Having twins takes a lot of the ego out of parenting. I think that if we just had one, we'd be attributing a lot of what works or doesn't work to our own parenting abilities. But when you do the same thing with two babies, and they react differently, you realize just how little control you actually have over the whole thing.
Take sleeping. The babies still both don't like to nap much; their naps, which (according to the baby whispering, sleep solutions, happiest baby on the block healthy habits books) are supposed to last about an hour and a half to two hours, often last only 25 minutes or so. After 25 minutes, boom! They awake and don't want to be asleep anymore. Theoretically the babies are supposed to be consolidating their awake times and their nap times, staying awake for longer periods and then napping two to three decent-length naps.
Nora and Milo prefer to do these short little catnaps, which is just killing us. In addition, they still like to get up and eat 2-3 times a night, which also shouldn't be happening according to these mythical textbook babies the books write about.
So we're trying to help them sleep better. We're not at the point where we feel comfortable letting them cry, and we might never reach that point, I don't know. I say "might" because the only thing I've learned so far is never say never, and even though I don't think that I could do it now, I might be so desperate in a month or two that perhaps it would start to seem like a good idea. So anyway, we're trying a different method that basically involves going in to them when they make noise, patting them or soothing them, and telling them to go back to sleep. If they're really upset we're supposed to pick them up just long enough for them to settle back down, and then put them back down before they fall asleep. In other words, we're not supposed to rock them to sleep, because apparently that means we become sleep props and the babies need to learn how to put themselves to sleep.
They're actually pretty decent about putting themselves to sleep. Milo is great at it; I can sense when he's getting cranky, put him in a sleep sack, put him in the crib, and he'll go to sleep. Nora's a little less consistent at this but she's able to put herself to sleep sometimes. All of those books (whose babies fit with those books, anyway?) say that the key to keeping babies asleep is teaching them to put themselves to sleep. Then when they wake up, they'll put themselves back to sleep. Not Nora & Milo. When they wake up, they don't like to put themselves back to sleep, they'd rather have us there, thank you very much.
So we're using this patting/soothing/pick-up/put-down method of trying to help them extend their naps, and you know what, it's working like a charm with Milo. If I pat him and tell him to go back to sleep, or give him a pacifier, he'll basically go back to sleep. He stays asleep longer and longer and often only wakes because Nora wakes him up.
If Milo were my only baby, I'd probably be congratulating myself on my disciplined yet kind approach to helping him back to sleep. I'd probably think that those other parents whose babies don't sleep just aren't doing it right, or aren't being consistent enough or something. I'd probably be all smug and know-it-all about the whole sleep thing.
But...there's Nora. Nora's not having any of this lame patting / pick-up stuff. She doesn't want to go back to sleep, darn it. I'll pat her or pick her up and she's all smiles, happy to see me. She doesn't want to sleep, she wants to play! "25 minutes was plenty, mama!", she says. When I remove myself from her sight, she cries. I can repeat this 10, 20, 30 times in a row. Nora does not go back to sleep. She can put herself to sleep the first time, like the books say. The books then tell me to consistently do this pat and soothe thing, and she'll learn to extend her naps and eventually stop waking up and crying. Well, screw you, books. Apparently you haven't met Nora.
If Nora were my only baby, I'd probably be feeling like a miserable failure right about now. I'd be wondering why the solutions offered in those books I read don't work on her. I'd be convinced I was doing something wrong and I'd be constantly comparing her to other babies her age, wondering why she sleeps so much less than she's supposed to.
Well, lucky for me I've got both Milo and Nora. This has taught me that a lot of babies' behaviors have to do with babies' personalities. Maybe just as much as my own parenting techniques. Maybe more than my parenting techniques. So if one baby is really great at something, or if one baby is really struggling with something, I'm not attributing it to my parenting as much as I would if I just had one baby. It's just not as much about me as I thought it would be before I had children. Not that this is an excuse to remove my own behavior from the equation, or anything -- I think that how Jake and I treat the babies generally has a lot to do with their health and happiness. But our parenting behaviors certainly don't wholly determine the babies' behaviors, that's for sure. I guess they're their own little people or something, with their own minds.
Thank goodness I have two instead of one, or I'd probably be insufferably opinionated about this whole thing!
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