A lot of people ask me if it’s easier when the twins are on different schedules so that I only have to deal with one baby at a time. Most certainly not! I would sell my right hand just to have them on the same schedule every day. It’s infinitely easier when the girls are on the same schedule since it requires much less energy to take both of them downstairs, feed, play, diaper change and rock to sleep at the same time than it would to feed them, etc. at separate times. Plus, if one is up and playing and the other one is trying to sleep, it’s really hard for me to attend to both of their needs, as well as impossible to do things like get out of the house if one needs to nap.
Samantha is so desperate to crawl. So far, she’s still only going backwards, which is super frustrating for her and absolutely hilarious to the rest of us. She’ll see a toy she really wants and will try with all her might to crawl towards it, her face scrunched up in intense concentration as she gets farther and farther away from the object. What’s not hilarious is when she does it in her sleep and wakes up, which has been pretty much every night this week.
Today started going downhill when both girls were just about to take their morning nap. Amelia was pretty much already asleep and Samantha was getting there. All of a sudden, Bandit started barking at someone at the door and Samantha’s eyes shot wide open. Usually the girls will just sleep through outside noises or Bandit barking, but when they are in the semi-asleep stage, it can be a problem. After threatening Bandit with a bark collar and a permanent vacation to Utah, I desperately tried to get Samantha back on schedule, but alas…no amount of rocking, pacifier, or milk would get her to go to sleep. She was up and ready to go for round two! I knew it was going to be a loooooooong day after that.
Sure enough, the girls were on totally separate schedules the entire day. The day goes by way slower when one baby or the other is constantly with me…at least when the girls are on the same schedule, I get a little break when they both nap. It’s not that I wouldn’t be able to put one in the exersaucer or on the floor to play for a bit while I got things done; it’s that whenever they are awake, it requires extra energy and brain cells to do even the smallest task. I swear I have to concentrate ten times harder to so much as peel an apple when even one of the girls is up. It makes me feel old and/or mentally handicapped.
I think the girls like being on the same schedule better too. They didn’t seem to enjoy playing by themselves very much and missed having a sister there to amuse them. When I put Samantha or Amelia down on the mat to play while the other was napping, they seemed dejected, as if wondering where their little identical playmate was. I read somewhere that babies don’t recognize other babies as actual people until they are a little bit older and instead see them more as objects. Maybe Samantha and Amelia think of each other as toys…I have no idea, but I’d like to think they have a special bond and like hanging out together.
There were a few times where one twin’s schedule overlapped with the other’s…usually when one had been up for a while and was almost ready to nap, while the other had just gotten up.
Lots of love,
