Night Time Riots

Wouldn't it be nice if we could eat a nice peaceful dinner and then spend some good quality family time together, playing, reading books, giving the kids baths and then go to bed calmly? Sadly, this has NEVER happened. Every single night Kate and Reece throw an 8:00pm fit, and I do not use the word fit lightly, it is an all-out scream your head off until sound no longer comes out of your mouth, sweating, arms and legs flailing F-I-T. We try everything to calm them; rocking, bouncing, singing, holding, feeding, and so on until finally we get so frustrated that they just have to go sit in separate rooms alone for 10 minutes of pure screaming time. Then we go pick them up and they are exhausted and soaked with sweat, but otherwise calm. This has been a nightmare for us. Recently we discovered that they are probably throwing these fits because they are over-tired, so we moved their last feeding of the night up an hour earlier to 8:00pm so that they could go to bed earlier and we try to make sure they get plenty of naps in during the day. This worked for a night or two, but now the fits begin at 7:30 instead of 8:00 and it is hard to get them to calm down to actually eat their bottles! Last night I tried everything to get Reece to calm down and eat and finally the only thing that worked was taking him out and feeding him in the dark on the front porch. Luckily Chase doesn't typically join in on the fit throwing sessions, but when he does, it is absolute tear your hair out, want to run screaming down the street F-U-N for Jacob and me. By the time the kids are finally all sleeping, Jacob and I can barely walk down the hall to collapse into our own bed.