{Insert vent here}

A few days ago, someone asked me when we thought we would have another baby. I replied with, "When my girls start sleeping through the night?"
I think she thought I was kidding. 
I was not.

If you've known or followed me since the beginning of my girls' lives, you know that they've never been awesome sleepers. I've written about it before, but the truth is that it's never really gotten better. I'm usually up with one of them at least one a night (last night it was 3 times with Lillian and once with Sophie. Lilly gets a pass though because she's currently sick...) We've had the girls in big girl beds since July because that's when they started climbing out of their crib. I said on facebook that day that my "life was over" and I was accused of being dramatic. Well guess what? 6 months later and they still don't sleep well in their beds. Bed time is a battle every single night. 

We've got a pretty good routine down. We usually have pretty relaxed evening and then around 7:30 I start getting them ready for bed. We get into jammies, read a story or two, brush teeth, get a drink of water, grab our favorite stuffed animal and blanket and then we're off to bed. This is where the fun begins. The girls lay down, we sing a few songs, say a prayer, but when I leave? They go wild. The jump from one bed to the other, they break into the closet, they pull on the blinds, they pull the clothes out of their drawers, and then stomp around in the drawers on their beds (we've got twin storage beds and I ended up duct taping the drawers shut, but they figured that out) I ended up taking the doorknobs off their closet and we moved the dresser into the other room. They've put dents in walls, completely broken the blinds in their room and probably 3 times a week, Sophie takes off her diaper and pees/poops everywhere. And did I mention that they can move their TWIN SIZE mattresses? Like completely take them off their bed and move them around the room. They climb under them and get stuck and I'm terrified of suffocation.

Sounds awesome, right? 

Now, before you peg me as a terrible mother, I feel like I've tried everything. I've fiddled around with nap time (but as of recent, they've basically given up napping all together), pushed bed time earlier, I've tried to stay in their room until they fall asleep. It's never worked. A few weeks ago I was in their for almost TWO hours. Every time they would get out of bed, I'd put them back in. They thought it was hilarious and I literally cried myself to sleep while they were screaming and kicking the door. I've tried letting them have music to fall asleep to. That's helped a little, but it hasn't really solved anything. I've tried taking away blankets, pillows and stuffed animals, I taped the drawers shut, I've cut back on sugar, I've rewarded the twin that actually stays in bed, I've tried to take them out more to wear them out, we've done more structured activities during the day, we've tried baths right before bed, etc, etc. I've read books, I've read blogs, I've asked babycenter, I've prayed about it. 

I think this whole time the answer has been staring me in the face. We have an extra bedroom that's sort of become the dumping ground for crap. Ok, not crap per say, but the crib mattresses, toys that I rotate through, our pack and play, old baby gear, a picnic table that goes outside when it's warm and their dresser. I've been moving out/finding a spot for all of those things to completely clear out that room. Once that's done, it will be the twins' new room. Crib mattresses on the floor, two pillows, two blankets, two stuffed animals. That's IT. No dresser, no access to the closet, no drawers to pull out from under the bed, nothing but a little mattress on the floor.

This is initially what we did after we took down the cribs, but we felt a little bad for having them sleep on the floor. They would play and bounce around a little bit, but it was nothing like it is now. I figure if this doesn't work, one kid will end up on a crib mattress on the floor and the other will be in the big girl bed in the other room. Or in other words, SOPHIE will be on the crib mattress and Lillian will get the big bed. Why? Because it's always Sophie that gets Lillian riled up. It's Sophie that figured out how to open the closet. It's Sophie who (I'm 99% positive) had the idea to move the huge mattresses. 

So that's where we're at. I bet you all think I'm crazy and you're right. I'm going crazy. Remember how it took my girls 9 months to sleep through the night? And remember how I kid myself that they're sleeping through the night now? 

The girls have been alive for 917 nights and we've probably woken up in the middle of 793 of them. 

I'm tired.

Hopefully, we have more of these moments in our future soon.

  

I was definitely not being dramatic on the day they started climbing out of their cribs. :/