"Should we wake him up?" I asked D. this morning when Eli was still asleep at 7 am. It was the second night in a row that he had skipped his usual 4:30 am feeding and was sound asleep - even after Shalom had been diapered, nursed and bottled.
"Are you out of your mind?" was his response. "Let him sleep!"
And so we did, until close to 8 am when he woke up by himself with a grouchy wail.
How did our chaos finally come together? For two and a half months we had been juggling disruptions as the babies seemed to fight anything that could come close to a schedule or pattern. I never knew if they would wake every hour on the hour, or sleep for four hours straight.
From the time they were two weeks old, D and I decided that our babies--all babies, in fact, need routines. Being seasoned parents, we figured we would start them early, so by the time they are fourteen or so, they will be naturally respectful and obedient (please allow me my fantasies).
As bedtime rolls around, we turn down the lights in the house, letting the darkness seep into the rooms. We keep the babies up as much as possible in the hours before bedtime, even if they are fussy. We feed them before we eat dinner, which sometimes means we have to jiggle them through our meal. D joked that if his mother could see him spearing a chicken breast with a fork and eating it, as he feeds the baby with the other hand, she would call him a caveman. Sadly, for the time being, Emily Post and his mom would NOT approve of our dinner manners.
Then after we have had as civilized a meal as we can, when the babes have that "I'm ready for bed" drunk look, we bring them one by one into the bathroom and bathe them in their special tub. We dry them off, put them in PJ's, I nurse and offer them an ounce or so of formula, and then we bring them into their dark room. We put them in their separate cribs (we tried the together thing but found we had to pry them off each other and comb the "spit" hair gel out of their hair, after they spent hours sucking on each others' heads). We sing the "Shmah" (bedtime prayer) and wish them a goodnight.
Do they cry? Sometimes a little. But all of our routines are rock solid, and it helps the babies know what comes next. We are creating small traditions that start with a warm hello and morning prayers when they wake up, breakfast, dressing and going down to the "day room" and end with our regimented goodnight.
This is the beginning of what we hope will be a lifetime of secure and comforting rituals, traditions and routines - the kind that hopefully will be continued as they grow, and remembered long after we are gone - and perhaps, even introduced to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren some day to carry on.