Inconsistant EW 21month old twin

[Sezzle]

I have twin boys who are 2 years old, or almost 21months corrected age (prems born at 25weeks).

Twin 2 is finally sleeping well at the moment, approx 1830-0630, nap 1145-13:15

Twin 1 is an early riser, and I am struggling with getting his EASY right, and would appreciate some help!

He started to finally SSTN about 3months ago, since finally settling down after the 2:1 transition and cutting his 1yo molars and eye teeth, and generally had 10.5-11hr nights.  He has been having some NW the past 3 weeks but I **think** this is illness related as he has had a cough and cold.  Though he has been well for almost a week now. But the EW remains.

I was relatively comfortable with a 5:30 start to the day as he has been STTN for the first time in his life and getting 10.5hrs sleep overnight.

But I still struggle to know the best time to put him down for his nap, especially when he has a super early wake.  

The last days have been like this...

Wake 0510
Nap 1100-1240
Sleep 1845
NW 2030, 0300,

Wake 0500
Nap 1030-1200
Sleep 1830
NW 0200

Wake 0525
Nap 1110-1300
Sleep 1855
NW 2030

Wake 0440
Nap 1005-1020 (fell asleep in car)
Nap 1230-1410
Sleep 1840

Am I doing something wrong to cause these extra early wake ups?  What should I do with his nap when he's up from 4am and therefore ready for his nap at 10am--  this leaves a very long afternoon.  I will do early BT around 6/6:15 pm when possible on a 4am day but it is difficult as I need to put both boys to bed together at night as I put them to bed by myself.  
He generally goes to sleep independently, but I occasionally need to WI/WO at bed time particularly when OT. 

He is inconsistent with his wake ups (4am-5:40)and his nap length (generally 1hr10-1hr30, very occasionally 1hr50/2hr never more).  And I also have to have the boys both on a similar schedule so sometimes have to change the amount of A time to accommodate this. (and I feel I have never found the exact right A time anyway).

I can handle 5:30 starts, but 4am is ridiculous!!!

Generally any NW before 5am I do the same thing--ask him to lie down, say it's time for sleeping, give snuggly a cuddle and go to sleep.  If he asks fir milk I will offer him his waterbottle.  I then lie down next to his cot and wait for him to go settle then leave.  Or if needed wait til he goes to sleep then leave.  Any wake up after 5am he will not go back to sleep so I bring him into our bed and wait for his twin to wake up.

For those of you still reading, many thanks!  I just feel at a loss as to what to do next!!  I have been following this BW site for many months and credit it to finally helping my boys STTN, but this is my first post about their sleeps, so please forgive me if this is a bit all over the place!!!

[Truly Blessed]

Hello Hun,

Welcome  . My BF has 3 year old twin girls so I know it's a handful, all be it a wonderful one. Because you have twins my advice is tailored towards that, and what I would usually recommend would be different. But...in order to try and get the boys on a similar schedule, I would think about trying for an early cat nap so for eg on a 5am WU it would look like this:

WU 5.00

Cat nap 7.30/7.45 for 20 mins.

Nap (same time as DS 1) 11.45.

The cat nap is not meant to be restorative just restful enough to get him through to the later nap. I think because his nights are 10.5 which is short, as you know, you may be in with a chance of this working. I think it would be more likely to work than an afternoon cat nap because that would throw BT out. Also EW are linked to early naps because LO thinks I can get up now and have a nice long nap soon, so shortening his morning to a long nap may not be the best idea and hopefully the cat nap wouldn't register on his EW radar IYKWIM 

We can hopefully see what others think and they may have a different view, but what do you think  Is he tired enough in the am to take it do you think 

((Hugs))

Vicki.x.

[Sezzle]

Hi Vicki, 
Thanks so much for your reply!

The only way I can get a CN out if him is in the morning and in the car these days, and usually it is around 4hrs A time before he will nod off in the car. So I just really doubt I could get him to CN as early as 7:30/7:45, particularly at home in his cot, and this is also when we are generally finishing off our breakfast.

Yesterday I let him CN in the car 1005-1020, then nap at 12:30.  And that seemed to work ok, as he went down easily in the evening and had no NW, and still woke 5am. 10.5hrs.  Is that cat nap too late in the day and causing more OT?

I would be interested to hear what you would have suggested if he wasn't a twin, as I know they have different sleep needs and it may be unrealistic for me to think I could get them sleeping together. 

