A Glimmer of Hope

This past week (since my last post) has been really tough. Tiny and Buba have continued to climb out of their cribs, and after the craziness of the first night, I agreed with T that we should put them back into their cribs whenever they climbed out. Unfortunately, the problem only got increasingly worse over the next five days. One or the other or both are now climbing out of their cribs at nap time, nighttime, and in the morning before their Good Nite Lite turns to a sun. I’m on guard at nap time, and T is on guard at night. In general, nap time has been much worse than nighttime. The kids spend about 45-60 minutes playing their game before they finally settle down for a nap. At night it ranges from 15-30 minutes.

We determined very early on that this jack-in-the-box behavior is just a really funny game to them. Once Tiny and Buba are out of their cribs, they mostly just get together and laugh their heads off while they roll around on the floor. It’s not about escaping the room, and it’s not about finding out what T and I are up to. It’s just a way for them to have more fun and resist sleep.

T and I have been going in with the silent return approach. If you’ve ever seen Supernanny, you’ve probably seen this approach in action. The parent goes in and, without talking, puts the child gently back in bed. This gives the child no reinforcement- positive or negative- and should end all jack-in-the-box shenanigans within 3-5 days. The problem with this approach for twins who share a room (just my opinion, of course) is that they’re getting continuous reinforcement from each other. Even if T and I aren’t speaking to them, they’re still talking and encouraging the other to “climb out yo crib!”, and they both laugh their heads off whenever T or I enter the room to put one or both back in the cribs. This makes it really, really hard to extinguish the undesirable behavior.

We’ve tried offering numerous rewards for compliance with the Stay In Bed rule (playdate at a friend’s house, new toys picked up at yard sales, special dessert treats), and have doled out some pretty negative consequences as well (canceling activities, no access to special toys for good sleepers, withholding special dessert treats) and pretty much nothing worked. T and I agree that the rewards are not working because they don’t seem capable of putting off the instant satisfaction and fun for something they’ll get hours later after they’ve slept. And the consequences don’t work because they’re so disconnected from the behavior and also take place hours after the infraction and hours before the next sleep period.

All of this has left me feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted. While the kids do not resist T’s efforts at all, I could not be more abused. I’ve been hit, scratched, bit, and had my hair pulled. After T and I talked through a number of suggestions/possible solutions offered by friends and family members, I finally broke down and we ordered two crib tents. We had talked about this option months ago when Buba had first started climbing out of his crib and into Tiny’s. But neither T nor I really wanted to go this route and decided it would only be used as and absolute last resort. Sunday night was it. I placed the order, but didn’t put a rush on them, as I was hoping a few more days might make a difference. Perhaps…

Then today it occurred to me that maybe I could create a more immediate consequence by letting Tiny and Buba take a stuffed animal into their cribs (I know, we’re probably a little late on this one, but so far, it didn’t seem necessary and they’d never asked to have a toy in bed). I let them each choose one before nap time and said they could only keep their animal if they stayed in bed. Buba lasted about 10 minutes before he jumped overboard and I had to take his koala away. And then he was repeatedly out of his crib. Tiny last 46 minutes! And I really think she never would have gotten out of her crib if Buba had settled down sooner and not made his naughty behavior look like so much fun. Given the partial success of this approach, we tried again at bedtime, and this time it worked beautifully. Both kids stayed in bed and now (fingers crossed) we should be able to have a big celebration in the morning, which I hope will reinforce the staying in bed.

I know nap time and bedtime are a relatively small part of each day, but this whole situation has just been so incredibly stressful for me. I really, really, really hope the stuffed animal trick works and we won’t have to go the crib tent route. But if we just happened to get lucky tonight, and tomorrow the chaos resumes, I know the crib tents are on their way to, hopefully, save my sanity.

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p.s. Still no word from the sitter who never showed.