Seeking Sleep Advice (For Twins)

K.,
The best advice on sleeping is in the SleepEasy Solution (or something like that) by Jennifer Waldberger. I think you got some good advice but if you want more detail get this book.
Good luck
A. (twin mommy)
PS Some people recommended putting in separate rooms. Mine sleep right through the others noise so try that first because it is best if they can do that, and if really they are waking each other up then separate.

K.,

My fraternal twins (girls) will be 2 next week and I will tell you it does get easier!! As for sleeping we have the same arrangement, they share a room. My girls still take a nap but only one in the middle of the afternoon and then go to bed around 8:00 to 8:30 pm. We started a routine fairly early. I would say that at 9 months you should really find a bedtime routine and just stick to it. It may take a week for them to get that you are serious. The girls for the most part sleep through the night now but on occasion they still wake but I don't take them out of their room anymore...I found that they want this time alone with me so they were waking to get it!! I spend a few minutes hugging them and then it is back to bed and I also try not to turn on any lights, I try to keep it calm and dark so they stay in the sleep mode. We do a bath, teeth brushing and a story or some quiet play and then I tuck them in and they each have found a special animal they like to cuddle with (which I still sneak out when they are sleeping). My advice with twins is to get into a groove and routine. They will be happiest once they know what to expect. As for naps, I would say to try to avoid all the little naps and try for one long nap. When they start to sleep distract them with some play and then just extend the time until it is the time for nap and they should sleep fairly easily. It may take some time to get it to one good nap but they may be having too many small naps to get a good night sleep and if they are use to waking during the day after a half hour then they are not use to longer periods of sleep. Hope it helps...like I said it gets so much easier!! Just have fun!!! Twins are great!!

my friend is in a similar boat.she is thinking she may have to seperate them. if you come up with a better answer let me know

Dear K.,
Just a thought for the sleeping situation. A rocking chair will help.
Turkey, tuna and milk have calming effects on people to a different extent. Warm milk before going to bed for the night, should work.
There is something topical from the pharmacy that I also used for the gums.
This time will pass soon. They will eat better and hopefully, they will not get sick.
Good luck,
E.

Oh, I feel for you! I have 2 1/2 year old twin boys who were terrible sleepers for the first 6 months. I was a walking zombie and just felt terrible - it was affecting my ability to be a good mother because I had such a short fuse all the time. At 6 months I decided enough was enough and put them in separate rooms and let them CIO. After that they slept A LOT better. Not always through the night and when they got sick things were still pretty miserable but most of the time I was getting up maybe only twice a night instead of a million times. I know you don't want to CIO again but maybe you should try again with them separated? Oh, and get sound machines so they can't hear each other at all.

why are they not taking a nap in their cribs? May be drive them around at night in the car or in the daytime. most times the car makes small children sleep when they are tired. Have you tried any type of musical thing or any thing that provides white noise? Give them some hyland teething tablets along with the motrin,it is great stuff.
good luck.

Hi, K.:

Had you thought about giving them infant massages periodically at nap time or night time?

About letting them cry it out: Everyone cries because they need attention to take care of something. With infants and children, their ability to get nurtured from their mother will help them learn to form social relationships as they grow up.

I just wanted to share this information. Good luck. D.

Hi K.,

I am not a mother of twins however I do babysit a wonderful set of twin boys. And I know a technique their mother has used since they were infants is to seperate them for sleeping...both bedtimes and naps. If not one would wake up the other and neither would get to sleep...or the parents. Hope this helps. Take care and God Bless!!!

~T.~

K.- I am a mother of 14 month old twins. We are thankful that are girls started to sleep through the night at 6 weeks. We started from the begining with a routine and stuck with it. The thing for us was we needed a routine that one person can do because I sometimes work late and they are in bed before I get home. Instead of doing baths everynight we made sure massage with lotion was part of their bed time routine. During their teething time they were off and did wake, but you still have to stick to your schedule. Even nap scedule. I would avoid having them in the car if it close to nap time- if the cat nap they would not go down when we got home. I would sing in the car to keep them up till we got home.
We always play music when they go down to sleep. I also would put a safe toy in their cirb- when one would wake they would play with the toy instead of waking the other up- we have them in separate cribs now. If that child continued to fuss I would quickly go get her so she would not wake her sister. My sister-in-law watches them while I am at work. She has found it is better to let them nap in different rooms- what ever works.
Why are they waking during the night- becuase they are in a routine of you rocking them? do you feed them when they wake? Try giving a little more food just before betime.
I know a strict schedule makes you seem captive to your house but once you get it down it is easier and the kids become more predicable so you know when you push it if something comes up that you have to do during the day.

Hi K.,

I am a member of momasource and the creaor of the Magic Sleepsuit. I read your story and am sory that your little ones are having trouble sleeping. While they may be a little older to start using the Magic Sleepsuit, I welcome you to take a look at my web site www.magicsleepsuit.com. All my best
M.