Thanks so much
Sarah xx

[clairebear79]

If he won't CN early in the morning, what about very gradually pushing his nap later by 5mins every couple of days until he's napping at the same time as twin 2. IME early waking is often linked to too early a morning nap, & he is currently going down almost an hour earlier than his brother, so it figures that he will wake an hour earlier IYSWIM?  Its a bit of a vicious cycle - b/c he wakes early he needs to nap early, but by keeping the nap early he will carry on waking early.  You do have to push through some OT to break the cycle but it really does work.  My DS is testimony to this (was an early waker too)!

[Truly Blessed]

Hi Hun,

Claire knows what she's talking about..BTDT! LOL. The only thing I would like to add is that it can be a long hard road to do it that way, so you have to have the mental energy to stick with it until DS is so tired his little body suddenly slots into the new routine, but it can mean pushing to exhaustion, so you have to be resolute. I'm sure Claire will agree. I know that twins take a lot of energy to start with.

How do you feel about it 

x.

[clairebear79]

t can be a long hard road to do it that way, so you have to have the mental energy to stick with it until DS is so tired his little body suddenly slots into the new routine, but it can mean pushing to exhaustion, so you have to be resolute. I'm sure Claire will agree.

Absolutely agree.  It is a very tough route to go down, he will get very very tired as you will have to push him to stay up when he is ready to go down, and it can take several weeks to sort out so you do need to hang in there, but it does come good in the end.  Like Vicki says its more whether you have the energy to face that whilst dealing with double the trouble!x

[Sezzle]

That does sound like a long road to push through to exhaustion!  

I could definitely give pushing his nap a bit later a go.  At the moment I will give him up to 6 hrs A time, but I have not pushed any further than that as I thought 6 hours was getting quite long?  Is 7 hours a realistic goal?  

The thought of being in over-tired land again (had a very terrible time with the 2:1 transition earlier this year) is very scary!  It was a terrible time when they both transitioned, and honestly I don't know if I do have the energy to go there again!!

Is it a problem that his A time varies a bit depending on what time he wakes up?  For example if he woke at 4:30 I would probably keep him up til 10:30 or (6hrs A), but if he woke at 5:45 I might only keep him up til 11:15/11:30 (5hr30/45).  He seems to sleep best after that amount of A time.
Stupid question but should I be more strict with A times in general?  
He does get OT really easily.

Thank you so much for helping me xxx

[clairebear79]

At the moment I will give him up to 6 hrs A time, but I have not pushed any further than that as I thought 6 hours was getting quite long?  Is 7 hours a realistic goal?

At this age, I have found its not so much what the A times are, but more what time of day the nap is at.  If the nap is too early in the morning, then he will wake early.  So you need the nap later.  The only way to get it later is to gently stretch his A time.

7hrs probably IS too long for a LO of his age to do every single day, but remember that pushing his nap later (& therefore extending his A time) is only a temporary measure.  You should find that his wakeup time very quickly follows suit & he will soon be back to his usual 5.5-6h A time (and also waking at a much nicer time of day!)

The way I did it was to shift the nap very gradually later, rather than suddenly keeping him up 1hr later IYSWIM?  I pushed 15mins per week, if you feel 15mins is too much you could do it in 5min increments every few days.  This way you are encouraging the nap later, without stretching him so much that he gets severely overtired.

Hope this makes sense.xx

[Sezzle]

At this age, I have found its not so much what the A times are, but more what time of day the nap is at.  If the nap is too early in the morning, then he will wake early.  So you need the nap later.  The only way to get it later is to gently stretch his A time.

7hrs probably IS too long for a LO of his age to do every single day, but remember that pushing his nap later (& therefore extending his A time) is only a temporary measure.  You should find that his wakeup time very quickly follows suit & he will soon be back to his usual 5.5-6h A time (and also waking at a much nicer time of day!)

The way I did it was to shift the nap very gradually later, rather than suddenly keeping him up 1hr later IYSWIM?  I pushed 15mins per week, if you feel 15mins is too much you could do it in 5min increments every few days.  This way you are encouraging the nap later, without stretching him so much that he gets severely overtired.

Hope this makes sense.xx

Thanks that totally makes sense.  I keep note of when they sleep and looking at T1's nap times it is rarely after 11am, so i definately think that could have something to do with it.

Today as it happens he woke at 5am, and i brought him into our bed at 5:30 for cuddles while we waited for T2 to wake, and he nodded off just before 7am, so i woke him at 7:20.  We were out at music til 12 today, and i got him to bed for his nap at 1225, so hopefully that goes ok!

thanks again

[clairebear79]

Good luck!