Sleep and EASY support for twins and multiples

[kayra]

You wouldn't wake the sleeping one if one did a short nap tho would you? So in that scenario the short napper would just have to stick it out till next nap time, right?

[babybarr]

Nope. I never woke the sleeping one if one short napped unless it was getting silly. I would always try to extend the short nap when possible.

[kayra]

So would the short napper manage the next a time? And did you set things according to the wake up time or regardless of the wake up time say nap 1 is at x time and nap 2 is at y time?
Liz you said you'd wished you'd gone to set naps sooner? When would you have and why? Yesterday I thoughts I'd found the magical a times, today apparent not

[4isstillnighttime]

I was v anxious when the twins were little, and I have found set naps enormously helpful. I guess it depends on your babies....but by 6 months or so I think it would have been helpful. I went all out to extend the naps, even down to taking the woken up one into bed with me and feeding back to sleep.  And if I really couldn't.....I would wake the other twin after 15 mins. It broke my heart but I needed them in sync for my sanity!!! Set naps stopped me having to do that and they coped so well I was a amazed!


Our nights have been pretty bad recently  please send the girls sleepy vibes!!

[babybarr]

We did it pretty much by the clock give or take 15mins or so. Once they start solids it also helps being able to plan the food and sleep.

It helps their body clocks. However as much as you don't want to hear this I think you just need to ride out the next couple of months

[kayra]

Yeah it's too early to do anything now, they were pretty much in sync today and I must admit it was lovely to get the brake of them napping at the same time! I even made dinner!! I must say its so much better now that they can cope with longer a times, less it screaming at bedtime 😄
Sorry about the nights Liz, any idea what's causing it's?

[4isstillnighttime]

Teeth and separation anxiety and colds all at once I think. Plus we should go to one nap I think. Here is my easy....any thoughts?

Wake up between 5:20 (aaarrrggghhh) and 6. Any time after 5:45 and lights on, before that I shh pat or hold hands til 6
Cat nap 9-9:15 - C usually, Z hit or miss. Recently it's started getting later too as they take ages to settle.
Nap 1-3. But if cn was late then a bit later. Up at 3 regardless
BT 7.

Z requires me to hold her hand til she is really asleep. Started out of the blue. I think she is having nightmares as she sometimes wakes up screaming, sweating and inconsolable. This all started when  I went back to work. But....if she doesn't have a nightmare she sleeps through usually
C will settle with her dummy. Occ wants me in the room but don't need to do anything. But wakes up between 1-4 times in the night. Sometimes resettles herself but still wakes me, you know?

CM v keen to keep am nap and they are good as gold for her....

[Uglybethy]

Hi ladies
I'm sorry I've been missing from the boards for a while... Been studying for some exams and we are in the middle of trying to move house.
Quick update on us...  The girls are almost 16 months now. All doing well. Settled into one long nap from 11.30-2.00. And we do a thirteen hour day and an 11 hour night now.
We recently had a sleep regression after a couple of months of them sleeping through the night. One or both of them would wake up at 1 and not resettle until about 4... It was hell and we did resort to feeding back to sleep which became a prop which we then had to get rid of. But we are back to normal again now.
Liz, with all due respect to your childminder I'm sure she does love having them on two naps.. Two breaks a day from two needy little people, but you need your nights (no one is paying you for the night shifts!). If you think it feels right then make the transition to one nap... I too wonder if it will benefit everyone at night time. When deciding to make that transition myself I remember finding that they were undertired at bed time and realising that they really needed to be awake by 2pm from their nap to be tired enough for bed time, which meant there simply wasn't time for two naps in the morning... How is bed time for you all ATM?
And I agree also that I was very keen on synchronising my girls right from the start and I very reluctantly woke the second baby no later than fifteen minutes after the first. I too went all out to extend a short nap but if there was no going back down then I woke the second baby for the sake of synchronising and just put them both down a little earlier for their next nap.
I synchronised mine this way from the start and the only exception was at the four month stage when we synchd the first two naps and I made the cat nap optional on the premise that if anyone skipped it then they had an early night. Mostly, they both took it though tbh.
It's good to hear how you are all doing you amazing mummas, although I also feel your sleep deprived pain and the torturous turmoil that having multiples brings to the mix in your posts.
X

