8:45pm: three of the four children are sound asleep. Reverie (the irony of her name is not lost on me) Lux (the irony of her middle name ALSO isn't lost on me) is a night owl. She has been up for weeks (months? years?), on and off every. single. night. Her most wakeful time? 8pm-2am.
8:47pm. I know what I'm in for.
9:17: She knows what I'm in for and now she's mocking me. 
10:59: She is having SO MUCH FUN being awake! She loves the night life!
11:35: She just finished her bottle and I pray this "wave" is to say goodnight.
(I do not love this kind of night life.)
A million o'clock: Revi has finally crashed out after SEVENTEEN STRAIGHT HOURS of wakefulness. I put her in her crib, shower, pass out and wake up approximately sixteen minutes later. Because her twin sister is a VERY LIGHT sleeper and someone just HAD TO REV (more irony) their car engine outside our house. In the words of @blessthefunk on Instagram, "They are cute FOR A REASON." Indeed.
(ED: this was taken last night at 11:15. Revi passed out at midnight and slept until 5. Progress!)
GGC
39 comments:
I would laugh, but I know your pain - and with only one, so I only half know it.
I am still shocked by the fact that there are not more news stories about car revvers, motor cycle riders, and car alarm accidental setter offers being mauled in the streets by sleep deprived parents.
Brutal! I hope you have better luck tonight...
You should get one of those electric swings. My son used to love to sleep in that. It rocks them back and forth. Also put on a Yanni record. That always put my son to sleep. Very peaceful music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zAhGzBohMg
Yeah, I hear ya! My 3 year old son can stay up til 2 a.m. EASY! I'm a school teacher, so I have to get up at 6 and tend to 21 first graders all day long. Lots of coffee!!
I feel you. At 10 months, Tate is finally sleeping, but of course since I wrote that for all the world to see, it will mean that she is up all night.
wow! she looks so much like fable in that last photo!
cute for a reason, indeed.
Just like us moms end up staying late because we love our alone, Revi LOVES her alone time with you! As a twin we are very receptive on figuring out how to demand a much time as possible with our poor tired parents. Good luck and take care!!
one of my three-year-old twins--the boy--loves to be awake after his sisters go to bed. He's actually quite pleasant and funny. But, yeah, go to sleep, kid!
I'm totally on your side...but...she's just so damn adorable.
She looks entirely too big in that last photo. Make her stop.
And yes, all the auto noise makers work my nerves: car revvers, cars whose mufflers fell off last Christmas, motorcyclists, ambulances (OK, OK, they and fire trucks get a pass). What I find most annoying though is our neighbors who order take-out all hours of the night and the delivery person won't go to the door. He sits and honks. INCESSANTLY. At damn midnight.
You need a whote noise machine. it will change your life! They can't hear all the "outside" noises. We have 3 in our house :) Good luck!
haha I know this feeling too well!!!!!!!! She looks just like you!
Homedics "noise" machine from bed bath and beyond- best investment! we use "rain" setting full blast for naps and bedtime, they don't depend on it to sleep, but it is nice to block out sounds- and black out curtains!!
Sleep deprivation is the WORST. I still haven't forgiven our neighbors for jack hammering the heck out of their bedroom that is all of 3 feet from our bedroom at SEVEN in the MORNING. That I'd been up shivering with a breast infection until 4am and with the baby was not awesome.
May Revi Lux make it up to you by being the sweetest baby ever...because that little face looks just full of love and light (but I guess it's a night light).
OMG! I don't wish to laugh at this but I have 2 year old twins and thought we would outgrow this very same issue! We have one that for the last 2 almost 3 months now gets up every night at 11pm screaming. This goes on every hour on the hour until about 4:30am. It is almost every night and it has gotten to the point where she wakes her sister up too. I thought it was night terrors but I actually think she is just waking up to have tantrums! Good-luck!
I second (or third) the noise machine. We have three in our house as well and god forbid we ever forget it when go on a trip! We have a nearly 100 old house with original windows, so it is not a quiet house. Noise machines help us all sleep better!
