Different schedules

Any parent of multiples will tell you that the old rule, "Never wake a sleeping baby" does not apply when there is more than one newborn in the house. I'm not sure we would have survived the first year had we stuck to that rule. When one got up to eat, we woke the other. In fact, everything was done at the same time.

When one needed a nap, the other went down.
When one was hungry, both were fed.
When one needed to be changed, two diapers were changed.

It was really hard to do in the beginning, especially when they were on feeding schedules. We needed to keep track of how much they ate at each feeding. After they ate, I wrote down how much was consumed on my little chart. My chart also showed when they went down for a nap, when they were changed last (and what the diaper contained), when they were fed, when they woke and went to bed.

Everything was scheduled and precise. It needed to be this way.
If I had fed Connor at 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm and 10pm; then fed Sasha at 4am, 8am, 12am...

Well, I'm sure you get the picture. We never would have slept. And, I wouldn't have remembered who was fed last, etc. No way.

Things ran this way for a while. I dropped the chart once we no longer had to keep track of how much they ate. We went into more of a rhythm than a "schedule". It was routine. Sure, some things stayed the same like meal times, nap and bed times. But as they got older, there was a lot more flexibility.

Right before we split the kids up in their own rooms, Sasha was going through what I thought was a two year old temper tantrum phase. Looking back, I think she was just really over tired.

I never truly noticed it until we split them up. I knew Connor woke Sasha up each morning and she wasn't too thrilled about it. But, I didn't realize she actually needed another hour or more of sleep. Since moving into her own room, she sleeps in later than Connor does. On an average day, he'll wake up at 6:30a and she'll get up at 7:30a. The number of fits she throws has become less and less now that she gets that extra hour of sleep.

And, come to think of it, I think Connor is a bit happier as well.
Sasha used to keep Connor awake at night when all he wanted to do was sleep. He is such a good sleeper, always has been. When he hits the bed, he is out. He didn't want to chat and sing with Sasha.

Don't get me wrong, they still throw temper tantrums. But the number of them has gone down. It's amazing how structured things were when they were first born. And now, it's apparant that they need their own schedules.