If there’s anything close to a sure thing when it comes to having more kids, it’s that you will be forced to reconsider something you knew to be 100% right and true the first time around. Among the things Ellie has caused me to … moderate my views on, the biggest is my entire concept of sleep schedules.
Oh, was I a nut for schedules when my big kids were babies and toddlers. Naptime is naptime, come hell or high water. I would schedule everything around naptime, nothing would be permitted to interfere. I carefully crafted the transition from two naps to one, and hung onto the morning nap for as long as I possibly could. It was literally YEARS before I knowingly and purposefully allowed them to skip the afternoon nap. They would both go to bed for a nap, together, at the same time each and every day.
And, in my defense, it worked for us. My kids did well with the predictability, were well-rested and happy when they got that sleep every day. And frankly, with twins, I think it’s a matter of survival to have that kind of synchronization.
And then came Ellie.
Truth be told, she has nearly always been a very good sleeper. With the exception of the few weeks of to-swaddle-or-not limbo, she has required virtually zero intervention to get to sleep, and slept through the night consistently and of her own volition as soon as we got over the swaddle nonsense at 3.5 months. Yes, I am well aware of how lucky we are.
But she has completely defied my previous notions of what a nap schedule should look like at any age. She really never went through that phase of needing a third nap (big kids took a third catnap with some regularity until 8 months). She always took a late and short morning nap (I had always thought that first nap was relatively early in the morning and quite reliable). At 13-14 months, she pretty abruptly and decisively dropped the morning nap altogether (big kids did it at 17 months with a long and protracted transition). And as if that weren’t enough, she is already at that point where, if her afternoon nap goes longer than 1.5-2 hours, she’ll be awake until nearly 10PM (a trick my big kids didn’t pull until after age 4).
More than anything, I find myself more relaxed and willing to follow her lead than I was with the big kids. Ellie, herself, is much more flexible than they were at this age, whether by temperament or by virtue of being the third kid, I don’t know. But if she seems tired earlier than usual? Sure, put her down early! Too-short nap today? Oh well, we’ll survive. The fact that she already seems like she’ll drop the nap a few YEARS earlier than her brother and sister did? Whatevs.
So, the crazy nap lady is eating some of her own words these days. The way Ellie sleeps is nothing short of shocking to the Me of three years ago. But I guess that’s how it goes. Think you know EVERYTHING about being a parent? Go ahead, have another kid. I dare you.
But the fact of the matter is that I have two mobile-but-not-steady kids who don’t take direction and haven’t entirely figured out that you can’t crawl straight off of surfaces 3 (or 6 or 10) feet above the ground.
I let them sleep for a few and tried to relax and listen to the radio and check my email on my 
The first time they laughed at each other was a shining moment, for sure. Now that they almost play with each other (OK, so they grab each other’s toys and ears, but it’s a start), I just love it. The two of them giggling and babbling at each other is one of the best parts about having twins so far.
it’s party time. Sometimes, when I hear them shrieking at each other over the monitor, it’s hilariously cute. 45 minutes later, when Rebecca has finally fallen asleep and Daniel is standing at the edge of his crib, glaring down at her, and screaming… not as much. And he has been fighting the afternoon nap tooth and nail for the last week (they’re only 11 months, and definitely not ready to drop a nap). Once or twice he has skipped it entirely, other times he takes anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to finally go to sleep. The resulting nap (if there is one) isn’t great, so it makes for a rough rest of the day.
I have them sharing a room and how long I want to continue doing it. Back in the days when they were still waking up at night a lot and taking bottles two or three times, I really preferred having them in the same place. We went through a phase when M freaked out that they were waking each other up, so we separated them, and it drove me nuts. Because they’d still wake up at the same time, so now I had to be two different places to soothe or feed them. No thanks, back in the same room they went. We kept them right next to each other when we Ferberized, and that really did help them learn to sleep through each other’s noises. And I really do like the idea of these two little kids sharing their room. I like that they entertain each other, that they make each other laugh.
At night, they go down pretty well. But sometimes those naps… ooh, man. And maybe separating them wouldn’t help, and it would turn out that Daniel’s just in the midst of a nap strike regardless of who else is in the room. Hopefully it’ll pass, but I know this is something I’m going to come back to over and over again in the next few years…
