When they were smaller I could easily I pick them up and carry them both, but now I do one at a time into their high chairs. I just use one bowl and one spoon and sit in front of their high chairs and feed them every other bite. (Truthfully, it's usually two bites to Charlie then one bite to Caroline. Unless it's peas, then it's the exact opposite!) They play in their chairs while I eat breakfast, then we play in the living room until nap time.

The day goes on about like that until bedtime. Forrest is an accountant, so he works a lot this time of year and doesn't usually get home until after the kids are in bed. So I do bath time and bedtime alone. It was hard at first, but it's getting easier. I bathe them at the same time, I just put their heads next to each other in the middle so they lay with their legs in the opposite direction. That way they don't kick and splash each other as much. After bath they eat, we read a story and sing a song and then are in bed.

It's really not that hard, taking care of them both. Most days I love it 100%. Of course there are hard days, like I said, but I try to forget about those :). The hardest part is that sometimes they just have to cry. If they are both sad, I can only deal with one at a time so the other just cries. Of course I don't like it, but there's not really another option. The second hardest part is carrying them to and from the car. They are getting really big and heavy and I'm building a lot of muscle carrying two car seats at once! Not easy, but it's still doable. 

Well there you go, that's how I do it! A little disclaimer: I have an amazing husband who is so helpful and who is so good with our kids. I couldn't do it without him. I also have wonderful sisters, parents and in-laws who live nearby and who are so extremely helpful. Also could not do it without them! And  I have the most darling children in the world that make it all worth it :)