Syncopated Rhythm

Our schedule has gone COMPELTELY haywire.  First of all, things have been very out of the ordinary recently (both sets of parents visiting, Ilan is home from work).  But second of all, the babies are making huge developmental changes right now.

One of them I have mentioned, that they are sleeping really long stretches at night.  Minus the nights we tried to put them back into the crib before the cold disappeared (it’s still lingering, they’re still in the chairs, it’s not worth it because those nights were just a disaster), they seem to still be doing 6-9 hour stretches, which is amazing.  I am NOT complaining about that.

Other developmental leaps:

Eitan

• Really, when we talk about the sleep routine it is all Eitan’s developmental leap.  Noa probably would have been doing this weeks ago but we have to go on his schedule.  So yay!  Long stretches at night!
• He has begun to really see things, to really look at things, and kind of go for things with his hands.  If I put a toy in his lap he will stare at it.  He looks for me when I’m not in his immediate field of vision.
• Eitan also has become quite cheerful.  He was smiling for a while but now he smiles SO MUCH when he is well-rested.
• He also has discovered that the only place he wants to nap is on someone.  I really want to train him out of it because I can’t do that all the time but oh it’s so cute.

Noa

• Noa has found her hands!  She has also found other things, and is grabbing things with her hands.  Sometimes I can just give her a toy and she will sit there with it, examining it, touching it, etc, for a while.  This also means her hands are always in her mouth, making it hard for her to eat (have to keep shoving the boob or bottle past those little iron fists) and also making her quite drooly.
• She’s been in the jolly jumper thing and LOVES it.  It’s the harness on the bungee that hangs from the doorframe.  She will bounce and bounce and bounce until she exhausts herself.  She especially bounces when she hears music.
• She has also started wanting to sit up, so we have begun introducing the bumbo seat.  She’s not really ready for it so she only gets to be in it for a minute or two at a time, but she definitely wants to sit up.
• Does. Not. Want. To. Nap. …. Ever.

The thing is, how does one have time for all of this in the short span of day available?  Today they slept until 7:30am (9pm – 7:30am with a short feeding at 5:30) and we start dinner / bed time proceedings at 5pm.  That’s less than 12 hours and somewhere in there they have to eat 5-6 times, and each feeding takes at least an hour start to finish… that is less than 5 hours of their “day” that is not spent feeding, so of COURSE they don’t want to nap for 3 hours of it!

I tried desperately to get them to take naps during the day but they weren’t having it until 4pm when they were both exhausted.  So, okay, fine, have a short nap, but they had to do it ON ME.  And then Noa was Little Miss Overtired Crankypants.

My hope is that they will soon decrease the number of feedings they have an instead increase the amounts they take at feedings so we don’t have to basically cluster feed all day.  This is what it felt like we have been doing the last few days.  Eat eat eat eat eat, with maybe a few minutes for activity gym time or holding time, and also lots of me desperately trying to get them to take naps.  I’ve been successful at getting them to fall asleep – that is not the problem – but staying asleep for more than 15 minutes is just not happening during the day (except when it’s around dinner time and pre-bed-time, which is when I DON’T want them to nap!).

We have not read a single baby book besides the happiest baby book, which is really just about soothing colicky infants.  So we don’t know what is developmentally appropriate in terms of sleep.  We just know they aren’t getting enough of it during the day, considering the major crash that Noa often has at the end of the day.  If I could just get her to take a one-hour nap sometime during the day that would be amazing.  Yesterday we all napped as a family- don’t tell anyone but the babies napped on our chests (gasp!).  Last night they were delicious!  But this is not feasible as a long term strategy!

It’s causing me a lot of anxiety.

I just have to believe that they will start increasing their intake at each meal so they don’t have to eat as frequently.  Already today they had 1.5x their normal feeding at the 11am feeding, and in a way dropped one feeding later on in the day.  If they could eat 5 times a day instead of 7, we’d have much more time for other things, like naps in addition to all the play time they want to have.

Once everything settles again in January we can find our rhythm once more.  It will be different than it was before, which is fine.  I just need to find it.  Right now it feels too syncopated for my comfort.