Twin Schedules: 14-24 Months

Transitioning down to just ONE nap was one of the best things we did. As a mom, I was worried about losing that extra bit of downtime in the day (especially after wrapping up my workday), but it was time. Just like many of the things we did with our girls, we followed their lead.

The girls had been fighting the last nap of the day. It was taking them forever to go to sleep and once they were asleep, we would wake them after 5pm and they were still zonked (and not happy to be woken up).

As a family, we decided an afternoon nap would be best for our schedules....so we worked to push the initial start time of 12:15pm (trying to bridge their two nap times of 10am and 3pm) to 1pm.

Typical daily schedule:

7:30am Wake up, get dressed, brush teeth

8am Breakfast (or soon after they wake up)

9:30/10am - Head outside to the park, walk, playground, etc for 1 hour

12pm - Lunch

1pm - Nap [they typically sleep until 3-4pm....wake by 4:30pm]

3:30pm - Snack (or soon after they wake up)

3/4pm - Playtime in the yard, arts and crafts, etc [different from the morning play]

6pm - Dinner

7pm - Bathtime

7:20pm - brush teeth and book

7:30pm - Bed

Often on the weekends, we would replace the morning outdoor excursion for a trip to our gym's Kids Club, which allowed them to interact with other kids, and a quick sweat session and shower for Mom and Dad.

Historically, when one was up, we woke the other (unless they were sick), but once we moved to one nap a day, we also stopped waking the other twin. Now, that did mean that someone had to stealthly remove one sister from her crib without waking her sister, and I would put our success rate at 50%.

The consistent schedule made the twins happy. They knew what to expect and the afternoon nap made it easy to plan an outing or anytime in the car (since we knew they would likely sleep).

Picture of the happy girls post nap:

The routine also helped with their diapers. I swear they always have dirty diapers around the same time of day...typically, we would get a poopy diaper after breakfast before leaving to head out, again before nap time, and again before bath time (yes, twin parents do keep diaper companies in business!)