LateNight and SnuggleNaps

Yesterday was a VERY long day.
It started with such possibility. The tomatoes slept until 10:45am, when I finally woke them. I seriously hate waking anyone, especially babies, I think sleep is so important. But they needed to wake up with enough hours left in the day to fit four more bottles in.

Jackson, with his feeding frustrations, does best when the bottles are evenly spaced. But with waking up so late they ate later, this put their next two bottles pretty close together. Let's add Sara being there hovering to take in every aspect of how I feed Jackson (she just wants it to get better and if she can learn something that might work, she's willing to put in the effort), both Jackson and Tabitha being exhausted because after sleeping in so late their morning nap was tiny equals Jackson's tolerance being very low and him eating a bit less than usual. But pretty good.

Then the housekeepers came late. Sara was home to take a nap and we were pretty much shoved out the door to take a walk. I'm not complaining about the walk, I LOVE walking. Our location lends to visual interest and diversity. But my babies were tired before we started. They snoozed on the walk but nothing more than a fifteen minute stretch each. By the time our evening snuggle-nap* rolled around they were toast!

Exhaustion and feeding Jackson do not mix. Given the choice this tomoato would choose sleep over food in a heartbeat. So his evening bottle, with Roger and Sara both hovering over my every breath (what can I say? They are trying.), didn't go as well as I would have liked. An ideal bottle for Jackson is 200mL/cc. In the evening he takes between 30-60mL/cc for Roger and Sara. Last night for me he took around 160mL/cc. So he did alright. I wish I could say that I'm steadfast and what I do always works, but I'm can't. I do my best and sometimes it's just not as good as I'd like.

I believe in sleep and encourage it like crazy, but babies need to eat. Jackson needs to eat. Tomorrow Jackson and Tabitha go to get their 1st RSV shots. They will weigh them and as long as Jackson is growing we don't need to worry.

*Snuggle-nap; evenings are tough for many babies. Some call this period the 'witching hour' and it generally falls between 4-9pm. No matter what they do during the day my babies are tired around 4:30pm but have a tough time falling asleep. Because Roger and Sara won't regularly put them to bed in the evening we cannot establish a catnap. Our compromise/balance for this is a sling-nap when I'm there and when Roger and Sara are home one holds Jackson while he naps and they let Tabitha fall asleep in the swing for a short nap. I put on the sling, add one baby at a time then rock in the rocking chair for 30 minutes to an hour. Ideally they both sleep, if not they benefit from the body contact, being close to each other, navigating tight space with their twin and calm relaxation. On really great days they both fall asleep early on and as I rock I doze with them. But it is just as nice when one of them just looks around and touches the other during sleep. There's no crying during this time and we all enjoy the snuggle.