Do Any Other 10Mth Olds Refuse to Sleep More than 2-3 Hrs at a Time at Night?

In all reality, everyone that I know at least, only one had a baby sleeping through the night before age one.

I just don't know all these moms that say they had theirs sleeping through by 3 months or even 6 months.

Babies don't sleep through the night because they get hungry. They're supposed to eat a full meal, what their own full meal happens to be, every 3 or 4 hours. They have a tummy about the size of their fist. That's not much room and it empties very quickly.

You might just need to get a helper that would stay up with the little ones at night so you can sleep a few nights. It will really help you.

Yes! Until I let them sleep with me. Both of my boys (at that age) would begin the night in their own bed. If they woke during the night, I would go and get them and bring them to bed with me. Most of the time, they just wanted reassurance at night. If they woke again in our bed, it was just to feel around and make sure one of us was their. So they didn't fully wake up. It was just enough to be reassured.

Both of them did this on and off until they were 2. Some nights they came into our bed. Oftentimes they slept just fine in their own bed. We put them in a twin bed when they were about 14 months, so they could just get up and come to our room if they needed to (and neither one of us had to actually get out of bed).

My son was like that. Out of all the moms I knew at the "baby group" I was a part of at the time, only one other person had a baby that did this. The rest all slept through the night. He was a screamer too. I'm so sorry....you have twins doing this! Man, I really feel for you. I did not find anything that worked...and I did do sleep training. It never worked for me. The pediatrician was not very helpful. What did work is at about age 2 my son wanted a bunk bed very badly and I told him only when he is able to sleep through the night without waking me up. He then had motivation to do it. My son is 12 now and he has always been unique...he is super sensitive to things, very stubborn, extremely smart, and has a hard time with transitions. He was very hard when he was younger but he is maturing and is a pretty amazing kid now!

My oldest son did not sleep well until 14 months so I feel your pain. Sleeping through the night was the three hundred pound gorilla in the room which my husband and I stopped discussing. Once our son was actually sleeping through the night, we didn't dare mention it to the other person for at least a week. The fear of jinxing ourselves was strong. I distinctly remember the agony of long hard sleepless nights.

Sleep training didn't work well with my son. However, I do recommend you explore the various options out there before ruling it out. For my son the sleep training methods made his sleeping significantly worse in spite of our dedication and consistency. I mention this failure of sleep training to work because people hold sleep training up as the silver bullet. When it doesn't work, though, your exasperation can set in and you can feel like what the heck is wrong with my kid. An attitude which is not helpful. After asking around our circle of friends and family, there were a small number of babies who just didn't get on the sleep training wagon.

Once we realized sleep training wasn't working, we abandoned sleep training in favor of focusing on fostering sleep. We chanted 'sleep begets sleep." A mantra which held true when he wouldn't train and got less sleep and was harder to get to sleep. Each night was worse than the last. A vicious cycle of progressively less sleep.

Our approach was multipronged but centered around sleep for everyone. First off my husband and I traded nights. Mostly my husband took the night duties but it wears on even the most stoic. As well rather than bringing our son into bed with us, we set up a mattress in his nursery. The mattress meant the adult could get a decent night's rest. We didn't have our son sleep with us but we held his hand through the crib while sleeping and/or resting. We were prepared to sleep with him but it wasn't necessary. Finally we did feed him. He was clearly hungry and after discussing it with our pediatrician, it seemed a silly battle to fight. If we fed him, he went back to sleep easily. If we put water in his bottle or denied him food, the problems escalated and he fought that much harder to go to sleep. He weaned himself off night feedings at about 12 months.

If one of your twins is sleeping well but is being woken by the other, then I would consider separating the children. You can probably soothe one easier and faster without the stress of waking the other twin. We found bringing stress into the nursery always made the problem worse. In fact we reminded ourselves to take a steadying breath or two before going into the nursery.

I don't have any good advice but start by getting some solid sleep. Problem solving is much easier with a good night's rest under your belt. Good luck.

Sounds like teething, and maybe ear or reflux issues - they feel it more laying down than sitting up.
See what the doctor says.
If you're not getting enough sleep then get a relative or hire a sitter to watch the kids for a few hours during the day so you can take a nap and catch up a little bit.

Ack, I'm so sorry. Our son was a terrible sleeper, too...and I would say it was a nightmare, except that a nightmare means you are actually sleeping.

