9 Hours. NINE.

Bedtime hasn't always been the easiest thing for us.  Getting one baby to sleep is hard enough.  Getting two babies to sleep has been quite a challenge for us the past (almost) nine months.  They aren't horrible sleepers by any means but it has taken upwards of 10 trips into the nursery at times to re-insert an Oogie (pacifier) or snuggle/rock a baby to get them to sleep ... and then they'd be up in 3 or 4 hours (maybe 5 if we were really lucky) to eat again.  All of this is expected of a newborn and maybe even up until 4 or 5 months - all of us parents know the saying "all babies are different" or "in their own time" or "when they're ready" - but our boys are still having a hard time.  We had even hoped that when the boys started solids it would dramatically improve.  Not so.
Well, now that the boys are getting older (wow, they'll be 9 months in a week!!!) and bigger (we're guessing they are around 20 lbs., give or take a pound or two) we're doing better at night once they are asleep for the night.  The hard part now is getting both of them asleep for the night.  Jack and Nick are usually tired and ready for bed anytime between 6 and 7 pm.  The problem is that they think this is another nap!!!  Ugh.  They typically wake up about an hour or hour and a half into bedtime SCREAMING.  It's not the kind of screaming cry that a mommy (or a daddy for that matter) can ignore!  At first it was an "Oh my god, what's wrong?!?!  Get in there as fast as you can" kind of screaming cry - which now, after many many many nights, has turned into a "Here we go again" glance between Mom & Dad as we both stall to see who gets up first (not fastest) to go in and sooth a baby!  We even guess which baby it is before going into the nursery!  So bad, but this is the nighttime routine in our house with (almost) 9 month old twins and we're exhausted - with a tinge of frustration since this happens every single night!

So ... all of this leads me up to what this post is really about!  We had our best night in a long long time last night.  It was almost perfect - except for the "bedtime" part.  We put the boys to bed and an hour later they were up and screaming! Nothing abnormal there.  We actually let them cry for a few minutes to see if they'd go back to sleep on their own (ha!) but, after it was clear they would not, we went in to calm them down - in a united front with the agreement that we would sooth them, put them back in their cribs with an Oogie, still awake, and walk out of the room.  The boys let us know immediately that this plan was not going to fly!  So, we gave in.  We brought the boys to the living room since it was time for them to eat again anyway.  We fed them a bottle and put them back in their cribs with a teething ring.  They were both awake for about an hour - content in their cribs.  Chris and I actually got to watch some TV together!  Before we knew it the boys were quiet.  They were asleep!  YES.

The next part of the story jumps ahead NINE HOURS!!!  Our boys were in bed (sleeping) last night from 9:30pm to 8:00am!!!!!!  What?!?!?  I slept for 9 HOURS!!!! Seriously, that is the best night of sleep I've had in - dare I say - a year!!! It was so awesome!  So ... the night was not too bad overall. I'm good w/ them being awake and falling asleep on their own & much prefer the talking/babbling noises to the screaming/crying noises.  I'm thinking the uninterrupted sleep last night was a fluke - or maybe just a start of sleeping through the night - but I'll take it! It was soooo nice :-)  Yay babies ... major points with this momma!!

On a side note: I am writing this post during our "bedtime" and Jack is still up fussing & fighting going to sleep!  Ugh.  I wonder what this night will bring .... I pray it's another looooong period of uninterrupted sleep.  Well, a tired mom can hope!  Goodnight.