Week 7: The quest for the perfect schedule

I'm a little behind, but the babies turned 7 weeks old Monday and I'm trying to keep up with a weekly update. I feel bad that I haven't been able to keep up with other blogs in a couple of weeks and miss reading everyone else's updates! I'm hoping to be able to catch up soon. :)

Well, the answer to the question of whether week 6 was the peak or not: I'm not sure yet! It seemed a little like a plateau, though it didn't seem as hard. Perhaps that is because we have found...(drum roll)...the PERFECT SCHEDULE!

I have basically been searching for the perfect schedule since they were born. Why? I have many reasons for wanting an optimal schedule as opposed to "going with the flow" but it comes down to this: I believe it is best for both the babies and us. Everyone has their own philosophy on it, so there isn't any use in going into mine here; suffice it to say that that's the direction we're taking.

Since birth I had been focused on an every three hour schedule. We tried 6/9/12/3, 7/10/1/4, every combination possible. The problem was that a lot of times they were in a deep sleep when I had to wake them to feed and I felt like they would benefit from sleeping their natural course. I knew they would sleep longer periods if I let them, but I didn't know when/what times of day would be best for that so as to not ruin their night sleep, throw off their feeding metabolism, etc. It seemed like an insurmountable task to figure out what schedule out of the millions possible would be the one that would give us a good routine to follow and follow their natural patterns more (e.g., if it is natural for them to sleep longer at lunch time, let them go further then, but not at specified other times). To be honest, this has been frustrating me to no end - the search for the perfect schedule. The schedule that makes us happy and makes the babies happy. The schedule that means less crying because they are well rested at the right times and well fed at the right times. The schedule that means longer night sleeps sooner rather than later. The schedule that allows us to have adult lives too.

And then came the book. What's that you say? I already have a trillion baby books? I already have read them too much? Ah, but I didn't have THIS one. An online friend read a posting of mine a while back about schedules and sent me the book she said was the only one that worked for her. It's a best selling book in Britain and I don't know why it didn't make it here, but I'm so grateful that she sent it to me. It's called "A Contented House With Twins". It is a very strict schedule, which is what I was looking for, but it's based on the author's observation of thousands of babies and their natural rhythms - basically a schedule designed based on what babies tend to naturally, but they get molded into it more precisely this way for your sanity (if you are someone who needs predictability).

Every two weeks the schedule shifts slightly based on changing needs for less sleep, less feedings, etc. I started the first day trying it out for 6-8 week old babies (since that is their age) but quickly found that ours need much more sleep than that. In fact, the schedule we eventually settled on is for 2-4 week old babies; this would make sense based on their due date rather than birth. It was the first time I really started to see that babies born a month early don't develop at the same rate as if born on their due date. They really do have the sleep/wake patterns of much younger babies. They do, however, eat like babies bigger than their age!

So after several days of the new schedule I have found it to be brilliant. They are almost doing it perfectly, except that Kenna often struggles to stay asleep as long as she should. I would think that means she is ready for the next step up in the schedule, but she still falls asleep right on time or earlier, so she is not able to stay awake long enough to try the other one.

Here's what we are doing:

6:45 am - Wake up and eat! (I feed them at the same time now)
Play until 8:15 am - Nap
9:45 am - Wake up and eat!
Play until 11:15 am - Lunch nap (the long one)
1:45 pm - Wake up and eat!
Play until 3:30 pm - Afternoon nap
4:45 pm - Wake up and eat!
5:45 pm - Still awake, eat again to stuff them with more calories while getting close to bed time!
6:45 pm - Bed for the night
10 pm - Wake up and eat, but do it very peacefully and with no alert time after
After 10, wake up naturally (usually happens between 2 and 3 - yes, with the brilliant new schedule the babies naturally sleep 4-5 hours in this stretch, which they never did before! We don't unswaddle them, turn on the lights or change the diaper unless there is poo, which hasn't happened. No stimulation at all - no eye contact, no talking. They go immediately to sleep afterward. It's amazing.)
6:45 am - Wake up! (several times they have slept from the last feeding to the next morning, but sometimes they wake up a bit early and I have to try soothing them back to sleep)

There are a couple of things that have been life changing about this:

1) 6:45 pm bed time. OMG, this is worth everything in the world. I know eventually babies should be working toward sleeping 7p - 7a in a few months, so it makes sense that the author is recommending getting them used to that pattern now. It's an absolute sanity saver for me because after a long day of baby care, I know I can look forward to a bit of a break between 7 and 9 (when I go to bed). I can make dinner, read a book, watch TV, whatever. This gives me SUCH a better attitude during the day because it no longer feels like the unending and exhausting baby treadmill. It gives me and B a chance to have a quiet dinner together at night too. Remember in my last post the 6-9 pm crazies? Doesn't happen anymore. I think before they slept so much during the day that by night they were wide awake and yet grumpy because their natural disposition is to go to bed then. They sleep wonderfully from 6:45 to 10 (the next feeding).

2) As I mentioned, they are sleeping 4-5 hours now in a stretch at night.

3) We cut down to 7 feedings no problem. When I tried the standard methods of equally stretching out feedings across the day, it just didn't work. But with this schedule, you know the appropriate times to stretch them out (when they naturally sleep) so they are not even caring about the extra feeding. It's fabulous.

4) I'm mostly feeding them at the same time. The book doesn't necessarily tell you to do this, but I started to do it. I fought it because I felt like I wasn't going to have that critical bonding time during feeding, but with two, it's really just not practical. I do it with some feedings still, just not all. I don't feel like we have lost bonding time; we just have more time to play because there is less time spent with the bottle in hand!

It's funny because when I look at the schedule, it doesn't look too wildly different from what we were doing - still roughly every three hours; but the small differences make ALL the difference in the world (the long lunch stretch, the cluster feed at night, the 6:45 bed time, the 6:45 wake up time).

Don't get me wrong - we have not "perfected" it, but it's going very well. Kenna has not been able to stay asleep during her naps for the last 2 days and I'm not sure what is wrong. She is just very fussy suddenly. I'm hoping it's just a bad couple of days.

That was the bulk of week 7! A few other notes:

--We took Nathan to the doctor for possible reflux because he sometimes seems to have pain while eating. It's usually in the afternoon, though, and he never spits up, which makes the diagnosis questionable (sounds a little more behavioral). We are giving him an anti-acid and it has seemed some better, but he still does it once in a while. Still trying to figure this one out.

--Nathan is smiling at least once a day! Yesterday I got the most gorgeous little smile from him. I had them propped up in boppies for morning story time. I take turns showing them the pages and Nathan follows very closely for a baby his age. One of the times when I turned the page and showed him he just suddenly beamed with delight and looked over at me. OMG I was the happiest ever. :) It immediately brought tears to my eyes because it was so sweet. He does little smiles here and there but that one was the biggest. Today he was in the swing and starting to wake up so I brought Kenna over and I grabbed his hand and said "Kenna and I are here to see you!" He opened his eyes, looked over at the two of us, and got a giant smile. SO PRECIOUS! MORE OF THIS, PLEASE, AND LESS CRYING! :)

--Target offers a generic form of Enfamil Gentlease for $10 less per can (huge savings compared to $25). Everything on the back is identical to the name brand. I looked online and lots of people have asked about it and everyone seemed to find it worked just fine as a substitute. So yesterday we started trying it and it's not going to work out. :( Lots of gas, which equals lots of crankiness.

I will post some new pics separately. Can you believe they will be 8 weeks already on Monday??