Help needed with twins - things getting worse pg 22

[Uglybethy]

Well what works best for the school runs?
I do 8.30-9.15 and 12.30-2.30 naps... The first nap is always under tired but at least they wake up chatting rather than screaming!
And by now I'm not really seeing sleep cues as such they just know that a drink of water from a beaker followed by laying down in cots with sleep sacks on and white noise and dummies means nap/quiet time.
Sometimes they play for a bit before dropping off sometimes they drop off straight away. As long as they've had 30-45 mins for first nap I don't sweat it and 90-120 mins for second. As soon as I stopped sweating it they needed waking from both naps! People around me do not understand why I wake sleeping babies and think I am mad but I do it to preserve the the schedule and most importantly bed time!
Sending hugs as you work this through, as always...

[babybarr]

What time is your wake up and bedtime. I just feel like I keep chopping and changing. We used to have 8.30 nap but I changed it to the later time to try and stop the ew. Couldn't do am nap before 8.45am.

Beth do you just put them down and allow them to chat until they fall asleep?

[Uglybethy]

6-6.30 wake up time, 6.30-7pm bed time.
Yep I just let them chat or roll around or throw their dummies out of the cot one by one... Whatever floats their boats! If they don't drop off to sleep on their own, Eventually (usually after ten minutes tops) they do an 'I'm ready for sleep now cry' and I lay them back down put a dummy in their hand and off they go.
It's so anxiety provoking when one drops off straight away and the other is all chatty but they are never more than 15 mins apart usually.

[babybarr]

So if I did 8.45 am nap what time would you do pm nap? I'm going to stick to the times for at least a wk and persevere with letting them self settle going down for naps  and then tackle other stuff how does that sound? They'll self settle down at bedtime no problems so hopefully doing it for naps will help. Currently I literally take them to their room give them a cuddle they shut their eyes I put them down as soon as the eyes shut. Is that really bad? They're not fully asleep usually have a wriggle then go off.

[4isstillnighttime]

All babies are different but for C that would be a massive problem - she has to be pretty awake going in her cot or we get lots of NW. Z not so much. When I started putting C down awake I would cuddle her in her cot with her cheek against mine shhhhing in her ear. Then we progressed to patting, back rubbing, etc. Sometimes I have to literally pin her down to stop her rolling and crawling. But mostly now she falls asleep with no hands on her and me sitting by the door. Dummy makes it loads easier as she will plug herself in nicely when awake!

[babybarr]

I think it is part of the problem. What do you do in the night though when they feed and you put them down awake and the make lots of noise or do you just let them get on with it?

So j did a 2hr nap but is struggling to go off to sleep. H fell asleep at about 7.10pm independently. The other prob we have with self settling at bed is they're often sick. I'm just leaving j unless he cries. He bangs his legs and makes grunting noises but hopefully will settle soon. Will be interesting to see what sort of night we get. When I was in hospital they were settling themselves for all naps so clearly I'm making things worse. I just need the strength to do it. Is it ok to pick up when they cry? Then put down when they stop?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Will they be comforted in the crib? I pat E through the bars or lean over and put a bit of pressure on her bum whilst patting (sleeps on tummy) and try that for 10-15 min before resorting to picking her up. She is way too spirited for any version of pu/pd! Just makes her mad.

I let her roll around and grizzle until it is a real "I need you cry" and although she is in her own room I am amazed no one else hears her as I dont use the monitor anymore because she is that loud!

[4isstillnighttime]

At night after feeding it's usually one squawk then to sleep and the other one sleeps through it. They are pretty much asleep when I put them down but I don't think that matters much as long as they go into their cots awake at the start of the night.

Pupd was a disaster for C, as was the no cry sleep solution, when I was trying to stop feeding them to sleep. She just got confused and was really hyper vigilant, waiting for me to put her down.  Shh pat worked really well for us, or back rubs, initially totally to sleep (and repeat at each waking), then firm hand on back, then shhhhing in her ear, then next to the cot. We are at the nursery door shhing and if she wakes up I can sometimes shh her back to sleep without touching her. I'm not saying it was a no tears solution, but it was surprisingly ok.

Your babies settle worse when you are there because they love you so much. You should be v proud of that!!

[4isstillnighttime]

Yy just like MSE said. I only picked up if they vomited or if they got really upset, which tbh has only happened about 3 times. There was a fair but of rage to start with but they were hardly ever really upset (and if they were I just gave up and put them in the pushchair for a walk). I think with all ST you have to look after yourself first and foremost. So I know I get really upset if they are both crying, so if I am trying to resettle during a nap and they are both crying I just give up. Same at night, if both screaming then will feed even if have only just fed one. And why I've given C back her dummy. I think if you get upset by it it is always a bad thing. Twins is hard enough without putting yourself through anything else, and it's important to enjoy your babies not feel like you are in a battle with them.

This is the wisdom I have found from this site!!

