Three Become Two
I’ve decided that it’s time for the boys to drop a nap. They’re seven months old, and still taking three naps a day. More naps may sound like a great thing; the more naps they take the more time I have to devote to other projects around the house, like entertaining Abbie or preparing bottles.
The problem lies in the boys’ expectations of a meal after waking from every nap. That’s fine in the morning and afternoon when they go four hours between meals. It’s that evening meal when they just ate two hours ago and will eat again in another two hours that I need to eliminate. When they eat so much so close together, they tend to make room for the next meal by spitting up the previous one during their wake time. They’ve always been spitty babies just like their sister, so I’m used to coexisting with a certain amount of regurgitated milk; just wipe it off myself and call the dog over to clean the carpets. Now that they’re eating solids, they’re leaving quasi-permanent neon yellow, orange, and green spots on the carpet as reminders of their previous meal of peaches, carrots, or whatever vegetable comprised those green slurry cubes I pulled out of the freezer for supper. Broccoli, I think.
The solution to this mess is to feed them less, and therefore let them nap less. Their previous schedule has been feedings at 8:00am, 11:30am, 4:00pm, 6:30pm, and 8:30pm, with a nap preceding the middle three. That 6:30pm feeding is deadweight, so I want to axe it like Britney wants to cut loose Kevin. The obvious way to do that is to stretch out their feedings; make them go down for their nap a little later so they wake up a little later and demand sustenance a little later.
Unfortunately the boys aren’t fond of obvious solutions. I’ve been keeping them awake past their normal nap time the past few days, but they dissolve into tired blubbering messes as soon as the clock says hits nap time. My reward for intensive comforting of two screaming babies to keep them awake for an extra 15 minutes is hearing them wake promptly at their traditional feeding time, ready for a nice warm bowl of carpet staining fuel.
We’ve made a little progress. Yesterday they napped until 5:00pm, an hour later than usual. Actually they napped until about 4:40pm, but my singing was all the nourishment they needed as they contentedly listened from their cribs for about 15 minutes before melting down. I fed them at 5:00, then fed Abbie, then fed myself. The children then spent a half-hour playing amongst themselves as I cleaned the kitchen and snuck a little ice cream while Abbie wasn’t watching. It’s important that I’m a good nutritional role model for her as far as she knows.
By the time the kitchen was clean, the boys were a little grumpy, so I took everyone out to the park. The outdoors has a calming effect on everyone, plus if the boys hurl their supper, their pea-colored spit blends into the grass. We stayed in the park about 90 minutes until their final feeding. Abbie was a little bored by the time we went inside, but the important thing was the boys were content without a nap or a meal the whole time. Actually Ian fell asleep in the stroller for a while, but he didn’t demand a bottle when he woke up, so close enough.
The problem lies in the boys’ expectations of a meal after waking from every nap. That’s fine in the morning and afternoon when they go four hours between meals. It’s that evening meal when they just ate two hours ago and will eat again in another two hours that I need to eliminate. When they eat so much so close together, they tend to make room for the next meal by spitting up the previous one during their wake time. They’ve always been spitty babies just like their sister, so I’m used to coexisting with a certain amount of regurgitated milk; just wipe it off myself and call the dog over to clean the carpets. Now that they’re eating solids, they’re leaving quasi-permanent neon yellow, orange, and green spots on the carpet as reminders of their previous meal of peaches, carrots, or whatever vegetable comprised those green slurry cubes I pulled out of the freezer for supper. Broccoli, I think.
The solution to this mess is to feed them less, and therefore let them nap less. Their previous schedule has been feedings at 8:00am, 11:30am, 4:00pm, 6:30pm, and 8:30pm, with a nap preceding the middle three. That 6:30pm feeding is deadweight, so I want to axe it like Britney wants to cut loose Kevin. The obvious way to do that is to stretch out their feedings; make them go down for their nap a little later so they wake up a little later and demand sustenance a little later.
Unfortunately the boys aren’t fond of obvious solutions. I’ve been keeping them awake past their normal nap time the past few days, but they dissolve into tired blubbering messes as soon as the clock says hits nap time. My reward for intensive comforting of two screaming babies to keep them awake for an extra 15 minutes is hearing them wake promptly at their traditional feeding time, ready for a nice warm bowl of carpet staining fuel.
We’ve made a little progress. Yesterday they napped until 5:00pm, an hour later than usual. Actually they napped until about 4:40pm, but my singing was all the nourishment they needed as they contentedly listened from their cribs for about 15 minutes before melting down. I fed them at 5:00, then fed Abbie, then fed myself. The children then spent a half-hour playing amongst themselves as I cleaned the kitchen and snuck a little ice cream while Abbie wasn’t watching. It’s important that I’m a good nutritional role model for her as far as she knows.
By the time the kitchen was clean, the boys were a little grumpy, so I took everyone out to the park. The outdoors has a calming effect on everyone, plus if the boys hurl their supper, their pea-colored spit blends into the grass. We stayed in the park about 90 minutes until their final feeding. Abbie was a little bored by the time we went inside, but the important thing was the boys were content without a nap or a meal the whole time. Actually Ian fell asleep in the stroller for a while, but he didn’t demand a bottle when he woke up, so close enough.
posted by Matt at
11:33 PM
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