Toddler Sleep and the Blessings of Routine

I know I've talked a bit about the girls' sleep before but it seems that the sleepy subject keeps popping and I just can't resist joining the fray. A few caveats first:

1. The girls have almost always co-bedded since they were allowed out of their isolettes in the NICU. The only times they've slept apart has been when they have chosen to. That usually lasted a week or two.

2. The girls have been in our bedroom since coming home from the hospital.

3. We have always welcomed the girls into the family bed, though they have also had cribs and beds of their own. They go to sleep in their bed(s) and if they wake up they usually come to the family bed.

4. We have never left our children to cry. We have never sleep-trained them. The only time we have refused them a night bottle was after returning from Israel. Before travelling they had not been night-waking and after getting them back to the correct time we cuddled and rocked the few times they woke for a bottle.

On to the fun stuff. When dinner time rolls around we start including, "...then we'll put on pjs, brush our teeth, pick out books and go lishon," to just about every sentence. At first this was very important because they all need help transitioning (Batya especially!) but now as soon as it gets dusk they will help close the curtains, fix Zeus for bed, pick out books and talk about bed. They will even correct you if you forget to mention a step in their routine. At 6:00 pm we formally start our routine.

First the girls pick up their toys. This can take a while. The best strategy I've come up with for this is giving them a set time for book reading to end. If they dawdle through the routine then they can only fit in one or two books. If they do it quickly then they can pick three books each for reading. Most of the time we can fit in four to six books.

After we've picked up and picked out books we head upstairs. The girls brush their teeth and wash their faces. If anyone has knots, I'll run a brush through their hair, to. Then we get into jammies and pull-ups and climb into bed. Usually I have to run downstairs once or twice to get something we forgot. (Red blanket for Chaya, green for Batya and Shira needs Towely.) It seems something always gets forgotten. The girls curl in bed with their sippy of milk and I read and then they go to sleep. They are usually asleep around 6:45 pm.

Yes, I know the milk should be before the teeth brushing, but the girls have such a strong sleep association with the milk that they meltdown and then bedtime gets stressful and messed up. I keep experimenting with solutions, but nothing is working. Anyone have ideas?

Spirited Children, Revisited

Way back in January I wrote this post about a book I had just read. I can't believe I've only had the book for eight months. I'm into my 4th reading of it! In that post I outlined five things I was going to implement into our routine. Well, lets just say that a downside to being an irregular personality is that it is hard for me to get into a routine and bring that to my girls. We ended up moving back to almost the point we were at when I first purchased the book.

On re-reading I've learned an interesting thing. I do not, as I originally believed, have one regular spirited extrovert (Chaya), one irregular spunky extrovert (Shira) and a regular spunky introvert (Batya). In fact I now believe that Batya is the only true spirited child. Shira is on the cusp but that could actually be a side-effect of being multiples since her spiritedness shows up mostly when she isn't the center of attention. Chaya is firmly "spunky" but very extroverted. It seems that Chaya and Shira's extroverted personality simply overwhelmed me and I mistook that for spiritedness.

The hardest thing right now is finding a balance between their needs. It isn't like any of them are at a point where they can recharge without me or even recognize that they need to recharge. Also, the two extroverts don't seem to recharge each other. So I'm left with a lot of chattering and activities with them while trying to give Batya some down time.

Aba and I are talking about getting her this chair from Ikea that she likes. Its the egg-shaped one with the shade that pulls down. It would be perfect, but we need to figure a way to convince the other two that it is just for Batya. I don't want 3 of them in my crammed-full-of-furniture house and they are $80 each! We are thinking of making it a holiday gift and getting something for each of the other two, too. It would be nice because we will likely have a lot of guests over the Yamim Noraim and I'd like it if she had a private spot without leaving the gate upstairs open.

Baruch HaShem that Batya is my lightest girl so I can still wear easily!

In the end I'm back to where I was in January.

• Consistent wake and bed times.
• Consistent breakfast, lunch and dinner times.
• Make snacks more of a mini-meal.
• A 45-minute siesta after lunch.
• Time outside in the morning to help your brain regulate its time-keeping.

Question: For those of you who have an introvert and an extrovert, how do you keep the extrovert from bothering the introvert when they need down time? Batya's favorite relaxing spot is my bed, but if I leave the gate open then the other two go join her and soon she is crying and I don't want to lock her upstairs. I've tried explaining that she wants some time alone or wants to rest or plain doesn't want to play but that doesn't work. Redirecting them is hard because they are stubborn, too!