[babybarr]

Tbh settling to sleep I don't think will be an issue. Usually at nf they fall asleep. It's just resettling naps which will be an issue or settling without a feed. This is why I pick up to not disturb the other and hopefully keep them both asleep. I've tried settling them in cots but not consistently as I always end up picking up to avoid waking the other. Sigh

[babybarr]

Feeding regardless at night not so easy with bottles ... !

[4isstillnighttime]

Ha yes!! Poor little babies would explode with milk!

Resettling we do back rubs (they sleep on tummies) and they love it so much they don't cry usually even if they don't go to sleep. Also I find that in their first 30 mins of sleep they are v hard to wake so don't usually wake each other up. After that sometimes if one wakes and is crying then I pick them up. You can't win them all! And every time you do resettle in cot is a time when they have learned to go to sleep without being picked up.

You're doing a great job. I read a bit of your other thread and am in awe of how well you are coping.

[nippo]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for asking me to take a look at your thread. It's really interesting to read as you seem to have exactly the same routine as me!

As I said he previously, I'm really no expert on sleep training but I can tell you about our experience and what I think you could try...

As you know, my girls didn't sleep more than and hour all through the night and would sometimes do a three hour stretch if we were lucky.

Looking at your situation as a whole it seems to me that your babies are not able to resettle and probably don't need more than one feed a night.

We kind of worked this out with ours as they weren't finishing a bottle. Does this happen with you? Ours were using the bottle as a prop to go to sleep sometimes, and other times they would wake too soon for a feed and need us to rock/pace them to sleep.

We were quite drastic in our approach but it really worked. My husband took time off work (two weeks) and we split the babies. One with me and the other with my dh.

We decided to cut all the little night feeds and feed if they woke after 3am. We applied the shush pat technique and initially it was a LOT of crying. The first night was around 3.15hrs between 1am and when little twin went down. We kept doing this and it did get shorter but it did take time. They didn't always last this long. Some days were an hour, and some longer or less. We made sure that when we saw them drifting we stopped the patting and most of the shushing and just left our hand on their back. This meant they were learning to resettle (as in baby whisperer).

Eventually ( more than 6 weeks they began to sleep through the 1am wake up and it became a 4am wakeup which we fed at and they went straight back to sleep because they had learnt to resettle.

When we started on proper solids we found the 4am wake became 5am. And we followed Layla's advice and treated as a night waking - fed them a half bottle and put them down. They would then sleep until 7.30-8.

Once we got this sorted we put them back together and it took about 2 weeks for them to get used to each other. We let them cry when they woke up so the other twin would learn to sleep through. It is another skill to learn but they can learn it I think....we resisted the urge to split them and found than when putting them down our quiet twin would ignore screaming twin but it took a couple of weeks of us letting the situation happen so they could learn how to deal with it.

We then stopped feeding at 5am and shushed them back to sleep.

We started sleep training at 6 months and it took a full 2 months for them to finally sleep through until 6am. It was tough but worth it.

It is very hard to do it alone, you need your husband's help just to set the ball in motion. Once they understand what you are doing it all begins to get a bit easier...I also did their daytime naps alone. I put them into their separate rooms and settled one then settled the other with shush pat. As there were two I couldn't stay with them until they fell asleep so I would calm one then walk out to see to the other.

This helped give them the self settling skills at night.

I still give them 4 x 7oz bottles in the day with their solids...

I don't know if any of this helps really but please ask me any questions and I'll see if I can help in any way.

All babies are so different. Some take to sleep training quickly. For me it was very hard work and tears for a good 2 months...but each week there was an improvement and now we have the whole night and 2 daytime naps (and even a catnap if we're lucky). Our daytime naps aren't great - we still battle with getting them over an hour but you can't have everything sometimes!

[Uglybethy]

With regards to the timing of your second nap... It depends on what time you need to leave the house to do school run.
I'd allow two hours for the second nap. And change their nappies just before the nap so that you can either feed and run right out the door or just run right out the door for school run (depends what you're doing with the formula feeds. . I think you still giving four right?)
Good,luck with it...

[babybarr]

Ideally I'd need them up at 2.30pm for school run so I can feed milk before. Atm I have most days covered by people collecting o so it'd just be the odd day this would HAVE to be the case.

So last night
J asleep 7.20pm completely independent of me.
Woke around 3 to be fed took the whole bottle
Woke at 4.50am needed holding till he completely fell asleep

H asleep 7.10
Woke 2.15 was held till settled
Woke 4.30 to be fed but barely took anything
Woke 5.45 and I gave him to dh as I was too tired to do anything about it.

Clearly the being held is an issue but what do I do when I'm trying to keep the sleeping one asleep. Plus they wake o if I'm not careful and he really needs his sleep. Esp at 5am. He's had too many early starts just lately.

I do the same in naps if they wake after 40mins I hold them. So tired