recent nighttime changes

Ah, it's morning naptime. I have started writing posts about our most recent attempt at switching down to one nap, but since I never finish them, I'll just mention here that our 17-month experiment lasted 2 weeks and ended in disastrous sleep for all four of us.

We're back to two naps on most days, at 8:30 or 9 and again at 1:30 or 2, and if one or both of them skips one, I just don't sweat it. It's hard - my friends with children a little older than my boys all think switching to one nap is the right thing to do, especially because Shoghi was having some really traumatic and long wakings over the past month, but I know he's not ready. Again, I could probably switch Max easily, but Shoghi just sleeps more, and he needs it. In hindsight now, it seems like his sleep disturbances were related to both teeth and language development. But as the mom of kids who were born two months prematurely, I never know when to factor in their age difference - it seems common for 18-month olds to have switched down to one nap, but more acceptable to think of 16-month olds to be taking two. Whatever the case, I have to follow their lead.

January brought a big leap in language for both Max and Shoghi - here Max is touching a sculpture and saying "bear."

Early in January, we had five blissful nights when Shoghi slept completely through until morning with no wakings for bottles. This ended abruptly with the emergence of his four canines, which coincided unfortunately with Max's own top canines, causing him to wake at 3am for the day several times. It seems that Max's bottom canines are about to emerge, evidenced by two days already of a low grade fever and lots of whining and then crying at night, but fortunately Shoghi finally seems to have broken through his weeks of terrible nights - he's on his third day of sleeping straight through again. You see how this is a balancing act for me to get any sleep at all? The stars really have to align.

my poor little muffin has had a hard month, leading to a resurgence of biting. sometimes this is mitigated by sucking on bottle nipples.

I've decided to bite the bullet - once and for all helping Shoghi end his dependence on nighttime bottles. My parents are going to be here in a week, so I hope by the time they get here we'll be officially done. I've been letting him have a bottle in the morning after we come downstairs, and another at bedtime (also downstairs), so once he stops associating them with getting back to sleep, I'll deal with eliminating them from the rest of the scene. It seems like Shoghi must be going through some more developmental changes, because for the past week he's been reaching into the drawer where I keep the bottle/ sippy cup parts and finding bottle nipples to suck on. He walks around the house biting and sucking them... it seems a strange age to possibly introduce a binkie, but I might try it.

On Monday, we'll be celebrating the boys' 18-month birthday! A year and a half already, and Sunday I'm meeting a potential babysitter - very exciting changes are happening.