Bedtime is Killing Me!

It was another 3 hours scream-fest filled battle with the girls tonight to get them to go to bed, also known as the "Witching Hour". I think I am ready to throw the book "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child" out the window! It says if you are having trouble getting them to go down at night to make their bedtime earlier and put them down when they are drowsy but not over-tired. It just doesn't work in our household. The girls WILL not go to bed before 8 o'clock and I don't even know why I bother trying to make it any earlier. I used to rock them to sleep and lay them down, but I don't do that anymore because every time I lay them down they immediately wake up crying. So now I just swaddle them, lay next to them, give them their binkies and Sshhh them until they fall asleep. I really need them to learn how to put themselves to sleep, but they are too young to let them cry it out so I stay with them the entire time and soothe them until they are out. The worst thing is, I will finally get one down and the other one will let out a scream and wake her sister up again. When Keith is home we can each take one and divide and conquer in separate bedrooms. When I am home alone, I don't feel comfortable just leaving one to cry in a room alone, so I have to keep them together. I wish that my bedtime battles would wear them out enough to sleep through the night, but such is not the case. I think I have reached pure exhaustion!

We are still working on getting the girls to sleep in their crib the entire night. Once they fall asleep, we typically will move them from our bed into their crib where they will sleep until they choose to wake up (usually sometime between 2 & 4am). After that feeding it is hit or miss whether they make it back into their crib or not. If they are still pretty drowsy we can get away with slipping them back in. If they wake up and start smiling and cooing there is no way they are going to go down without a fight, so we give in and let them sleep in our bed. I know that is probably not the ideal thing to do, but we are both just so tired at that point we don't have the energy to fight them.

The girls have almost outgrown their size 2 diapers, and really they could probably go into a size 3 now, but I don't want to waste the remaining size 2 that we still have. I am also not buying anymore 3-6 months clothes (that's the size they are currently in). They have PLENTY! Soon enough we will be needing to move onto 6-9 months and on, so I don't want to buy all the cute clothes in one size. I am amazed at how big they have gotten. If I had to guess I would say that they are about 15lbs if not close to it. They have not been to the Dr in a while, so I don't know for sure. Their next appointment will be towards the end of next month.

I think that is all for now. Keith comes home from work in the morning and the girls and I are so excited to see him! I hope everyone is having a fabulous day!