The torture of not sleeping! Of course I have a great sleeper of a kid but I am a horrible insomniac... I sometimes fib and say he was up all night to cover for my self inflicted yawns and circles. Some of us were just born to stay up late and have our own little parties! You are a superwoman :)
"A million o' clock", I died. Dude, 17 hours awake? That's not right. My son was a terrible sleeper from day 1 until like month 13. Then I did horrible sleep training but it worked and if I ever get that sleep deprived ever again bad things will happen. My point you ask? Turns out the reason my son had such a hard time sleeping was because he was in fact extremely over tired from months of crap naps and short nights. Now (at 18 months) he goes down at 6:30 until 7am. I can hardly believe it myself. Perhaps Rev is also over tired? I'm not trying to tell you how to Mom, I just understand how hard sleep deprivation can be. And P to the S, they ARE so cute.
She is Hal with more hair. And less stubble, I'm sure. Too cute. Wishing sleep for you soon.
Oh my god how DO you do it? I've just the one and he likes to wake up four times through the night to check everything is how he left it. I think you are amazing.
We have a sound machine! And it worked for the first couple of months but now iT DOESN'T WORK. The girls are both incredibly light sleepers and wake each other after one cry. ALL THE TIME. Tonight I got Revi down at 10 but she fought it so hard, was SCREAMING crying, woke Bo (three rooms away) and then, yeah. They're asleep now. And now I will follow them. (You guys are awesome, thank you for being on my team.)
Rebecca, I'm a long time reader - love your blog - love your style....
I may get some flack for this but have you considered Ferberizing? I know it's highly controversial but at about 6 months with my son when I was literally one more missed nights sleep away from a complete nervous break down I went for it. Worked in 3 nights - he is 4 now and the best sleeping kid I know. Just a thought...good luck!!!!
Completely agree with the first comment - I cannot belive I haven't actually killed my neighbour's teenage son yet for sitting in the driveway revving his boy racer car mere minutes after my daughter has FINALLY fallen asleep.
Much respect to you - I have just one baby and her constant wakefulness has me falling asleep at my desk most days.
I was that offending twin as a baby. My sister slept. I would not. On behalf of all offending twins, I apologize.
(I am getting my own back now. My toddler sleeps as long as no one goes in her room. DON'T GO IN HER ROOM. But my three- and four-year-olds take turns waking me up at night for bathroom visits, bad dreams, and multiple reasons I don't even remember. Because I am so tired.)
It never feels like it at the time but this too shall pass. Sleep deprivation sucks and what sucks more is when you finally are able to get some sleep your body has completely forgotten how to relax and go the fuck to sleep!! Learning to sleep again is like it's own private torture...may you find some sleep sooner rather than later. Hang in there mamma!!
As a life long night owl, I'm sure she's just prepping for her future career as a doctor...or bartender. :)
How in the world did I get blessed with great sleepers? I mean, they have their moments, but nothing like what you are going through. I wish I could come up with a solution for you and the other zombie moms who have kids that like to party all night long. Hang in there!
I AM SO SORRY.
Dude, make them watch Secret Life, the acting will bore them to sleep in minutes.
And yet I still watch it every week, it's like a car wreck, I can't look away...
From one mamma of a poor sleeper to another, moving bedtime to 6:30pm changed our lives. Turned out his wakefullness was just overtiredness. He hid it well being generally happy to be awake but full of beans. So from 9 months until 3 he went to bed between 6 and 6:30pm and now at 5 he goes to bed at 7:30. Pure bliss.
Yeah. I thing a lot of this has to do with not being able to really DO anything.
I'm not opposed to crying it out at. all. But if we let her cry it out then Bo is awake and that sucks. An earlier bedtime isn't even possible because by the time Hal's home from work and Fable's home from school it's 5pm and we have dinner and story-time, bath... The big kids go down at 8pm (on a good night) and we start to wind down around the same time with the babes. I would LOVE it if they went down earlier but I don't even see how I could swing that.
