The sleep training that never ends.

On a fairly regular basis, I get emails from new twin moms on our twin club listserve asking questions about nursing twins, schedules, what kind of formula to use, sleeping, and much more. Experienced twin parents respond with their opinions and past and usually end with something like, "Hang in there. It will get better."

Lately, I haven't been responding to many of the sleeping emails because in three years, it really hasn't gotten better and I feel like a hyprocrite telling them otherwise. Sure, at times, it has been better and perhaps the overall line if graphed would seem better, but in the big picture, it still sucks. A new singleton mom recently asked me after her 5 month old started nap strikes...please when does it get better? I told her I thought 8 months was a good age. I should have said 8 months is good, but 10 months sucks. 12 months is good, but 14 months was crap. 16 months was decent, but 17 months was a nightmare. And so. Because man does month 37 suck.

I'm in a particularly foul mood about this right now because I just went upstairs to deal with screaming kids. I'm in LA and the girls are sharing a room. The first time there were no problems. Last night, Elizabeth woke up needing water. Amy, not knowing it was a ploy, tried to find the water, and in the process woke up Miranda. Then she woke up Julia who was not a happy camper that Elizabeth was "drinking" her water. After all was settled, Miranda had three more screaming fits about water or whatever and on the third one I took her downstairs because I didn't want to deal with that bullshit again. She had a good nights sleep after that, but I sure didn't.

So tonight, I gave them both a big speech about the screaming and crying and how there wouldn't be any water and did they understand and that they needed to go back to sleep and not get out of bed, etc, etc, etc. "Yes we get it mommy."

They went to sleep easy at 6:30 as they had no naps today, but at 8pm Elizabeth woke up screaming at the door "MOMMMMMYYYYYYYYY! MOOOOMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYY!" I got up there and say "What do you need?" Before she can even finish her "I need water" sentence, I remind her of the situation and put her back in bed. Meanwhile Miranda has woken up and in her way starts screaming about nothing. Absolutely nothing. And of course she wakes up Julia. Since I can't get Miranda to stop, I drag her out the room, toss her in Amy's room and leave her there to scream for a bit. I return to discuss the situation and tell her she can go back to bed when she stops screaming. She can't just stop, but I do see some efforts in that direction so I give her a big hug and tell her not even to think about pulling that shit again and walk her back to bed where Julia and Elizabeth are awake and staring at me.

I was so pissed off. It drives me frickin' crazy and makes me think that I'm going to have 9 year olds that scream Mommy in the middle of the night about nothing. It makes me feel like a complete and total failure.