Soemthing Has Got To Give

I've been noticing a lot of my Twitter and Facebook updates have focused on behavoir problems with the girls. It got me to thinking about what is going on. I think I've got some answers and figured out solutions.

1. The girls are cooped up inside too much.

The sad thing about where we live is that there isn't really much of an outdoors. We have a small patio, but it has a huge wall, doesn't get much sun and we've had a nasty case of flies wanting to join our family. We do have a bit of grass in the front yard, but it is next to a pretty busy street so I'm uncomfortable letting them out and about even with me standing there. 

Solution: Park days, playdates, field trips and outdoor activities. This month I've already filled in the calendar and we'll be going to some sort of structured group event once a week and doing something on our own once a week. I worry about overscheduling, but they love being outside so we'll see how this month goes and adjust from there.

2. The girls need more independence.

Aba likes to make fun of the girls' common cry lately: I wanna do it! Yes, they are now three years-old and full of pre-schooler independence. A while ago (read: late last summer) I made the house more toddler-friendly and it was a wonderful antidote to the toddler demands of independence. Now, however, they are able to do more and want to do more and I'm not ready. I have a nice long list of what I'd like to do, but things always come up and my list gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. 

Solution: Pick the three best fixes from my list and do one each week. I'll try to get to five items, though.

3. The girls need their routine back.

The biggest change from last fall when I last had this type of epiphany is the lack of routine. I hate to use the word schedule as it implies something more rigid and articicial. For us, the day flowed so smoothly from wake to eat to clean to play and the girls knew what to expect. Right now our best routine is dinner-tidy-brush teeth-pjs-books-bed. Some nights when I don't think they will sleep I will start getting the brushes ready and the girls will see it and suddenly they are in the routine and bedtime is right on time. 

I really believe the biggest impediment to a routine for them is the lack of a routine for me. I fall into this whenever we get a cleanign lady and I no longer have the tasks of deep cleaning and household laundry. I seem to then let all of my routines fall to the side. In the fall we were housekeeper-free and I was flying with Flylady. Now, I am not.  

Solution: Set my routine on paper and make a photo chart of the girls' routine for them.

I'll keep you posted!

Spirited Children.

How embarrassing! no one bothered to tell me about the glaring typo in my last title. All fixed now, though.

Over Shabbat I read a wonderful book that I can already tell is going to help us a lot: Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. The title pretty much sums up the book, but even if you don't have a spirited child, just a spunky one or a few kids who are always going at it, I recommend it.

On my first glance through the pages I thought how did I end up with three spirited kids at once?

Then I actually read the book and thought more about each of the girls in relation to what I had read and I've drawn the conclusion that we are dealing with one regular spirited extrovert, one irregular spunky extrovert and a regular spunky introvert but because they are feeding off of each others' energy and vying for attention they come across more spirited. Add in an irregular introverted ima nd it makes it hard.

A few of the things we'll be implementing here:

• Consistent wake and bed times. (I know this helps from past experience.)
• Consistent breakfast, lunch and dinner times. (Again, we've done this before and it helps.)
• Make snacks more of a mini-meal.
• A 45-minute siesta after lunch.
• Time outside in the morning to help your brain regulate its time-keeping.

Kurcinka also gives examples of ways to diffuse situations that I've already tried. I explained the Chaya that she needed to watch where her hands were because Batya didn't want her touching her. She stopped and later when she was at it again, I reminded her about the hands and she immediately pulled away. I also focused on praising Shira and Chaya when they were playing with their animals after lunch. (The author says that extroverts like to hear feedback.)

So far, so good. I'm hoping to spend this week fleshing out a new routine and implementing siesta. I figure if I wake them when I used to (back when we had a decent rhythym going) then I can determine how long t takes us to get dressed and downstairs, have breakfast, want a snack, etc. (A HUGE bonus to staying at home is that i don't have to fit in with anyone else's schedule!) I have high hopes for this plan of action.

Oh, and can I tell you how blessed I am that none of my girls show signs of being sensitive to noises/smells/fabrics/etc? As someone who has ruined countles tops hacking out the tags and spent untold hours wandering around looking for the source of some random noise, I am so happy not to have to deal with that with my girls.