After dinner and baths the girls are usually just silly. I don’t know if they get a second wind or just want to get that last little bit of energy out before bedtime, but they get crazy. Some nights they chase each other around the living room and kitchen, some nights they wrestle each other and us, and some nights (last night) it’s dance party and then books. The best part of the day is laying on the floor with them or even just sitting back and watching them play together. Now that the girls aren’t going to bed until 8 or 8:30 it’s so nice to have that extra playtime that we miss on work days.
We’ve worked really hard on bedtime routines from a pretty early age which has really been good for us. The girls know what to expect, we know when they’re tired and we are able to lay them down in their cribs, give them their blankets and lovies and they go to sleep. There have been a few hiccups though since we took away their paci’s. Since they spit them out once they were asleep anyway and didn’t really seem terribly attached to their paci’s we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to take them away. Overall it really wasn’t. They rebelled for one full day (Kevin’s day off, poor thing), but then were much better. It became obvious that the paci’s really just helped them focus and fall asleep since once we took them away the girls had a hard time going right to sleep at naptime and bedtime. We adjusted the times of their naps a bit to make sure they were good and tired when we laid them down and we also started playing music for them again. That, along with some occasional shushing and reassuring, has really helped with naps.
Bedtime has been a different story. I’m fairly certain we (I) picked the middle of a pretty good teething spell to take away their paci’s. Olivia has gotten at least 2 new teeth since then and Lucy is working on some as well. For about a week after we took away their paci’s the girls would cry when put to bed and not go to sleep unless one of us was in there and a couple of times they woke up crying in the middle of the night. From experience we know what chaos ensues when we pick up one of the girls in the middle of the night. Inevitably the other girl wakes up and is mad that she’s not being held. We didn’t resort to this for the most part but we did for a week or so start sitting or laying on the floor of their room until they fell asleep. Then this became the new habit for them and us. We finally put an end to this a couple of nights ago with just some shushing and reassuring. Hopefully the teething phase is over and they’re used to not having their paci’s now so we can go back to our peaceful bedtimes of the past. Not that it was ever terrible compared to having 2 newborns. I really can’t complain since they’re such good little sleepers.
We’ve worked really hard on bedtime routines from a pretty early age which has really been good for us. The girls know what to expect, we know when they’re tired and we are able to lay them down in their cribs, give them their blankets and lovies and they go to sleep. There have been a few hiccups though since we took away their paci’s. Since they spit them out once they were asleep anyway and didn’t really seem terribly attached to their paci’s we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to take them away. Overall it really wasn’t. They rebelled for one full day (Kevin’s day off, poor thing), but then were much better. It became obvious that the paci’s really just helped them focus and fall asleep since once we took them away the girls had a hard time going right to sleep at naptime and bedtime. We adjusted the times of their naps a bit to make sure they were good and tired when we laid them down and we also started playing music for them again. That, along with some occasional shushing and reassuring, has really helped with naps.
Bedtime has been a different story. I’m fairly certain we (I) picked the middle of a pretty good teething spell to take away their paci’s. Olivia has gotten at least 2 new teeth since then and Lucy is working on some as well. For about a week after we took away their paci’s the girls would cry when put to bed and not go to sleep unless one of us was in there and a couple of times they woke up crying in the middle of the night. From experience we know what chaos ensues when we pick up one of the girls in the middle of the night. Inevitably the other girl wakes up and is mad that she’s not being held. We didn’t resort to this for the most part but we did for a week or so start sitting or laying on the floor of their room until they fell asleep. Then this became the new habit for them and us. We finally put an end to this a couple of nights ago with just some shushing and reassuring. Hopefully the teething phase is over and they’re used to not having their paci’s now so we can go back to our peaceful bedtimes of the past. Not that it was ever terrible compared to having 2 newborns. I really can’t complain since they’re such good little sleepers.
The last pictures of the girls sleeping with paci's
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