Best Sleeper

Not me, and not baby Spencer quite yet, well not at night - he's a great sleeper during the day, snoozing practically all day long with the exception of when he's eating!  He still wakes up for at least one feed in the middle of the night (as should be expected for a 3 week old baby). The hard part is that when he gets up for this feeding (typically around 2am) he wants to stay up and party for an extra hour or two.

But this post is about the twins, and how much their sleep habits have dramatically improved over the past month! They've gone from having to be separated at night to sharing a room again. And they've completely stopped having night wakings (which peaked at the end of last year / early this year with all the new teeth they were sprouting).  We've had them on a strict 7pm-7am sleeping schedule since they were 4 months old, but there were always a few hiccups here and there with someone wanting rocked or consoled in the middle of the night.  And they used to fuss about getting rocked completely to sleep at bedtime.  But for the past week we've tried a new method and it has amazingly worked (knock on wood) - we rock them for a few minutes after they finish their milk and then quickly get up and put them both down, say goodnight, walk out and shut the door.  In the past this would only result in screaming and crying...but suddenly they just "got it" and go to sleep on their own!  Sometimes we see them play with their stuffed animals quietly in their cribs before going to sleep and that's cute to watch.

The other major change has been naps.  Their afternoon nap has always been unpredictable and disappointingly short, sometimes only 20-30 minutes (usually Owen).  But over the past couple weeks they suddenly take closer to 1.5 to 2 hours, which is exactly how long they "should" be sleeping at this time according to the schedule we've been using.  And again, no more fighting to get them down - which has always been a challenge for whoever is taking care of them in the afternoon.  Now we can just set them down in the crib walk away!  Here's a picture from a day last week that Oliver slept more than 2 hours and we had to go wake him up...I never thought I'd see this day.  Looks comfortable!!