Sleep, Part 2

Moral of the story:

It gets better.

4-5 months ago, I was dying. Dying a little. Not sleeping for an average of even 6 hours a night is hard. Hard. I've put on almost 10 pounds since the babies were born, and I attribute at least some of that to having newborn, preemie twins who didn't sleep well for a long time. (That's kind of another post.) But it is much better now.

Most of the time, they're asleep around 7:30 and sleep through until 5 am. Thanks to some Crying It Out with the middle of the night feeding (for Avery), we can usually get 6+ hours of sleep each. They're slowly naturally moving up that 5 am wakeup call to 5:30 or 6.  One day I would like for it to be 7, but due to their weight, especially Quinn, we're not going to sleep train them for the morning yet.

They nap pretty well, and at this point it is usually a short morning nap and a 90 min to 2 hour midday nap. Sometimes they get a short snooze in the running stroller too after daycare. I think we'll be on two main naps by a year.

It is so easy to stress about sleep, especially with two babies. You read a lot of "schedule" recommendations. You read a lot of "they need XXX" recommendations. We (half ass) tried to get them on a schedule, but it just isn't for us. We're not schedule people, and you know what - the babies have done just fine. They nap together 75% of the time, and go to bed on time each night. I don't stress over missed naps, and life is fine. Now, I fully believe I'd sing a different tune if I stayed at home with them. I would need the down time, the set schedule, some kind of outline to our day. But the way it is is just fine for us.  Daycare does naps-on-demand for the infant too, so the transition from home to daycare is pretty seamless.

I admit I am still tired a lot of days. Like today. Hence why I am blogging and not working. Going to bed at 10:30 and getting up at 4:45 is still rough. But at least I don't have that general hit-by-a-truck/going-to-pass-out-in-the-car feeling anymore.

It does get better.