First, are YOU getting any sleep? My DH and I would trade off nights so at least we weren't walking into walls from exhaustion.

Second, our son was a big eater...always off the charts in terms of height and weight, though in proportion. We found that as his appetite became more sated (his tummy capacity got bigger), his length of sleep would increase. He was just a hungry kid..and though we were exhausted, I'm glad that we went through this so he could eat as much as he needed.

Again, I'm sorry. Have you spoken to your pediatrician about this?

My reflux baby was like this. Have you ruled out medical causes?

ETA: Squirrelly Tots, thank you for your post. I had an almost identical experience. My reflux baby slept through the night when he outgrew his reflux at 18 months and not one minute sooner no matter what I did. Some babies won't sleep train using traditional methods, and it's so disheartening to have people pass judgement, as if I wasn't trying, when what worked for them didn't work for me.

First rule out physical problems. Your kids need ear checks and tympanograms to make sure that there isn't pressure issues with their eardrums. And you need to make sure that they don't have reflux.

You should not be feeding them in the middle of the night. NO bottles. You're going to have lots of dental work to have to get done if you keep this up.

Having two babies who probably keep each other up is a great deal of your problem. I'm so sorry. Talk to your ped about a plan. Whatever plan you try, you must be 100% consistent and give it at least a week before trying another plan.

This is just bad for everyone - for the babies, for the older child, and for you. Talk to your pediatrician, because 10 month olds should absolutely NOT need to eat during the night. They are perfectly capable of making it up during the day. And they do not need to be held -they are using you as live comfort instead of learning to self soothe. Insufficient deep restful sleep, however, is absolutely necessary for brain development.

Go to the library and read up on the Ferber method of sleep training. This does not mean they cry it out horribly for endless hours; rather, it's a gentle training. Granted, it's harder with 2 babies at once, and even with one child, it took us 3 horrible nights but then it was done. Our pediatrician recommended it, told us to pick a 3 day weekend and just plan on zero sleep, and stick to it. We did and it was SO much better for everyone, including the baby! We learned to calm him down without holding and without a lot of interaction like talking and with zero holding. I would consider getting someone in to help you to take a shift or two, but everyone needs to do exactly the same routine. I'd also consider sending your older child to Grandma's or even sleeping on an air mattress in another part of the house for a few nights, and just DO this!

Please tell your pediatrician that the babies are not sleeping more than a few hours at a time, and get his/her blessing and direction. Yes, you can rule out reflux and teething, but the likelihood that both have reflux at the same time is very low, and holding does not relieve reflux. So those are unlikely, at least as the entire cause. I think it's more likely just a continuation of what you do with newborns that's no longer necessary in an older infant. Talk to the doctor or nurse. But DO NOT just continue as you are and hope it will go away.

Are they still taking 2 naps during the day? It may be time to cut them down to 1. My son was 11 months old hen the same thing happened. We cut the afternoon nap and he started sleeping at night.

Are the twins in the same bedroom? This is often the problem because they will wake one another. I agree giving a bottle of formula at night at this age could be a problem for their teeth. My children were teething at this age and I would sometimes have to give them OTC pain reliever so they could sleep. My son had night terrors at a very early age as well. I would definitely discuss this with your pediatrician because it seems to have become a habit.

I misunderstood the Ferber method with my first. This is what Ferber said later:

"People want one easy solution, but there's no such thing. I never encouraged parents to let their babies cry it out, but one of the many treatment styles I described in my book is gradual extinction, where you delay your response time to your baby's wakings. I went to great pains in the second edition to clarify that that treatment is not appropriate for every sleep issue, of which there are many."

My pediatrician said it's more beneficial and less traumatic to get rid of habits which are preventing your babies from self soothing. So if you let them have a bottle until they nod off, then wake them gently and get them into crib while still drowsy. If you're holding them, then don't - just pat their backs. Gradually work them towards not needing you or milk to get to sleep.

That worked much better for me. It involved a few nights of fussing, but not crying.

Definitely rule out anything medical if you think it could be ears, etc.

OMGee! I would DIE! I was spoiled with both my kids sleeping 12 hours straight through from the first week.

This happened with one of my friends and she said she "wanted to throw her out the window!" I can only imagine! I hope you find something that works for you! HUGS!!!