I’ve been working over the last several weeks to develop a bedtime routine for the twins. It isn’t easy, of course. Aside from the varying moods of two three-month-olds and the general uncertainty as to the “right” way to go, there’s also some convincing that I have to do for M to go along with me. It’s not that he opposes my ideas in theory, but rather that his overriding motivation is to not have one wake up the other if the other is already down. Alas.

But tonight M is on call at work. He let me know he’d be home a bit later (which was then delayed further when he got paged), which left me to do the bedtime routine solo. A first. Thankfully, both babies had good naps and were in reasonably good spirits this evening, and I did what I could to lay everything out ahead of time. Here’s what went down:

At 6pm, we started bathtime. Obviously I can’t bathe both babies by myself, so Rebecca sat (and protested) in the bouncy seat on the floor while her brother enjoyed the bubbles. I also threw the iPod into the Sound Dock and put on my lullaby playlist. I sang along with Alison Krauss (Baby, Now that I’ve Found You) and Israel Kamamawiwo’ole (Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World). Much to my delight, Daniel got a kick out of this and smiled away as we sang and soaked. He then got dried off and into PJs, then into the bouncy seat as I repeated the process with Rebecca. She was treated to the Spaniels (Goodnight, it’s Time to Go) and the soundtrack from the Music Man (Goodnight, My Someone).

It got a bit noisier as I swaddled them and carted them upstairs in turn. Daniel was perhaps getting a little hungry, and Rebecca was approaching over-tired. It was now 6:30pm. I got them into their cribs (separate cribs, but right next to each other), and gave them a bottle I had prepared before starting the baths. This was the new addition to the routine, courtesy of another twin mom I went walking with this morning. She said she gives a bottle before bedtime, regardless of when they’ve last eaten. This was a radical idea to someone like me who is a) a slave to the 3-hour rotation; and b) afraid of over-feeding (my own hangups, to be sure). But one of her kids sleeps through the night and the other only wakes once, so I’m game. Rebecca, having only eaten only an hour and a half prior, took about an ounce and peacefully drifted to sleep by about 6:45. Daniel, who was arguably approaching a regular mealtime anyways, took closer to a full bottle (4 of the 5oz) and was out closer to 7:00 when all was said and done. Now, 30 minutes later, the monitor is silent.

Overnight, when they wake up to eat, we do our best to keep things very low-key. We often don’t even unswaddle them, much less change diapers (unless it’s noticeably full of poop, those diapers can handle overnight peeing, no rash issues yet). This has generally worked well to usher them right back to sleep, and hopefully send the message that nighttime is for sleeping and little else.

Anyways, that’s the routine as of… tonight. They are asleep in the same room (something M was sort of fighting, with the whole “don’t wake up your brother/sister” thing), and hopefully it’ll last several quiet hours. Fingers crossed…