Newborn sleep question

[jd]

Hi Ladies! 

I have a sleep-related question that I was hoping those of you who have BDTD could shed some light on. My twins will be 7 weeks old on Wednesday, and while we're sloooowly but surely starting to see more of a consistent pattern in their behavior, their sleep is still all over the place. They'll generally have their last feed at the same time at night, but inevitably, one gets fussy and simply does not go down. What ends up happening then is that one will just stay up fussing while the other goes through one (or more!) sleep-feed-change cycles. One night it's baby boy who'll be up fussing, the next night it's baby girl...and on and on and on . On some nights, the fussy one has gone down just in time for the restful one to wake after a 4.5 hour stretch.

I know they're still very young and I can't hope for much of a routine, but if any of you have suggestions or experiences with this pattern, I'd appreciate the insight! It's incredibly frustrating never being able to take advantage of one baby's 4.5-5 hour sleep stretch because the other baby is up fussing, and it throws to the wind any hope of getting them on the same schedule. As I'm sure you've all thought at some point, I keep thinking "well, if we only had one baby, I could rest now" and of course, I'd prefer to change that thought pattern ASAP. Thanks in advance!

[richzep]

Don't beat yourself up for thinking if you had one you could rest right now. Mine are 14 months and I'm constantly thinking that.
Anyway, they are still pretty young but not so young that you can't start a routine. Beginning a half hour before bedtime, start your routine. Whatever you want that to be (bath, lotion, book, cuddles, etc). Do the same thing at the same time every day. They will catch on sooner than you think.
Figure out what the fussiness is about. Hunger? Overtired? Colic? And try to address that. Did the one that's not going down just wake up from a nap? Try keeping them up for at least 90 minutes prior to bedtime (including bedtime routine).
Or have they been up for far too long? Try following a 90 minute routine throughout the whole day so that bedtime isn't thrown off either. I followed the EASY schedule but you can do whatever works for you.
My twins used to cry for no reason at all. I would give them colic calm and it would help a bit.
It is so so hard and so frustrating. Hang in there and keep doing what you're doing. You're the best mama your kids have got.

[mc13]

No real help here as we have the same thing going on. Our girls will be 10 weeks on Thursday and it's slowly getting better. They were actually both asleep by 830 last night!!

What we started doing was shutting off all the lights in the house except the tv after DD1 goes to bed at 7 then I nurse them and DH and I each burp and rock one. I think they were overtired and over stimulated from dinner time and DD1 being excite that daddy was home from work. Cutting out a lot of the distractions is what's helping I think.

[twobananas]

Hang in there, there were plenty of times I thought about how much easier it would be with just one I second the idea of a routine, and while this idea may not be super popular, you could consider some sort of sleep training technique. My son hates going to bed, and nothing I do helps that, whether I rock him, rub his back, or anything else. You could try letting them fuss a bit and see if they go to sleep on their own... but only as much as you feel comfortable doing!

[jd]

Thanks so much for the supportive replies, ladies! I'm going to work harder on establishing a bedtime routine, and on trying to keep them both awake for awhile before bedtime. Beyond that, I'll just work on staying sane through the newborn phase! You guys are awesome. Thanks again!

[twobananas]

Nov 1, 2016 20:10:03 GMT -5 jd said:

Thanks so much for the supportive replies, ladies! I'm going to work harder on establishing a bedtime routine, and on trying to keep them both awake for awhile before bedtime. Beyond that, I'll just work on staying sane through the newborn phase! You guys are awesome. Thanks again!

Also, I firmly believe that sleep begets sleep... so in most cases, more sleep, even during the day, is better!