I feel your pain K.. I think you have gotten a lot of good advice here & I have found that, for us, I appreciated all of the advice but needed to act on the pieces of the experiences/solutions from others that resonated with us in our specific family situation. So here is our recent experience & solution so far (which some of your request reminded me of):

> We went through a similar period recently (my daughter is 8 months old now &
> primarily breastfed still). During months 2 - 3.5, she only woke up 1 or 2
> times a night & I fed her. No problem. Months 3.5 - 6, she was waking up 3
> - 4 times a night. We were all exhausted all over again like during month
> 1!
>
> For us (every baby is different of course), what has worked was eventually
> realizing that as she got bigger & older, she needed to eat more! (Duh. I
> was so sleep deprived, no wonder I had no idea :-( .....And if/when she
> wasn't eating enough during the day, she wanted/needed to eat more at night.
> So I started all of the following steps to "night-wean" her and end the
> night-time wakings (....AND....lo and behold.....she has been sleeping from
> 8 pm - 7 am for a couple months now.....fingers crossed :-) The only thing that throws her off this schedule is going away from home (5 days on vacation in Mexico and 5 days at grandmaas recently) ... during both of these trips she woke up once a night and then after we got back it tok her about 5 or 6 nights of waking up once a night to get back to sleeping through from 8 pm - 7 am.

So here are some of what we started realizing and did about it:
>
> 1. being more conscious of how much she is eating during the day (she
> started getting distracted by everything during month 5 - now and without me
> realizing it, I think she really was eating less since she spent more time
> popping off the breast to look at other things than she spent ON the breast
> eating)
>
> 2. making sure to feed her more frequently during the late afternoon/evening
> hours (she generally eats when she wakes up from her afternoon nap (at 4 or
> 4:30 pm) and then again at 6 pm and then again at 7:00/7:15 she gets her
> final feed (a bottle).
>
> 3. giving her a bottle of formula as her last feeding before bed (so hard to
> know how much she was getting with 100% breastfeeding...with one bottle a
> day of formula, I at least KNOW that feeding for sure how much she is
> getting)
>
> 4. she was still just getting a 5 oz bottle to go to bed (when she was
> getting up 3 - 4 times a night, and even as recently as month 5). I
> finallly realized she was finishing it very quickly and I wasn't offering
> her more! NOW (for the past 3 weeks), she takes a 9 oz bottle to go to bed
> (!!!!) And I know it isn't too much because I make a 10 oz bottle and she
> never finishes that last 1 oz. She knows that she is full with 9 oz.
>
> 5. during the transition process, while we were figuring this all out &
> figuring how many oz to give her for that last feeding, and she was still
> waking during the night, we started sending my husband in to feed her with a
> bottle of either breastmilk or formula in the middle of the night instead of
> me breastfeeding her. We wanted to feed her, but also start making it as
> 'uninteresting' as possible and figured that dad with bottle was less
> interesting/desirable than mom with breast :-)
>
> It took a week or so of getting all of this together but she started waking
> just 3 times (instead of 4 times), then just 2 times, then just once....then
> one night she slept 8 pm - 7 am and has been doing that for 2.5 weeks now.
> Daylight savings threw her off a bit for a few nights (she was waking around
> 5 am and talked to herself for about 30 min before falling back to sleep
> until 7) but she's back to 8 pm - 7 am again now most nights....and some
> nights she still wakes up once around 5, I nurse and she goes back to sleep
> until 7:30 or so...
>
>
> .....Hope some of these ideas could help for you guys.

Do they go to sleep by themselves, or do you rock them to sleep? I went through this with my son (just one!)and I rocked him to sleep. At that age especially, he would wake up every couple hours (sometimes more!). No idea why, he was fed and warm and dry. I spent some time co-sleeping so I could sleep as well! COuldn't imagine doing that with 2 though! Have you tried a white noise machine or something similar to that? Sometimes that will help. Also, how about a crib aquarium or something for them to watch so maybe that will help lull them back to sleep??
Most importantly, do you have a good nighttime routine? That seems to be what finally helped my son start really sleeping better at night. EVERY single night after dinner he plays with my husband and I, then gets a bath, stories, and bed. He knows exactly what's happening when, and it's really helped a lot. We always had fairly good routine, but it took him a little time to realize the consistency. I'd imagine with 2 you may have to have an even stricter routine, but it's really worth it! Good luck! :)

K.,
I agree with a very structured day, including naptimes and a set bedtime routine and bedtime.
Any chance they can take a structured nap at the same time every day but in separate rooms? I'm sure it's a nightmare with them waking each other up, so separate rooms would be the best scenario I could think of--at least then, when O. is doing CIO, the other MAY still remain sleeping?

***I see you had the advice of "driving them around" to get them to sleep. My husband and I made this mistake and it was HORRIBLE to put an end it. We used to take turns driving around like idiots all night long! LOL***

I don't have twins -- but the book that helped me to get my daughter to nap and sleep through the night is "Good night Sleep Tight" by the <a href="http://www.sleeplady.com&quot;&gt;Sleep Lady</a>. She has a chapter that talks about how to apply the technique to multiples.

I used the book successfully when my daughter was 10 months old, my friend used it when her son was 9 months old, so this age is a great time to get them in a good sleep habit.

Check your library, maybe they have a copy -- also, you can buy an electronic copy cheaper than the hard copy.

Good luck!!!