No, nothing cancer-related, thank goodness. Nothing so serious as that.
Tonight is the first night that Maddie and Riley are spending in separate cribs.
They will be nine months old in less than ten days, so they have already shared a crib much longer than many twins do. They've been able to do this because they don't crawl yet and until very recently, neither of them rolled over, at least not while sleeping. I've seen them both roll front to back, but they don't do it often, and I've actually never seen either of them roll back to front. A couple of weeks ago, though, I started finding Riley on his tummy when I went to get them up in the morning. So I knew he could make the back-to-front move, I'd just never seen it, and still haven't.
Even once Ri-Man started rolling over, there still didn't initially seem to be any rush to put them in their own cribs. They were still sharing space just fine. Their room is tiny and although we had a second crib, I was not highly motivated to spend my precious free time assembling it. Also, and this is so vain and lame, the crib is ugly. I got it for free through my moms of twins club and I've been hesitant to put it up because, well, it's ugly. I may be cheap, but I'm also vain. Ahem.
Well, Sunday morning at about 6:00 (which of course is really 5:00 due to Daylight Savings Time), I hear Madeleine sobbing on the monitor. She never cries in the night unless there's a real problem. I head into their room and discover Riley all up in Maddie's grill, grabbing at her face. He wanted to play, she wanted to sleep, poor thing. I put Riley back on his side, explained that it was STILL NIGHT, gave Maddie her binkie, and closed the door. They both went back to sleep until 8:00, but that night was my signal that it was time for crib #2 to make its appearance.
We meant to put the crib up yesterday, but time got away from us. This morning, I found Riley on Maddie's side, using her legs as a pillow. She didn't seem to mind. That was certainly preferable to having her eyes gouged out.
Tonight, when I got home, we gave the twins their dinner then put them in crib #1 to play while we assembled crib #2. Of course, free crib #2 came with no instructions for assembly, so that took us a while, and the kids were impatient. We finally got it done and then got them ready for bed.
They are now sleeping in their separate cribs. Ri-Man got crib #2 because he can pull to standing and when we assembled it, we put the mattress in the lowest position.
We still need to lower the mattress in crib #1. We positioned the cribs so that the twins will be able to see each other. Honestly, I don't think Maddie will care one way or another, but I think Riley is going to miss his sister/pillow/scratching post. For the time being, he seems more dependent on her than she does on him. When I had him home sick last week, he didn't crack a smile all day until he saw Maddie when she came home from day care. And when she was home sick and Riley went to day care, the women who run our day care center said that he was looking for Maddie all day.
I hope he isn't too upset. And I hope she gets a good night's sleep. It's the end of an era.
Moi
- Snickollet
- I'm a mother and a widow, and a whole lot of other things. Here, though, I tend to write about parenting, grief, and their intersection.
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4 comments:
I think we did this at about ten months. It was because they started actually laying across each other's faces and trying to suffocate the other kid. Yeeks. We just put up the portable crib side by side, and that is how they still are today. They switch off cribs. It is kind of sad. They did like to sleep together.
Too many milestones to count when they're babies, eh?
My twin sister never really got over having to sleep seperate from me. We shared a room growing up and when we rearranged the beds so that they were on opposite sides of the room, she complained that she missed me ... I was so far, far away from her you know, lol.
I remember separating them, but unfortunately I can't remember when we did it because I don't remember a thing from the first six months. It was early though. I don't know how but they kept scooting over to each other and waking each other up. We tried the rolled-towel trick down the middle and it didn't help.
Our kids did the same thing when they were in daycare and separated due to illness -- looked lost. So sweet. Of course, they were in their terrible two phase and as soon as they were reunited, they started fighting.
Good luck to them and you and hope everyone had a very nice long night of uninterrupted sleep. :)
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