Schedule

I know that there are many many theories and ideals about how a baby's daily life should be. Some say it's best to put them on a schedule, others say to feed on demand and other are extreme as far as you let the baby dictate the day. Well, since I worked with infants for so many years, I have seen it all. They all work, if they work for you. That being said, having twins is different. There are two of them that are needing love, bottle/breast, changing and naps. That is a LOT. Since my husband and I work opposite shifts we are both "single" parents when we are home with the boys. We put them on a schedule so that we could stay sane. When they were really young (up to 2 months) I let them sleep until one woke up to eat and then I would wake the other up to eat so that they stayed together. I didn't want to have to track who ate when and how much. I do track diapers and other things (find tracking for more info).

A 3 hour schedule is what I put them on when they were a little older (2.5 months). Once they got used to the routine I had made, then they were able to expect things and feel more comfortable with the day. They calmed a little and were sleeping better at night. They started to skip their midnight feeding and still only wake once at night for a bottle. I do make sure that the bottles are staggered by at least 30 min so that one is not screaming during the others bottle and I get that close one-on-one feeding with each one.

The strange thing about having kids is that they thrive in a flexible structure. This means that they like the structure of a schedule, but it needs to be flexible in order for everyone to live life as it happens. If they typically eat at 12 but everyone was having fun playing and they don't eat until 12:30 or 1, that's okay as long as you keep the order the same. Same thing goes for a bedtime routine, if the order is the same, the time doesn't matter.

The way I formed our schedule was to look at what they naturally did anyway and make it more uniform. So they naturally fell into the EAS plan. Eat, Awake time, Sleep.