Author Topic: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,  (Read 26675 times)

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Offline 4isstillnighttime

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8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« on: April 07, 2014, 11:23:53 am »
Hi everyone

Thanks in advance for your help. I'm getting near the end of my tether with this. I'm a new convert to BW so apologies if I mess up any of the abbreviations etc! I started reading this forum about a month ago and naps have improved but our nights are still grim and I need help!!

I have non identical twin girls, Z and C. C had awful reflux when she was tiny but is now off all her medicines and doing well. They are breastfed, doing well with solids and no teeth yet. C has just started crawling.

I'm not even sure where to start with our sleep problems! Here is our usual EASY

Wake up 5am. Mess around in cots til 5:30. Lights on at 6am
E croissant, fruit, yoghurt
A rolling, crawling (v grumpy and tired, I make them stay up til 9)
E bf at 8
S at 9 til 10:30 (usually need resettle after 30 mins)

E bf 10:30
A playgroup etc
E 12:30 lunch (sandwiches, fruit)
S 2 til 3:30 (again, a struggle to keep them up this long and usually need resettling after 30 mins, which sometimes doesn't work....)

E bf 3:30
A play at home, go to swings if not raining
Occ catnap from C if in the buggy - never more than 20 mins, always ends by 5:15
E supper - meat, fish, veg, rice pudding
Bath, bf, bed by 7

Bedtime is a screaming nightmare of overtired mess but if we go any earlier they wake up earlier, which kills me. C has a teddy which she loathes. She used to have a dummy but would knock it out and wake up for it every hour so I took it away and she initially slept much better. Z has a dummy and a lovey, and sucks her thumb. They settle brilliantly with shh pat but will wake if patting stops so I just shh in their ears and they scream themselves to sleep. Last night I tried leaving the room and going back in every minute to kiss and stroke heads, didn't make much difference to the screaming duration and made me feel awful!

C wakes every night at 9 and I shh her back to sleep. She then wakes at about 11:30 and I feed her, straight back to sleep. Z wakes at 2:30 and I feed her. C wakes at 3 and the last 3 nights has screamed for an hour. Pupd winds her up so last night I sshed for an hour til back to sleep. Both awake at 5, bf in the hope they will go Back to sleep. They won't.

Where do I start? Ideally i would like them to get up at 6 or 6:30, and go to bed at 7 or 7:30. I feel they don't really need all the night feeds but don't know how. They are both tired and grumpy all day but if they have shorter A periods they don't nap. We are all miserable....please help!!



Offline 4isstillnighttime

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2014, 12:35:02 pm »
I should add that z has slept through the night twice, and c never has  :'(

In 8.5 months I have never had more than 3 hours sleep in a row. Oh god....writing it down makes it look worse!!!

Offline babybarr

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2014, 07:53:18 am »
I'm having trouble with my twins too so massive sympathies.  When I get 5mins I'm going to start my thread too....
LAURA xx




Offline 4isstillnighttime

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2014, 08:13:40 am »
Yay twin solidarity!! Although C seems to have her first tooth this morning so maybe that's not helping!!

Thinking sleepy thoughts for your 2. My friend has twins who are 3 and he says it's brilliant, they play together all the time and if they can't sleep they get on bed with each other. So just a couple of years and our lives will get really easy!!

Offline babybarr

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2014, 17:55:20 pm »
Teeth. Blame teeth always a good bet!

Here's hoping to easier lives in the future!
LAURA xx




Offline 4isstillnighttime

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2014, 05:23:24 am »
To be honest, I think I am going to have to let them cry it out. My mum and husband have been telling me to for months. I have read the BW book about 4 times but I can't see what I can do differently, was really hoping someone here could help and that by making their morning nap 10 mins shorter or something it would miraculously get better....but I guess maybe these twins are too tough for BW!! C has been awake since 4 after 4 night wakings - I know I should keep her up til 9 but that is 5 hours of misery for all 3 of us. We'd had a really good day too so I feel like nothing I do makes any difference! She will cry on and off for those 5 hours - if I did CIO my mum assures me that within a week they'd be sleeping through. Right at the moment I'm so tired I'm crying every day, just cannot carry on like this!! I've even tried co sleeping which I swore I'd never do - makes no difference! I feel like such a failure as a mother, I'm back to work soon and I've spent all my precious maternity leave in a fog of tiredness and misery.

