Bedtime shenanigans!

Well, the twins have been wreaking havoc with bedtime for some time now, pretty much ever since we put them in the same room and changed their cribs into "big girl beds." We've been putting them down at 7:30 this summer, which is pretty late for us (and them) and lately it's been 9:00 or even 9:30 before they finally sack out. So I posted a WWYD question on one of my "boards" where a bunch of very wise twin mamas hang out online and got some great ideas.

Today's project: clearing everything out of the twins' room except their beds, blankets, and one stuffed animal each. I also turned the handle around on their door so I could lock it from the outside. I moved the monitor and noise machine to where they couldn't reach either one (this took some ingenuity in a room with no furniture, let me tell you!). And finally, I barricaded their closet sliding door shut.

Tonight, they went to bed at 6:30. No nap today, because they've just been napping way too long. Tomorrow I will nap them, but get them up after 2 hours max. May have to cut that down to one hour; we'll see. Anyway, after a couple of "curtain calls" to get them some water and change poopy diapers, they were "all quiet" by about 7:30. Vast improvement!

I expect the whole thing to go downhill from here for a while. I'm giving it two weeks of them having a party in their room with nothing but their blankets before they *hopefully* get bored of it and just go to sleep when it's time to go to bed. I don't mind a half hour or so of chit chatting with each other, but this getting up 500 times and me (or Daddy-J) having to go back down there every five minutes for two hours has got to stop!

If this doesn't work, we're going to have to separate them. When I put them in separate rooms, they pretty much go right to sleep. Maybe if they start getting better sleep at night, they'll even sleep later in the morning. K-wiggles has been waking everybody up at 6:00 for the past few weeks and it's definitely making me tired!