Night Wakings and Early Rising 8 month olds

[twinmama2]

I have 8 month old twin boys who have never been good sleepers   We have been working on sleep training and they are now going down for naps and for bed with very little to no fussing (YAY!).  After tweaking their awake time, they are now taking great naps as well.  We're tackling one issue at a time, and are slowly getting there.  The problems we still have are that they are up 1-2 times at night and they get up around 5am.  I guess I'd like to tackle the early rising first, as they still seem to really eat at the night wakings so I'm not sure they're ready to drop those yet. 

This is what our schedule usually looks like:
5:00 awake, we leave them in their cribs and they often fuss/cry for a while.  Sometimes they'll go back to sleep, sometimes not.  We get them up if they get too upset.
6:00 or 6:30 up for the day
7:30 breastfeed
8:30 nap, usually down for 1-1.5 hours
10:30 breastfeed
11:30/12:00 nap for 1-1.5 hours
1:00 solids(~3oz) then breastfeed
3:30 nap, this nap is shorter, usually 45min-1hour
4:30 breastfeed
5:15 solids (~5oz)
6:00 breastfeed and get ready for bed, begin bedtime routine
6:30 in cribs, falling asleep

Their night wakings are very unpredictable.  Sometimes they're up at 10:00p and 2:00a, sometimes they go all the way until 1:00, once J even went all the way to 4:00a.  We never know what the night will bring!  They are usually up for 10-15 minutes to breastfeed and then back to bed.  Sometimes they're asleep already when we put them back down, sometimes not but they don't usually fuss when they go back to their cribs (except when teething or sick). 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  Do you see something in our schedule that I need to adjust to help with night wakings and early rising? 
Thank you!

[Layla]

I would work towards eliminating the catnap... most 8mo's don't take the 3rd nap anymore and can be stretched to 3hrs A time (some do more). I would aim for pushing the morning nap to 9am and not letting them sleep more than 1.5hrs and then stretching their afternoon nap to 1.30pm and with that you will see that there won't be enough time for them to take the catnap and do bedtime around 6-6.30pm.

Here's the link to the 3-2 nap transition. Let me know what you think....All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

[twinmama2]

Thanks for the suggestion.  We are trying to stretch their awake time a little longer each day and working towards eliminating that third nap.  However, things just seem to be falling apart this last week!  Their naps are shorter (we're lucky to get an hour, usually more like 30-45 minutes), they are having a harder time going to bed, and we are having MANY night wakings.  They are often up every 30-60 minutes for the first 3-4 hours after they go to bed, then they're up another 2-3 times the rest of the night.  HELP!  Are they possibly over-tired and not ready to drop the catnap?  I am at a complete loss, I have no clue what to do!  I really appreciate any insight.
Thanks!

[Layla]

Could you post what the last couple of days have looked like?

[3littlemen]

hugs twinmamma - it's hard enough with one, let alone two! what sort of a time are they pushing? I'm having a bit of pain with this myself so know how much **fun** it is...

[twinmama2]

We just got back from a vacation and are trying to get back onto a routine.   We tried to stick to their normal nap and sleep routine while we were gone, but I know it might take a little bit to get back into our routine now that we're home (but our "routine" wasn't really working for us anyway!). 
A pretty typical day since we started trying to drop the catnap has been like this (before and after the vacation):

Awake between 6:00-6:30
7:00 breastfeed
8:15 solid foods (usually oatmeal and fruit)
9:00 nap (1hr 15min is usually the max that they'll sleep)
11:00 breastfeed
1:00 nap (again, usually no more than 1hr 15min)
3:00 breastfeed
5:00 solid foods
Bed between 6:30-7:00
Then half an hour after they are asleep they are usually up and screaming, and take at least an hour to settle back to sleep.  Then our night wakings are hit or miss - two night wakings is a good night.  But Jackson has been up every two hours lately, not hungry or really upset, just seems wide awake and wanting to play. 

They are waking a little later in the morning, but the naps can be anywhere from 30-75 minutes and if they have a 30 minute nap that really throws off the rest of the day.  I've tried putting them to bed earlier, thinking they are OT, but they really fight the bedtime then.  They are usually very happy playing together in the evenings and not showing signs of tiredness until 6:15 at the earliest - even if their last nap was really short.

Is this just a transition time that we need to just get through, or am I doing something wrong with their routine?  Night wakings have definitely increased since we started transitioning to two naps. 

Thank you so much for your help!

[twinmama2]

Not sure what to do anymore...we've still been trying to drop the third nap and our days have not been too bad, but the nights have been AWFUL.  This was our day today:
6:20 awake
7:00 breastfeed
8:15 solids
9:25-10:35 nap
11:10 breastfeed
1:30 breastfeed
1:45-3:15 nap (Levi was awake at 2:20 and had to be nursed back to sleep, but Jackson slept the whole time)
3:30 breastfeed
4:30 solids
5:30 breastfeed
6:00 bed, asleep very quickly with almost no fuss
BUT THEN...6:40 both awake and very upset.  We spent the next two hours soothing them until I finally caved and breastfed them for a bit before putting them back down.  They were awake when we put them down that time, and only fussed a minute or two. 
I don't have much hope for the night - if this happens in the evening that's usually a sign of the night to come - I expect many night wakings. 

My DH starts working evenings in a couple weeks and I don't think I can physically do this by myself!  I can't sooth two babies at the same time!  I really need help figuring this out before then.  I am considering trying wake-to-sleep after the first half-hour of their sleep.  We struggled with waking after 30-40 minutes for naps and at bedtime for quite a while but it was resolved by extending their awake times.  Now, we are back to the old habits .  Do you think wake-to-sleep will work for this problem?  Or is there something else going on that I'm missing? 

[Skadiver13]

Hi hun, typically waking after 30min from BT is indicative of being OT. For that first nap are they waking themselves or are you waking them up. If they are waking that looks like an UT nap which could cause you to be in an UT/OT loop. Basically they are UT for their first nap so they short nap but then become OT because they didn't get enough sleep and the second A time was too long

Secondly, do they go to sleep independently? I.e. you put them down awake and they go to sleep themselves?