To each, their own.

Or, why I am the crazy lady who refuses to attempt to get her twins into the same 'schedule'

Scheduling babies. My current irk.
I am not a schedules person. I love organising grand routines for how I am going to get my housework done, how I am going to tackle a large job by breaking it up into smaller bits and deciding exactly when I am going to tackle each part... my house is littered with evidence of such organisation! Execution... not my strong point. I can manage to do the same thing each day for approximately 3 days before i get bored and feel the need to rearrange all my furniture. Who am I kidding, probably 1 day's my real limit!!!

When I had my first child every mum I knew loved Babywise. You may be familiar, 3 hourly, eat, play, sleep cycles, baby sleeping all night at 6 weeks... I was well aware that my time for knowing everything about babies ended approximately 5 minutes before giving birth so I soaked up all the advice like a sponge and followed the advised baby schedules to the best of my ability.

Then I had my second child. I realised that what I thought was me following a schedule with my first was just her being an easy to read baby who was happy to go along with me. This one was a totally different beast. I couldn't just put him to bed most of the time, I needed to lie down with him on my chest to help him relax enough for sleep. I couldn't feed him more or less 3 hourly. Often it was more or less hourly. If he was tired he didn't want to be put in his bed so he could snuggle his blanket, blink his beautiful eyes at me, give me a slight smile and drift off to sleep. And when he grew into a toddler I remember looking at him and having a scary sort of lightbulb moment. I realised I did not know this child at all. I had never met him before. I didn't know how to make sure he listened to me, I didn't know how to give him instructions in a language he would respond to. I didn't know what made him happy or sad because he was a completely new person unfolding before my eyes. It was scary because I realised how much I had to learn and exciting because I couldn't wait to find out.

Then I had twins.

they still do love sleeping together...

For the first 6 weeks or so I changed, fed put them back to bed together. It was so easy! Well, relatively. Because I was tending to all their needs at the same time it took only a fraction longer than if I was looking after only one baby. Then one day No2 kept herself awake most of the day, fighting against those heavy eyelids and crying everytime she fell asleep dammit! Just her, not her sister. It was around then I realised I didn't have one lot of two babies, I had two lots of one baby. So I backed off watching the clock, backed off waking up the sleeping baby in order to make things easier. I made for myself a bit of a baby feeding marathon as I would feed one, then both, then the other... then all over again, sometimes all day. They would take turns having times where I had no idea of their 'sleep cues' so couldn't anticipate the tired crying so threw some stressed out baby rocking into the mix. And hours of feeding, crying, feeding, crying from their overtired state. From them and me. There have been plenty of times when I have left babies crying alone in their beds as I have been dealing with one baby and the other one has had to wait. Heartbreaking. Or after an all night baby marathon I'd be dying for a nap but they would never both be asleep at the same time. Then things started to get easier, I got a bit more sleep (and got better at sleeping sitting up...) and some strange things have happened.
1) with very little conscious effort from me the babies have synced up again, not around my will but more around the ebb and flow of our household combined with their rhythms
2) we have some guaranteed nap times
3) they are happy, chilled out babies. They can cope with being alone, they are happy to play in their beds before sleeping and one of them on waking (the other usually wakes sounding as if cannibals are nibbling her toes)

stressed out by looking after 2 babies at once

4) I see how quickly things are changing for them. I can respond to No2's extra sleepy day by not stressing out that the extra long nap she's taking will mess up her night sleeping and throw her routine out. I can respond to No1's need for extra feeds by.. well.. feeding her extra! And I know that although today might be really hard, tomorrow is bound not to be (and vice versa for the pessimist in me!!!) and I am taking my little girls as they come at their own speed. And they're only 4 months. Lots more changes to come!

So that's why.