That wasn’t pretty

Alas, Halloween was not a joyful day in my house. It was one of those nightmare fussy days. Both babies fought every single minute of sleep they had. The spit-up and drool machines were on such high gear that the Halloween shirts had to be ditched by 3pm (and that’s when they were so soaked I just couldn’t ignore it any longer). Nothing worked to get them to sleep for longer than about 25 minutes. There was a lot of screaming, some of it my own. Not fun! M and I were so ragged by the time we finally sat down to eat dinner, we were practically zombies. What a romantic anniversary! But with my mother-in-law arriving for the weekend, we will hopefully manage a date night. M is even suggesting an overnight at a hotel, but we’ll see.

We’re in a sort of tricky stage as far as sleep is concerned right now. They don’t yet have a regular or predictable nap schedule, but they still need to sleep kind of a lot, and I’m following my Dr. Weissbluth rule that they should go back to sleep after being up 1-2 hours (max). When I can get them down, it makes a huge difference as far as ease and fussiness. We’re all much happier. The difficult part is that they don’t fall (or stay) asleep nearly as easily as they once did. No longer can I rely on the magic of a moving car or stroller. It’s a very sad fact, indeed. It has made getting out of the house (in general a top priority for me) quite a bit more difficult. While I used to just do my best to leave shortly after feeding them and then they’d fall asleep in the car, I can no longer count on them falling asleep while we’re out. It’s really making me not want to leave the house, because I want/need to have all of my tricks and tools at my disposal to get them to sleep.

That’s how it all went down yesterday. They were up and ate at 7:30am, then a short walk in the stroller to get the poor dog outside. Both only dozed a little when we got home, not sufficient for “real” napping. But they ate again around 11, and I figured it was a good time to pop out and run an errand or two. They hadn’t slept well between the previous feedings, so hopefully now they’d be a little extra sleepy and the car would work it’s magic. No such luck. Well, Rebecca did sleep for a bit, but Daniel only catnapped for 5-10 minutes at a time. There was much overtired crying. And while sometimes an overtired morning can give way to a nice long afternoon nap, that was not to be the case. Nope, more screaming all afternoon long, and a complete refusal to sleep more than 25 minutes. These are the days when you can almost understand how a mom can snap and do her children harm. Obviously I wouldn’t harm my kids, but I know that all that screaming with no solution can addle your mind, and the frustration can lead some people down a slippery slope.

Anyways, when M came home he was finally able to take Daniel upstairs and put our exhausted boy to sleep. Then it was Rebecca’s turn. She had slept marginally better during the day, but elected to scream bloody murder when her dad tried to get her to bed. So much intense screaming we honestly wondered if she had somehow injured herself. And then, at one point, she finally stopped and then smiled at us. No idea what caused the crying, or what made it stop. No wonder M and I were practically hysterical by 8:30pm. We closed our door to trick or treaters (yeah, because that was the extra complication I needed last night) and turned off lights so they wouldn’t trek up our sidewalk. We half-laughed and half-cried as we recounted the insanity of the afternoon and evening (did I mention his usually short-to-moderate commute took an hour and a half? Awesome). I went to bed around 9:30 while he took some late-night baby duty. Rebecca woke up more often than usual, but overall the night was a blessed improvement over the day.

So, here I am at 5:45 in the morning. I fed Daniel around 4:30, I don’t even know when Rebecca last ate, but I’m sure she’ll be up soon. Here’s to hoping that today is better than yesterday. I admit I’m concerned, though. I have my usual walk with the twin moms at 10:30, and a chiropractor appointment at 3. Will two outings spell doom, or will the babies be more cooperative today? Tune in later for the next installment of the sleep chronicles…