Hope your 2  are better than this!!

Offline 4isstillnighttime

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2014, 05:24:22 am »
Sorry, that was a bit of a rant!!

Offline Sarah - Enfys' Mum

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2014, 06:16:42 am »
Hi, I, sorry you're having a hard time. I only have one, but she is a little monkey too. She likes her early mornings and has been waking at 4:30-5 but I'm hoping I have figured it out. It sounds like most of your problems are with C - am I right?  First, if she's in pain, she won't sleep well so I'd be making sure her reflux really is sorted and her teeth aren't bothering her. Do you think she's waking Z? 

Re the early waking - what seems to be working for us is making the first nap really short and not too early. Tbh I don't let her nap before 9:30 - I never get her up before 6, and her a time is 3.5 hrs - and for no more than an hour.  That's if she's ew. The last couple of days she's slept till 6.30 so her nap will be at 10 and for 40 minutes. It sounds crazy but it works for us. I think that's what BW is about - watching and learning about our Los and adapting to their needs. Tracey Hogg, who was the original BW, didn't believe in cio and believed it would damage the trust between you and your Los. There are other ways. Xxx.





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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2014, 06:26:48 am »
Hope your 2  are better than this!!
Not much! I've just started my thread in general sleep issues.
LAURA xx




Offline babybarr

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2014, 06:35:10 am »
Sarah can you post your routine please?
LAURA xx




Offline 4isstillnighttime

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2014, 07:25:30 am »
Thanks Sarah - you are right, CIO has never felt like the right thing to do. C cries when I leave the room at the best of times so it would be a long and bloody battle!!

I'm pretty sure her reflux is ok - she still pukes a lot but isn't uncomfortable when she does - in fact fresh vomit is one of her favourite things to play with if I'm a bit slow cleaning up! And I dosed her up last night just on the off chance it was her teeth and it made no difference at all.

I will try making the morning nap shorter and later (it will be nasty though!!) but what do you do if you get an overtired 20 mins? Because C cannot be resettled from that. Just accept it and move on?

Also, what should I be doing about night feeds? Last night I fed C at midnight, 3 and 5. Z at 1 and 4. Should i try and wean them or should I just go with it until their sleep is generally better?

Thanks again for replying, I am so grateful! When everyone is telling you to CIO it's tough to stick to your guns with no support when you are sooooooo tired!!

Laura - your twins look hard work too! Are you BFing them?


Offline babybarr

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2014, 07:54:12 am »
No I'm not bf so hats off to you.
LAURA xx




Offline 4isstillnighttime

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2014, 08:32:19 am »
Hats off to both of us!! If you're a twin mum you are doing well to get them fed at all I think! We started mixed feeding but I used to get really anxious about sterilising the bottles (sounds crazy now!!) so BF was easier for me overall. I was lucky too that mine are v good feeders so it was ok.

C went down at 9:25 and Z at 9:30....wish me luck!!

Offline Sarah - Enfys' Mum

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2014, 08:51:50 am »
I'm fortunate in that no one (apart from one health visitor) has never pushed me to do CIO.  It must be hard when someone does.

I think when I first started pushing Medi's first nap, she did wake at 30 mins a few times but I did manage to get her back off to sleep. The odd time I can't, but luckily she seems to make the second nap longer so it evens out, more or less.

As far as night feeds, I would think they should manage with one or two, so c probably doesn't need three.  You can do pat/shh or pupd, or gentle removal where you nurse less and less each time to cut them out. I did pat/shh to cut out the 10:30 pm feed, it took probably 4-5 nights.

Laura, I shall visit your thread in gs and post there for you :)





Offline Sarah - Enfys' Mum

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Re: 8.5 month twins, night waking and early morning waking,
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2014, 08:52:07 am »
I hope they nap ok