[kayra]

Liz I agree that if you think cutting the am catnap is going to solve things then go for it, you call the shots not the child minder! Might they need an earlier bedtime if they're waking so early?
Nice to see you Beth, I was getting worried that sthg was up with one of the girls-one was ill? Those nw sound evil, here's me thinking it'll get better as they get older 😛
Ds is rolling which wakes him a lot at night but he's getting better at resettling. However last night he fed every 4 hrs (ie bt bottle around 7, woke to feed at 11 and 3 then up just before 7) not awful I know but he used to from bedtime till about 2, and these double nw have been going on for a while so I don't think its a gs. I'm trying to say it could be worse but wouldn't say no to more sleep either :p

I really struggle to wake a sleeping baby so prefer not syncing for now,  but 6mths, solids etc will hopefully motivate me. I wonder is there an optimal time, like if you don't sync by a certain age their body clocks won't adjust or sthg..?

[4isstillnighttime]

I'm sure there isn't kayra - I am now synced with the girls and I am ancient!! I found it really helpful to work v hard on rolling tummy to back in the day so they could roll back if they wanted...but I let them tummy sleep once they could roll so maybe that was what helped!

Yay Beth! Lovely to hear from you! Tough times with the NW. I hate long NW, I barely wake up with the short ones but if I do wake up properly I really struggle to get back to sleep!

The thing with the twins and the CN is that they actually sleep better on CM days....but I just cannot enforce it! Take today - we had to be out 12-1 with no alternatives so the slept 9:15-9:45 in the morning. Then....2-2:45 in the afternoon, woke up screaming, wouldn't resettle. I tried to get them to bed early but it was 6:30 before C went down and 7 before Z did. And I can feel all the old nap anxiety bubbling up..... I'll talk to the CM again on Monday and see what she thinks.

Good vibes for everyone for tonight.  Am dreading it.....

[*Kara*]

Hi Ladies!  Well, we are out of the sleepy newborn phase now so time to get something organized with EASY so I don't lose my mind!  Where do I even start??  The girls were born at 35+2 so not sure how this typically effects A times - experience??

[kayra]

HI Kara! Have been thinking of you
How many weeks are they now? At that stage the only predictable thing we had was feeding every 3 hours-ish (so maybe it wasn't that predictable :p) and we'd get some kind of a nap in each cycle but dd was quite difficult in that area and ds was easier. I think we were at about 1 hour a time-in theory. Basically lots of going with the flow whilst imagining I had a routine going

[*Kara*]

They will be 8 weeks tomorrow!  Adjusted age is 3 weeks though.

They came home from the NICU on a 4 hr eating cycle (the hospital had them started at 3 hrs and moved to 4 hrs by day 7!  I have tried to pull them back but they won't have it!  Up until just recently, they happily ate and went back to sleep until their next E time even on a 4 hr routine!  It was crazy! I think our A time is somewhere between 1 hr and 1 hr 15 mins...  They go anywhere from 4-6 hrs at night...

Does everyone wake the sleeping twin overnight when the first wakes to eat?  I have been

[kayra]

I didn't, I tried once but it was impossible to rouse him enough to feed. Then I figured they're sleeping patterns could be totally different so didn't want to mess with it. However I was getting help with nf from my parents, had I been doing them completely by myself I may have opted differently..

[*Kara*]

Hmm, Charlotte almost always wakes first so we do wake Sophia to feed her at the same time (thankfully, she happily eats!)... I have wondered though if she would sleep a fair bit longer if left alone!  I just don't want to end up where we get to the point that one twin is ready to drop all NFs yet is being woken simply because her sister is!  I don't do night feeds alone, DH does feed one baby and I feed the other (we are only bottle feeding them, I didn't even try to BF the two of them... which I now regret on some level).  I suspect he would be less eager to help if I only fed the one twin who woke up!