3rd night....

Sorry, forgot to post about how our third night went with the new routine. After an apparent step backward the second night, we pushed forward and went into the third night with a positive attitude. We were rewarded.

The girls are super stars. Alyssa seemed to be getting used to this idea of falling asleep in their crib a little better than Katy but all in all, Katy did just fine. Alyssa was asleep with minimal help within 30 minutes and Katy fought it for another 15 or 20 after that. The real difference between the two was about an hour later when Alyssa started crying out in her sleep with gas. She was able to work through it and stay asleep but it stirred Katy and she couldn't get back to sleep. We went in to help her and she was lying there with tears streaming down and a runny nose because she'd been crying so hard.

Then, it seemed like breathing through the nose became an issue because she would start to fall asleep but couldn't close her mouth and breath so she would wake herself back up and cry. This went on for about 45 minutes before she was able to finally fall asleep again.

BUT...it didn't last long. Just a little bit later, she woke up again. By then, it had been about 4 hours since her previous feeding so Lisa fed Katy and put her down without a peep. She stayed asleep the rest of the night. Alyssa fed in her sleep at about 11:30 and did the same thing, didn't wake up the rest of the night.

Tonight has gone even better. Katy decided that she was going to be the star for the night and fell asleep in less than 5 minutes!!!! Alyssa fought it for about 40 minutes before she finally fell asleep. There was some noises off and on for the next couple hours but they both made it past 11 so they are now getting fed in their sleep. If everything goes like it has the last 2 nights, we won't hear from them again until morning. NOT TOO BAD!!!!!

Nap times are much improved too. On average, the girls would nap about 30 minutes...sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 40. We've told people that and the response is always, "oh, they're cat-nappers". All the books say 6 month olds should be napping 1 to 2 hours at a time and we've never understood why they couldn't do it.

This new routine that we're doing seems to have solved that problem. The first day after we changed the night time routine...they slept for more than an hour for their first nap! We were shocked. Today's morning nap was the shortest since we switched 4 days ago and it was 40 minutes. But this afternoon's nap...2 hours!!! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! Even if we hadn't been making progress during our night time routine, at least we know they are figuring out how to get themselves back to sleep since they are staying down for 3 or 4 times longer during their naps. That is the most amazing part to me.

During the day time...the girls have been very busy. They helped decorate the Christmas tree and have been working very hard at rolling over and sitting up. I was going to save pictures for another post but I just looked at them and they're too cute to pass up.

The first two are of Katy waiting patiently on the couch while Alyssa helps decorate the tree.



Then there's Alyssa who has been sporting some great chicken hair the last couple of days. She's the one on the left if you couldn't figure that out.

Congrats to Lisa on this photo. This may be my new favorite photo of the girls...of course, I say that about once a week.

We started using a small tripod with the digital camera to get the pics in focus in low light situations so that's what Lisa was experimenting with when she took these pictures. Great job, babe.

So it's now amost midnight and Alyssa is finishing up her dream feeding. Katy is in bed and stirring a little but hopefully all she will need is a burp if it gets out of hand. Otherwise, I'm planning on sleeping for the next 7 hours!!! YEA US!!!

Oh, and we got a video of Katy rolling from her back to front. I'll start downloading it before I go to bed so I can post it in the morning.