Help me - I'm Outnumbered!!!

[my3girlsjde]

Help me I'm outnumbered!!!

My twins will be 3 in March and we've just finally hammered out bedtime after a year of hard work.

They still sleep with their pacis as they grind their teeth horribly without them, and we can't get in to the dentist for at least another month.

Dh was sleeping in their room on a single bed until this past week when I kicked him out of their room. It had turned into co-sleeping and we need to break that habit. That part of it is going well, as they're making it through most of the night without asking to come across the hall into my room to get into bed with me. The NW's have gotten much better and with a little work I think we'll be past them for the most part.
We ditched the nap about a month ago and it really was the best choice as they are going much longer stretches at night, and bedtime went from 2 plus hours to 10 mins. Minus a few NW's they make it through until about 5ish for one who usually wakes the other one up with the foolishness at 530. I can't separate them, I don't have the room.

They're still tired when they wake but their brain switches 'on' and after 10 hours of sleep, they can't turn it off. Same with their mouths lol. W2S won't work as they sleep so light that even with white noise in the room I have to tiptoe in fear of waking them.

So here I am in the hall doing wi/wo which is way overstimulating for them, but trying to convince them to actually stay in their beds until the 'light comes on' is futile.

So my plan this morning is to keep them laying down until I turn their light on at 630. I'd love 7am but I'll have some very loud meltdowns and I have a 9 month old across the hall and she's just coming out of multiple NW's and I really want to work on her sleep also.

There's a timer for their light, but convincing them to stay in until it comes on just doesn't seem like it's going to work. I could set it earlier but worry about it waking them the mornings that one of them actually does sleep until 7am.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Dh is sick so he's sleeping downstairs and I'm pretty much doing this on my own. Something that works quickly would be preferable, especially where they all sleep in close proximity to each other.
 

[sianie]

Hi!

Gosh, you have got your hands full! 

Great news that you're seeing some progress with your other issues!

I guess my first thoughts are, could you put a toddler gate across their bedroom door so that they physically can't leave the room? Have you taken all toys etc out of the room so that it's seen as a quiet, calm place for sleep rather than a playroom iyswim?

Have you tried white noise in your 9 mo room? My 2 LO's have bedrooms next to each other & we have white noise in both rooms to stop them disturbing each other.

What time do you do BT?

These are my initial thoughts but I will have more of a think & I'll be back.....

[my3girlsjde]

Thanks for getting back!

I could do a toddler gate. The stairs are right at their door so the gate is already there. I'd just have to move it over. I just have a fear that if I don't hear them when they get up they'll wake each other for sure before I can get in there yk?

There are absolutely zero toys in the room save their teddy's that they sleep with. I've even taken the knobs off of their dresser so they couldn't take their clothes out or, even worse, use the drawers to climb up on and jump all across the room lol. I've got THOSE kids

I'm probably going to have to do white noise for my 9 month old. Even I disturb her as I sleep in her room trying to deal with her NW's. It would probably help quite a bit.

Bedtime is usually 7pm. I say usually as if they've been up earlier than 6am, I bring it back 15 mins or so. Last night was 645pm as they we're up quite early, but we had an earlier morning this morning.

I'm not sure if pt'ing them is making things worse. It is new as we went to underwear 2 weeks ago and they're pretty well dry during the day but we've not tackled nighttime yet and I'm sure they're becoming more aware of their bladders. But saying all that, EW's are nothing new in this house. 

I think that they really are low sleep needs kids, but 10 hours doesn't seem enough for them. They really do seem tired.   

It just seems with two of them in there that there's an added element that I can't get past kwim? Need some creativity on this one!

Thanks again! I haven't had more than a 5 hour stretch of sleep in well over 18 months and it's getting a little old now

[teilvnav]

Bless you for having so much going on! Do you think that you could pop bedtime out a bit, so that they are sleeping later in the morning? If they go down at 7:30, maybe they will be able to sleep until 6-6:30 and get a better quality sleep since they aren't waking so early.

I have also heard very good things about the Groclock (I think that's what it is called?); maybe you could try one of those.

[clazzat]

My gut feeling is that they are OT if they are only sleeping 10h a night - even for low sleep needs los, that seems very short.  Is there any way you could have a catch up nap once a week or something?  Or would that mess with bedtime so much that there would be no benefit to it?

The other thing I would wonder about is perhaps threatening to separate them?  Would it be enough of a threat to say "if you don't stay quietly in your beds until the light comes on we will have to put you in different rooms"?  I know that now that my 2 are sharing, that would be an enormous threat.

[my3girlsjde]

lol - it would be a threat to one but not the other  .

I think OT too, and we deal with one being the early bed and early riser needs and the other would happily be a night owl and sleep in. Funny thing for identicles.

We've tried the nap thing even when shopping falling asleep in the van proves disasterous if it's more than 1/2 hour. Highly sensitive to sleep is what's coming to mind.

If I put the bedtime later it takes about 2-3 weeks to see the full result. I'd be willing to do it if it would work kwim? Guess I won't know if I don't try.

Dh and I discussed having the gate at the door, but if they can't leave already and I don't hear them up (over their white noise and the white noise we're going to implement for E) then they'll just get each other up and have a party. THEN they'll be really hard to settle.

I think I'm going to try the white noise with E and adjusting their bedtime to either 715 or 730.

Thanks for the help! I'll keep you updated to how we're doing.

[sianie]

Sounds like a plan....FX for you....keep us posted! 

[teilvnav]

Good luck!

[my3girlsjde]

Ok, so we went a couple of days and they're starting to level off the nw's to just a couple of seconds for reassurance and then off to 'la la land' again. Wish they weren't waking at all but at least it's literally just a second or two for a drink or to find their soother. Once we see the dentist and get the go-ahead on the soothers being ditched without them grinding their teeth to smitherines we'll ditch those. I may start another thread on that entirely lol.

The EW's are getting a teensy bit better. And it's unfortunately sooooo gradual So hard to know when things are working.

They seem to have 'catch up' days where they'll sleep right from 7pm until 715am and it's golden but we may only get one of those per week. Last night they went down at 710 and were up chatting away in their room at 6am with no chance of going back down. So that is 11ish hours. I'd like to keep them up until 730 but they seem to get louder, more OS and OT and then E won't go down. So for now, I may stick with the 7pm and once E is going down independently get them all on a 730 bedtime and they will *probably* get up around 630 and 730/8ish for E.

Dh and I agree that 6 or 630 is far easier to deal with when you don't have many or long nw's to deal with. I've got a white noice CD FINALLY for E and that should prevent the girls from waking her up. She is now down with the same bug as dh and up every half hour as she can't breathe but at least there's only one of her and she will get better and we can get her back on track.

Thanks again ladies. I think this is just one of those toddler sleep things that takes so long to gradually adjust, especially with two of them in there. Hopefully dh will be posted in the next year and a 4 bedroom house will be in the cards for us. I think separate rooms may be the way to go with them even though we often catch them in bed together

[sianie]

At least you are seeing some improvement, no matter how gradual! 

Stick with it!