It's 3am. Do you know where your children are?

My answer: no. There are some nights I am so tired and disoriented that I don't even know how many children I have, much less where they are. At our most desperate we sometimes bring one or both into our bed, usually at or after 6am, to try to convince them to sleep a little longer (which almost always works), but last night some number of children were in our bed much earlier on in an attempt for everyone to get some sleep. At some point I got up and tried to find Theo to take him back to his crib and couldn't find him anywhere in the bed. It turned out he was never in our bed, or at least not then--he was sleeping soundly in his crib. This is sleep deprivation. At the hospital after they were born I remember feeling like I didn't know how many children I had or where they were or who needed to be fed. After five months it should be better!

Our nights have been pretty bad lately and I don't know why but I also don't care at this point. The "graduated extinction" plan of waiting five minutes before responding to moaning/crying/fussing, then comforting, then leaving, then if it starts up again waiting 10 minutes, etc., adding 5 minutes each time, is OVER. We are going to full "cry it out" (AKA ignore your children once they are in their cribs at night, at least until you just can't stand it) because we have to get some sleep up in here! And so often they do just fall asleep after 15 seconds or a minute or five minutes, but in the meantime we're waiting, tense, for them to start up again and for us to have to keep track of the time and get back up, etc. The American Academy of Pediatrics child care book I have says that you spend all day showing them how much you care about and love them, so a few moments of crying before they go to sleep or to get back to sleep does not send any bad messages about being abandoned, etc. I would never have thought I'd be a cry it out parent but geez Louise, here we are. And for naps. We have GOT to get into a better schedule for naps, for me when I'm here but especially when other people are going to be taking care of the boys. I keep thinking it will be so much better if the boys and the babysitters can know what to expect in terms of how long and when they are going to sleep. So I'm implementing 9-10am and 1-3 pm naps. They almost always sleep from 9-10 but the afternoon nap is sometimes sketchy with when and how long. They are so much happier when they do nap that long, though, so we'll try to get into a better habit. How do people do it with getting out of the house, though? It seems like we will be tethered to home, only venturing out at non-nap times to try to get into the routine of naps in cribs. But the boys always sleep in their carseats, in a stroller, or in a carrier, when it's not nap time! Are we stuck at home forever?

Speaking of sleep, I am contemplating these for sleepover trips in the next few months. A pack and play is fine but we don't have room to bring one pack and play with us, much less two, and we don't have room anywhere we're going to set up two. These were recommended by another twin mom and they're a little pricey but I'm very tempted. Any thoughts on traveling beds?