Last night as SOON as I fell asleep Revi woke up. She was up from 11:30-12:30 and then slept until 5. Meanwhile, Archer woke up with a nightmare and Fable woke up twice freaking out because she couldn't find a stuffed animal she had gone to bed with. So. Yeah. I think... This is just... life right now. Someday I'll look back on these days with nostalgia and think, "Aw... That was sweet."
In the meantime? At least I have an excuse for being an emotional basketcase.
*think
I have twins who were terrible sleepers, so I feel your pain. I don't think there's any one thing that you can do that will fix the situation - everyone has a piece of advice that turned their world around, but we tried everything people said (swings, noise machines, etc.) and none of it made a difference. Ultimately we hired a sleep consultant (can you believe that's even a thing?!) and while I'm somewhat embarrassed that we couldn't figure it out on our own, it helped tremendously. We worked with her for a month, around when they were 5-6 months, and now - at 10 months - they are (for the time being, anyway) excellent sleepers. And to this day, every morning, I thank them for such a great night of sleep. I don't want to take it for granted! Sleeping at night might be the best thing on this earth.
I have twin girls who are almost 10 months and also are not very good sleepers. The one thing I did that has helped a little was to put them in different rooms. We moved a crib into the BASEMENT and it has helped a bit because at least they aren't waking each other up anymore. They still wake up a bunch but at least I sometimes get a chunk of 3 hours or so. And then when I let them cry a bit they don't wake the other up. I was hesitant to do it because I wanted to believe in twin magic and them being connected and all that, but screw it! It got too annoying. Oh, and it's a finished basdement, but it's still kinda sad. But we didn't have an extra bedroom!
Hmm at first I was going to recommend the 'cry it out' method (is that mean? It worked for both of mine) ... but when you have twins, and one's asleep and one's not... I got nothin'.
Good luck! :) (they ARE totally adorable, that certainly helps!)
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in my experience as the mom of several 3 now grown children (I know this does not make me expert on anything but my own kids). Children usually stay with the same sleep habits for life that they have at your twins age.
I feel your pain, as I had a night owl 6 year old and 2 year old, but then had a infant that was and is a super light sleeper, that to this day a bear if he does not get 8+ hours of uninterrupted sleep. You will adapt as all moms do. Thanks for your wonderful blog. IT brings me back oh so many years.
I have a nightlife lovin' daughter. Rowan never slept. Like, not ever. We'd catch a two hour nap from 6-8 am for three months, easy. She just didn't need/want to sleep. She wanted to learn! She was up and at 'em right when she came out. Then, at around two and a few months, she got a big girl bed and moved out of ours. Now, she won't even let us stay after one story. She kicks us out ('night mommy, bye bye daddy) and sleeps/hangs out in her room from 7-9ish at night to AT LEAST 6:30 am. Perserverance, some of that pesky patience, and a huge sense of humor about that time you used to stay up until 5 am.
As a mother of twins, I seriously feel your pain. Just because they are this way now, does NOT mean this is the way it will always be - but you need to do something to make it change. I really recommend you find a baby whisperer to spend a night or two with you to do some sleep training. Your babies are old enough to learn how to sleep through the night. They CAN do it! You don't need to just accept that this is the way things are. If you do, things might not change for years... Also, you might want to look at this http://www.thegiftofsleep.com.au/ An ebook on teaching your baby to sleep. I haven't read it but have read good reviews. This is my first comment on your site! I LOVE your blog!! And I really want you to get some sleep!!
Hi Bec,
I can so relate - with 3 under 3.5 at the moment, incl a 2-month old, I am suffering from serious sleep deprivation too. It does funny things to the mind... But twins, my goodness I can't even imagine. You are doing an amazing job!
If you start feeling desperate, could you get a baby whisperer/nurse person in to help (and maybe send Archer and Fable to your parents??). Sometimes a third party can act as a circuit breaker and is great at being consistent (I always go for short term solutions when I'm sleep deprived!)
Good luck, may the force and some zzzzz be with you!
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