Wake-up Calls
For many, many months, I’ve been getting up at 6:30am every day. When we used Dr. Weissbluth’s advice to sleep train Tiny and Buba, 6:30am was the time T and I agreed would be the start of our days. This made sense because it was the time T needed to get up for work. And even on the weekends, our days begin at 6:30am. Although I’ve often (like, every single day) thought it would be lovely to sleep in a bit more, it seemed to make sense to keep wake up at the same time every day to keep our schedule and routines on track.
This does not mean that Tiny and Buba sleep until 6:30am. They generally wake up sometime between 6:10am and 6:30am. But it means that T and I do not get up and get them up until 6:30am. There have only been a handful of times when I have found them still asleep at 6:30am, and even then they didn’t sleep much longer once they heard T up and getting ready for work.
But this week is school vacation week in Massachusetts. T, being a teacher, doesn’t have to get up for work. So, I proposed that we turn the alarm off and just see what happens. My thinking was this, normally I hear Buba and Tiny whenever they start to stir in the morning, and there had been quite a few times recently when I hadn’t heard them at all until the alarm went off. Perhaps, given how small our house is (roughly 900 sq/ft), they were able to hear the alarm from our bedroom causing them to wake up at 6:30am when they might have stayed asleep (or at least quiet) longer had the alarm not gone off. I wanted to test this theory, and this seemed like the perfect time.
So, we reset the alarm for 7am (T didn’t agree with turning it off altogether). This seemed like a good plan that would give us a little more time to sleep without throwing off the schedule too much. But it seems I was way too optimistic about this allowing me to get more sleep. Apparently, Tiny can tell time and 6:35am is her max for staying in the crib. Before 6:35am, she is happy to play quietly and talk with Buba. But at 6:35am, the shrieking and screaming begins. Not the sort of wake-up call you’d like to get while attempting to sleep in. I’m pretty sure I prefer the sound of the alarm at 6:30am, but I’m going to give it a few more days just because I can. When school vacation week is over, we will have no choice but to go back to our 6:30am alarm. But if I can see some positive results in the next few days, there might be some hope for 7:00am wake-ups on the weekend.
How do you handle wake-up time with your kids? Is there a set time every day, or do they just wake up when they wake up?
Snowed In
Most days, I make sure that we all get out of the house for at least a little bit of time in the morning. It has become part of our routine that I clean up the breakfast mess, I change Buba and Tiny’s diapers, and then we go somewhere. Anywhere. Some days we are fortunate enough to have plans with other kids their age, but most of the time we just run an errand or stroll around the shops in the plaza half a mile from our house.
But today was different. Today it was snowing. And not the beautiful, fluffy, white snow. No, we had to get the wet, wet kind. The kind that you have to look at closely to determine whether it’s actually snow or just rain. Plus, we had someone coming to the house at 11am (an appointment that got cancelled at 11:15 because the person’s car couldn’t make it up the hill to get into our neighborhood). So today, we stayed home.
Now Buba didn’t really seem to care that we weren’t going out, but Tiny knows our routines by heart and it didn’t take her long to figure out what was going on, and subsequently, to begin melting down. The standard toys for everyday play just weren’t cutting it, so I had to get creative. Luckily, I had some things stashed away that totally saved the day…
1: Sunglasses from last summer
Tiny’s glasses no longer had lenses (in fact, I’m pretty sure the lenses popped out the very first time she wore the glasses last June), but she didn’t seem to care. Even as I gave them both their sunglasses, I expected that they would rip them off immediately and then cry for me to put them on again. While that did happen a time or two, I was quite impressed that, for the most part, they enjoyed playing while wearing the glasses for a good 20 minutes. Somehow the glasses made those everyday toys more fun again.
2: Connect Four
This is not something I every would have thought of on my own. But Buba’s occupational therapist has one of these games and uses it to help him improve his fine motor skills. So T brought this one home from his classroom. Tiny loves hearing the plink when the game pieces fall to the bottom, so this was another 20 minutes or so of indoor fun.
3: The Tunnel
We picked this tunnel up at a yard sale over the summer. It’s suppose to connect to a playhut, but the kids have more fun just crawling through the tunnel by itself. It’s only 4 or 5 feet long, so completely doable in our living room. This was also tons of fun for 10 to 15 minutes.
And last, but not least…
4: Snowblowers
We may be the only homeowners on our street who do not own a snowblower. The noise combined with the spraying snow, made it completely fascinating to watch the neighbors snowblow their driveways. And this allowed me just enough time to make lunch.
I certainly hope we don’t have too many inside-all-day days this winter, but it’s nice to know that we can survive (and even have fun!) without getting out of the house.
Nap Nap Baby!
My husband and I have been all about schedules and routines since Tiny and Buba were born. It was a must for us, because keeping two babies on the same schedule is no small task. And without a synchronized schedule, there would be no rest for the weary. A consistent nap schedule was a top priority (still is). And so, from the very beginning, we’ve always had a nap routine which lets Tiny and Buba know that nap time is near.
In the beginning, the routine was just swaddling, soothing, laying them in the crib (yes, just one crib at first), and then turning on the white noise. Once we stopped swaddling, the routine changed. I started to play soft lullaby music and would rock one baby while the other swung in the cradle swing. Then I placed them into their sleeps sacks, put them into their own cribs, and turned on the white noise. The routine changed once more when they outgrew the cradle swing. At that point, I started reading to them before their naps. I also introduced them to piggy and rabbit, their Angel Dear cuddle blankets that they only get at nap time. I continued to play the soft lullaby music and use the white noise maker.
This routine is so set in stone, that Buba and Tiny know it well. As soon as I start cleaning up their lunch, they look at each other and shout, “Nap nap baby!” There is no fussing, no crying, no chasing around the house. Nap time is just what comes naturally after lunch these days.
one month old