My parents come over to babysit every Monday from 5:30-9:30pm. K and I are free to do whatever we want with that time. Last night, I had my monthly moms of multiples meeting so I went there and K borrowed my parents van to pick up a second glider for the nursery and to enjoy a quiet dinner with a book.
We're very grateful to have this weekly reprieve. But since we've started doing a proper bed time, it's not quite as easy as it used to be.
Before, when we were just flailing all over the place, it was no problem to let my parents do some of that flailing for a few hours. But now that we have a bed time routine, flailing has some consequences. We have two versions of the bed time routine, the real one, and the abbreviated version that's necessary when there's only me here to do it. I tried to tell my mother about the abbreviated bed time routine, and I got the answer I usually get when I try to tell her something about her babysitting time - they'll be alive when you get back. Okey dokey! I tried!
K beat me home and told me quite the story when I got there. Apparently he walked in to find Tina asleep on my mom so she couldn't move, and dad walking around desperately soothing Charlotte. Yes, Dad got to experience the Charlotte Screetch. Even though he had recently fed her, he decided to give her another full bottle. When she finished, she gave the full bottle right back to him. "How do you calm her down without the endless walking?!" You don't ignore the mommy when she's trying to give advice before she leaves, that's how!
Had I not been dismissed, they would have known that the girls get tired somewhere between 7:30-8:30pm and if they would have taken them into the nursery to rock them while Mom sang the lullaby (our voices are almost identical and I use the same lullaby she sang to me every day of my life), the girls probably would have been asleep in their crib within a few minutes and they never would have had to experience the screetch.
I'm not one of those anal retentive types who insists that you care for my babies the exact same way that I do. I know the girls won't burst into flames if you use desitan instead of coconut oil when you change their diaper. I just generally don't care if things are slightly different for the girls for a few hours a week. Caveat - I know my parents will listen when it comes to real health and safety issues like if one of them develops an allergy or something. Mom can be dismissive sometimes, but she's not dangerously stubborn or anything.
Oh well. Maybe they'll let me finish my spiel next time. I emailed them a bit of snarky "you ignored me, how'd that work out for ya?" and what the girls expect for bed time now that we have some routine. I'm curious to see if they pay attention next week.
PS - at the meeting, the sleep expert was there again. I talked to her briefly about how we've been doing sleep training and she says she thinks we're right on track. What we're doing (a gentle CIO) is age appropriate according to the signs the girls have displayed and they are responding really well. We had one kind of rough night, which in hindsight really wasn't bad at all, and it's been really easy ever since. They've learned that after the bed time routine, it's time to sleep, and both are going to sleep pretty quickly. Our cry it out tolerance hasn't been tested a second time, which is good because I don't think I could do it a second time.
I knew you'd do a wonderful job.
ReplyDeleteIt is soooo good to get that time away and to connect with other moms!!
ReplyDeleteLOL parents are such a mixed bag! They help out so much but then at the same time,... they can be so much work. But where would we be without our parents :D
You are so lucky that you have someone willing to take on twin infants for that amount of time! The only people that would watch our babies, like my mom and sister, were only willing to do it in pairs. It took me forever to get any time out of the house at all.
ReplyDeleteYour story reminds me of my mom and one of our twins. DA was so easy, but NB would cry non stop unless he was put in his swing. He would sleep there all night, but he had to be put in it around 7:30 or so to get that "sleepy time window". Even though my mom was told that NB couldn't stand to be held and rocked after a certain point, she insisted on rocking him until he had worked himself up to a lather. My husband kindly removed him from her and put him in his swing and the silence was almost automatic. After that my mom would still want to rock him, but as soon as he started to crank she couldn't put him in the swing fast enough. I'm sure if your mom saw how efficient your night time routine is she do it every time. No one likes a screaming baby! :)