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Fellow peaceful parents, I have double trouble. My wife gave birth to twins last summer. I am very tired, stressed, and I have gotten extremely anxious on a few occasions. I do not want this to affect my children in a negative way. Problem: My son wakes up every 3 hours... on a good night. My daughter wakes up once, feeds, and goes back to bed. We've been lucky on that front I suppose. But by 2am my nerves are shot. I've had to wake up Mom on several occasions so I can step away for a little while. Description: On a bad night, like last night, he wakes up 5-6 times, wakes up his sister at least once, and wants to be held while he sleeps. If we put him down, he wakes up and cries. If you make the wrong move (offer him a bottle when he doesn't want it, check his diaper, etc.) he cries. He also often simply refuses to go back to sleep, for hours at a time. I have some sympathy for him, because he has pretty bad acid reflux, and subsequently is a prolific spitter upper. Often when he wakes up I can hear him juggling fluid in his esophagus. That's usually when he refuses to go back to sleep. Being horizontal seems to aggravate the reflux problem. So that's understandable, if not exhausting. But at other times he does not suffer from reflux, and simply wants to be held. I don't know how he functions with so little sleep. Granted, his dad can go 4 - 5 days straight on only 4-5 hours a night, but after months of this and the crying and trial and error (mostly error) my nerves are suffering. I'm a zombie at work. Mom and I are strong advocates for attachment parenting. But most babies are singles. That is to say, they aren't competing for attention. The challenge we face is forming strong attachments for both of them. Possible Solutions: There are a few schools of thought on how to handle this problem. Give the baby what they want, regardless of your own needs (this is starting to wear me down) Soothe the baby but don't pick them up, try that twice, and if it doesn't work, see step 3; "Let them cry it out" Since some of you will probably ask: Doctor doesn't have anything to offer except a ranitidine prescription. It lessens the problem but is in no way a cure. I'm not a fan of this medication buy we if we don't use it, it's a guarantee that we will not be sleeping He was breastfed almost exclusively, but mostly drinks formula now (Mom doesn't produce enough for two, and he refuses to breastfeed unless from a bottle at this point) The acid reflux was a problem while breast feeding, so that is not a factor per se He eats "solid" food (rice cereal, fruit, veggies) He shares a giant crib with his sister, who usually tries to sleep through these frequent episodes he (insists) sleeps on his stomach He does not have any other problems we know of, very healthy baby, developmentally on schedule and in some ways ahead Mom is home all day, every day, we both have strong bonds with the babies They were cesarian delivery (long story) And for some reason we get asked this often: They are not twins because of in vitro fertilization.

I am the proud and loving auntie of a 9-month-old niece and more than anything, I do not want harm to come to her...especially not at the hands of her own parents. Unfortunately, her mother (my husband's sister) has decided to have the baby's ears pierced tomorrow afternoon. I've accepted that it's going to happen no matter how much I know it violates the NAP. I used to work at a store that pierces ears and I, sadly, pierced many a baby girl's ears while I worked there, so I've seen firsthand that babies cry very hard when it happens to them and it is quite obviously painful and confusing for them. It's appalling that this happens just to appease some self-centered desire for aesthetics on the part of the parents. My sister-in-law does not know that I believe piercing the baby's ears is totally unethical and she wouldn't understand why if I told her (she's a fundamentalist evangelical Christian, so reason is not very popular with their family). She really wants me to come out with her, my niece, my other sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law as a big "girls' afternoon out" to get my niece's ears pierced tomorrow. I do not know what to tell her. She knows I don't have plans and that I'm available, but the prospect of telling her flat out "I don't support your violence against your daughter and I don't feel like going out to celebrate it" just doesn't seem realistic. But I also can't see myself ooh-ing and ah-ing over my screaming, crying niece's newly pierced/red/swollen earlobes along with everyone else; I feel like I would stick out like a sore thumb since I wouldn't be able to bring myself to agree with everyone how "cute" she looks with earrings. I've tried deterring her from it by describing my many experiences with red-faced, screaming, tearful infants who've just had holes punched in their bodies, but that has not changed her mind. My brother-in-law (my niece's father) won't even accompany everyone because he doesn't want to see his daughter cry like that (what a coward). What should I do? Should I tell my sister-in-law I'm not going with them on principle? Or should I just suck it up and go along to be with my niece since I know it's going to happen whether I agree with it or not?