The boys are one week away from their first birthday. My dad is one week away from experiencing the first of what is likely to be many birthdays in the shadow of the boys' birthday, i.e. not really being celebrated to the fullest. Oh, well. I hope to have the time to reflect a little on this last year over a few posts, so I thought I'd start out with sleep.
Theo and Beckett are in a pretty good rhythm of sleep at this point. For about six months now they have been sleeping from 7pm-7am. Two out of three nights they still wake up at some point to nurse, but more and more they are able to go the whole night and just nurse in the morning. The downside is that they usually wake up earlier on the mornings they haven't nursed in the night, but the upside is 1) drier diaper and less chance of leaking in the morning, and 2) more continuous sleep for Mama!
I'm starting to believe that the boys may be very different sleepers. We think Theo is usually the first waker upper in the mornings, and he usually is at naps also. If we get into their room before Theo has woken Beck up, and sometimes even after he has woken Beck up, Beck will often continue sleeping for a while afterwards. For example, this morning Theo woke up to eat (for the first time all night) at 6:15am. Beck slept straight through til 7:30. That's all good news, but they've been somewhat more restless at night than they have been since the very early days. Every night or two one or both of them cries out in his sleep at least once. Often it's just a little cry for 5 or 10 seconds, then back to sleep, but sometimes one wakes the other up or seems especially upset. Several times over the last few weeks I have gone in at various times of night to rub their backs and try to calm them down. Inevitably, no matter how settled they seem or how long it has been since I have been rubbing their backs, when I take my hands away, they both cry. It usually lasts less than a minute before they go back to sleep. I love when Daddy Lovebo asks me, when one is crying in the night, "what is wrong with them?" Like I know, but I'm trying to keep it a secret from him. I think it could be any number of things--hitting their heads on the crib, being thirsty, having a bad dream, having growing pains or teething pains. All I know for sure is that they need some comforting but it's not the end of the world for them to cry for a little bit as they fall back to sleep.
Naps are still about two hours in the middle of the day. Sometimes they don't go down until close to 12:30, and other days (like today), they are out at 11:15am. Sometimes they sleep for 3+ hours, and other times only an hour and a half. It's making it harder and harder to travel during the day, because if they fall asleep not during their nap times, then sometimes they won't nap later. Though we've had good luck traveling around 3 or 4pm so they get an extra bonus nap in the car, and then stay up a little later at night. Overall I think they're really good sleepers and almost never fight sleep. The cutest thing is hearing them talking and giggling to each other in the morning, and then peeking in to see them both standing in their cribs, facing each other and touching each other. That's one of those "having twins is AWESOME!" moments.
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