Sleep Issues Again

I can't believe that I am, yet again, writing about sleep.  Over all,  the twins are great sleepers.  They go to bed on the later side, but it works for them.  They sleep through the night and I can usually get them to sleep til around 7am with a bed time of 8pm.  Not ideal, but it works!  That being said, there is then the issue of Michael.  I swear he is a teenager in a toddler's body.  He has no desire to go to bed before 9pm.  It is a struggle just to get him to settle down and rest at night.  He then likes to sleep in late in the morning and does not liek to be woken up til he is ready.  I totally realize that this is probably mine and my husband's fault.  With one child, we took him everywhere with us.  He never really had a schedule.  Once we had the twins, we needed to have a schedule to survive, not realizing that even a loose schedule is really helpful.  Now that Michael is 2 1/2 on his way to 3, trying to get him on a schedule and get him to sleep on his own can absolutely try my patience.  I know that part of the problem is my working til 7:30.  My husband is good, but he waits for me to come home to get them into bed.  I think that the schedule that has worked for us in the past has been for the twins to go to bed at 7:30 (any earlier and we found that they didn't sleep as late in the morning, meaning like 5 am wake ups) and then for Michael to go to bed around 8:30.  I know this is much later than most people put their kids to bed, but it really does work for us.  The problem becomes when the twins go to bed closer to 8:30 then Michael's time gets pushed later and he gets a second wind.  My goal is to get the twins in bed right when I get home or even before I get home, and then get Michael back on his schedule.  Unfortunately, I think we are at the point where we may need to CIO again.  This morning, Michael started crying at 5:10am,  I actually started to get up and my husband and I agreed to let him cry for a little bit.  He ended up falling back to sleep and I had to wake him at 8:30 so we could get to our EI group.  I am probably the reason for his sleep regression, since I hate to let him CIO.  I have even made the mistake of letting him come to my bed to sleep.  I start off doing really good and then I back slide.  I need to be much better at keeping myself in check and not giving in!  As long as all of his needs are met he will be fine sleeping in his room, in his bed!

This post seems a little crazy as I look back over it, but I think that is partly because that is how I am feeling with this whole sleep thing.  We just need to get back on track and we should be fine!

Amy