My girls are growing up!

Today was a little emotional. We had a GREAT Dr. appointment, and then came home for a feeding and a nap. We decided to start following the suggestions in the book "Babywise" which teaches following a schedule. We had started developing a schedule on our own, but it was different every day -- same sort of thing, but the times always varied. Babywise says to start with a first morning feeding and then feed every 3 hours after that -- if you do that every day, you have a schedule, right? They also say to put your babies down awake and let them "self soothe", in other words, cry them selves to sleep. This is INCREDIBLY hard to do!! We tried it last night and the girls went to bed better than ever! So, it was very encouraging. They had a harder time through the night, but still not hard. We weren't successful at achieving a first morning feeding -- the girls slept too long, which should be a good thing, but it threw our schedule off before we even had one! Then we went to the doctor, came home for our feeding and nap, like I mentioned earlier. Feeding went fine, then the girls were awake -- which is what Babywise says to do -- so the girls played on the playmat and in their bouncy seats. Then I put them down in the own crib, in the nursery, for their nap. Here is their "big girl" picture:They went down GREAT! Both kept their pacies in and I was so proud!! I crept in to get this one picture, I didn't want to take anymore because I didn't want to wake them up. After I took this picture I went back to the living room and balled my eyes out. I couldn't believe my girls were big enough to go to sleep on their own!! Then the crying started... First it was Pressley, but she calmed herself back down pretty quickly and stayed asleep. Then it was Lyla's turn.

Babywise teaches you should wait 10-15 minutes before you try to calm them. Well, I waited until about 8 minutes, then ran in and gave her her pacie, I talked to her and calmed her down. She seemed like she was going to fall back asleep. Every time she got close she would start to wail again. This went on for quite some time. I finally gave up, picked her up, and rocked her to sleep. About 10 minutes after she fell asleep, Pressley woke up ready to eat. I try to always feed them at the same time to keep them on the same schedule. Well, I couldn't wake Lyla to save my life!! So, I fed Pressley just a little bit. She fell back asleep and then they woke up 30 minutes later and both ate a full meal. But, needless to say, our schedule was thrown off once again.

Tonight David and I bathed the girls at 7:30, fed them, swaddled them and put them to bed -- the Babywise method. They didn't make a peep and they have been asleep for about an hour and a half so far!!!

Pray for us. This schedule stuff is tough. And it breaks my heart to hear them cry! I know its good for them, and I know its the best way to get them sleeping through the night and the best way to teach them to go down for a nap without needing anything like rocking which means less stress in the long run, but its still HARD! All you Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Babysitters will appreciate us teaching them this!