First Christmas, and the battle for sleep

Babies' first Christmas has now come and gone... The decorations have gone up and come down, and finally there is order restored in the household. I LOVE Christmas, but can't wait to see the tree gone and the stray needles vacuumed away, until next year at least. I think the whole holiday season went pretty well!

Scott & Adam under the tree 

We have always done Christmas eve with my family, and Christmas day with Jamie's family. We started on Christmas Eve by heading to my parents house around 1:30PM. We got the boys dressed in their suits (a little too big, but that's okay!) and left for the 3PM church service. Every Christmas for as long as I can remember, we have gone to the 11PM service at a local church. I'm not the most religious person in the world, but it's a Christmas tradition with a lot of great singers and whatnot. And I love traditions. Anyways, so we went to the 3PM instead of the 11PM because 11PM is just not even an option for us with these two little guys. Ideally both boys would have been napping, but Adam woke up pretty much as soon as we got there, Scott lasted about half way through before waking up. Both babies were great though, and seemed to enjoy the music. We headed back to my parents house and attempted to get a nap out of the babies. Adam fell asleep in my old bedroom for about 30 minutes, but our little Scotty decided that socializing was way more fun than sleeping. We tried everything, quiet, noise, nursing, rocking, car seat, ergo... Little man did not want to sleep. No biggy. My Mommy made an awesome dinner, and the boys were great (aside from Adam - okay, me- spilling Jamie's glass of water from the bumbo) and we opened some presents right afterwards. The boys got spoiled! Some presents were a couch, lots of outfits, blankies, a sit & stand learning table, ride on walker thingies (a jeep & a CAT), big stuffed monkeys, stick horses, books... I know I'm missing stuff. We left pretty much right after because the boys had a long day and they were getting sleepy (due to the lack of naps of course). Both babies fell asleep on the drive home, but took a little while to get settled in the crib. Overall it was a great night! The boys were really good, and couldn't be cuter. Next year will be nice because I'm hoping the boys will be better sleepers so we can stay later! It felt so weird leaving my family Christmas Eve party right after dinner... Usually we don't get home until after midnight with the late church service.

Scott & Adam before church 

Adam & Scott love their new couch! 

YAY, jeep! Scott sitting, Adam standing 

Christmas morning we were up bright and early and down to open presents! The boys hung out in bumbos, and Jamie and I opened everything as fast as possible to make it to naptime! We got the boys practical stuff - clothing,sippy cups, spoons, teething toys, books,  and also neat things like a cute lion walker, mirrors for the van,  linkies, and a lot of other stuff I am clearly forgetting about right now! It was fun, and the house was covered in wrapping paper by the end of it all! We took the boys straight up for their nap and got about 30-45 minutes out of them, just enough time to clear away all of the wrapping paper and get reorganized. The boys were up and it was time to pack up the car and head off to Jamie's parents' house for the next part of Christmas!

Scott & Adam - ready for presents! 

Scott wanted out of the bumbo! 

Adam was happy about getting a book! 

MESS!!!

Okay, so around 11:30, we headed over to my in-laws' house! We got there and started opening some presents, before attempting to get the boys down for their early afternoon nap. We brought them upstairs and tried the whole swaddled, nursed to sleep thing. It worked!... For about 10 minutes. Just long enough to start to scarf down a sandwich and they were awake again. We tried for about 20-30 minutes to get them to sleep before accepting defeat. Back to opening presents we went. The boys were spoiled again and got lots of fun stuff; Toys, their high chairs, learning activities, books, teething toys, outfits, bath accessories... We won't have to buy anything else for ages. My Mother in law some how managed to avoid buying anything we had already purchased, which is amazing! I am very impressed! We hung out for a little while and then off we went to Jamie's Aunt & Uncle's house. They napped in the car a little bit, luckily. We got there and the boys got yet more gifts from Jamie's family. They made out with a great haul for Christmas! Lucky boys. :) We attempted to get the boys down for a nap before dinner but it was NOT happening. This was the day they just refused to nap. During dinner Jamie and I were both holding a (fussy) baby until my mother-in-law finished and she took them in the other room and managed to rock them in the car seats to sleep long enough for Jamie and I to shovel in a (delicious!!) Christmas dinner. I can't wait for the days where they will happily sit in high chairs for a whole meal, it's a special time when I can use 2 hands to eat! They napped for maybe 20 minutes and were back up again. We could tell that they were getting exhausted and had maybe had a little too much.

Adam playing with his new toys

Scotty reading a new book

Family photo! I have Adam, Jamie has Scott 

We left shortly afterwards and got home an hour after we normally have them in bed. They cried a little bit in the car, and when we got home Adam had a complete meltdown. Screaming like I have never heard him scream before, it was actually really scary! We chalked it up to him just being overtired and overstimulated (which seems to be pretty par for the course when it comes to babies' first Christmas according to most other new Moms I've spoken to) and we managed to get them both asleep pretty quickly.  I can't remember if it was a good night or not, but I don't think it was overly awful. The next day we just hung out at home in our PJ's all day and relaxed. We survived Christmas!! Thank you so much to everyone for all of the gifts and well wishes. The boys will look back on their first Christmas and see how loved they were. And one day we will forget about them not napping!

So, now we're moving on to figuring out how to get some sleep around here! Scott has figured out how to roll over while fully swaddled so little man has been sleeping with his arms out for the past 2 nights, and actually not doing that bad. Lately, it's really been Adam keeping us awake a lot. Although, they switch it up all the time, so I'm sure it will be Scott's turn soon. Basically, we've decided to just bite the bullet and get them in separate cribs in their own room. Not planning on doing any sleep training at this point, and just hoping that somewhere along the line I'm owed some good karma that will help me out here. I don't even really mind the every couple hour feedings. I'm not hoping for 'through the night'...I just want them to go back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night. We've been so exhausted lately, and I'm actually starting to get grouchy about it. The shrieky high pitched scream Adam had on Christmas Day is now apparently his new 'thing'. Not the most wonderful thing in the world. This isn't the first time we've put them in their own room; We tried 2 nights back when they were super young, and one night about a month ago. But, the time is now. I want my bedroom back. I'll still bring them in bed probably around 6AM, but I just don't want a crib taking up all of the space. I'm dying for a nightstand again!

So, tonight we're going back to the very first night home and I've brought in outside help. My Mom is here to help me overnight so Jamie can sleep... And in turn, he will take the boys for a while tomorrow so I can have some sleep too! We just need to be consistent. It's not going to be easy and it's more of a pain to walk down the hall 50 times a night, when it's so easy to just bring them in bed with me having them so close.We're seeing the paediatrician tomorrow and I'm hoping she has some ideas too. They are so fussy at night time and it's pretty discouraging.  So far tonight we got both down at 8, and had a waking from each already by 10:45. It WILL get better... If you're reading this, send some sleep vibes our way! I'm not even going to get into the mess that is naptime, I'll just say that we are now 'those' parents that resort to loading them in their car seats and going for a drive to attempt to get them to sleep.

They are so lucky they're cute.

Nice and clean again now that Christmas is gone :)