[fightersince83]

I have not BTDT so excuse my
naive ass if this is a bad suggestion, but with DD I followed the "12 hours sleep by 12 weeks" program and we were very happy with it. There are parameters to start it. She doesn't recommend starting before 8 weeks or before babies reach a certain weight (I don't remember the specifics right now). We started around 8.5 weeks and it was pretty consistent by 14 weeks for us. I do remember the 6-8 week stretch was particularly rough for us. DD hit a growth spurt and she was super hungry and fussy. We used mommy's bliss gripe water since she was so gassy and ended up putting her on Zantac for reflux which she was able to stop around 9 mo. GL and I'll probably be on here begging for suggestions when my triplets come

[jd]

Nov 1, 2016 23:49:35 GMT -5 @feegan said:

Like richzep said, don't beat yourself up, we've all thought that. (And I still do at times, double toddler tantrums are no joke!)

+1 to establishing a bedtime routine, also, what time is bedtime? I ask because when we were in the newborn trenches we kept the every 90 min of eat, play, sleep, routine going until we went to bed, which was way too late. The thought simply didn't occur to us to make their bedtime early, once we realized our mistake and moved bedtime from 9 PM to 6 PM everyone started sleeping. Maybe you already figured this out, but mentioning in case you're so sleep deprived you hadn't thought of that.

And a big +1 to eliminating stimulation prior to bed time, that really cut down on the over all fussiness over here too. We cut the lights, except a soft night light or the tv, and played "Jammy Jams" on Pandora until we put them in bed with the sound machine. I feel like it was a nice calming transition.

You're doing great, just keep reminding yourself that. The beginning is incredibly difficult, but the reward is double the smiles very soon!

EDIT: Duplicate post. 

[jd]

Nov 1, 2016 23:49:35 GMT -5 @feegan said:

Like richzep said, don't beat yourself up, we've all thought that. (And I still do at times, double toddler tantrums are no joke!)

+1 to establishing a bedtime routine, also, what time is bedtime? I ask because when we were in the newborn trenches we kept the every 90 min of eat, play, sleep, routine going until we went to bed, which was way too late. The thought simply didn't occur to us to make their bedtime early, once we realized our mistake and moved bedtime from 9 PM to 6 PM everyone started sleeping. Maybe you already figured this out, but mentioning in case you're so sleep deprived you hadn't thought of that.

And a big +1 to eliminating stimulation prior to bed time, that really cut down on the over all fussiness over here too. We cut the lights, except a soft night light or the tv, and played "Jammy Jams" on Pandora until we put them in bed with the sound machine. I feel like it was a nice calming transition.

You're doing great, just keep reminding yourself that. The beginning is incredibly difficult, but the reward is double the smiles very soon!

Ha, you're right--even though we've had a pretty consistent night routine (feed, change, quiet walk in the stroller, dim lights and white noise when we return), bedtime for them has been when we're ready to put them down for the night based on our own schedule. That's typically at the same time every night, but it's definitely late. We'll work toward trying to shift that earlier and hope it makes a difference. Thanks for the suggestion!

[schmella]

You've gotten great advice. fightersince83, I know tons of twin mamas who used 12hrs by 12 weeks with great success. The only tricky part is that because so many twins are preemies, you usually can't start right at 8 weeks (it might be 8w adjusted? I don't know the specifics).
I saw a lot of mentions of EASY or Eat Play Sleep, which didn't work for us (Mine liked Eat Sleep Play) so don't stress if it doesn't fit what's working for you guys. Also the early bedtime didn't work for us until closer to 12 weeks, mine were just night owls.
We were on a pretty strict 3hr cycle during the day at that point. Both of my kids had reflux, so once we got them on Zantac sleep got MUCH better. I'm also with twobananas as far as sleep begets sleep is concerned, and if one of yours is staying awake for a full cycle, that points to overtiredness to me. I STILL reference the chart on this site for "normal" baby sleep: www.preciouslittlesleep.com/baby-sleep-what-is-normal/
I'm not big on books or methods until I need them, so I like the simplicity this site offered.
6-8 weeks is pretty brutal, but 8 weeks was a big turning point for us, so hang in there!

As far as bedtime/overnight is concerned though, does YH help with MOTN stuff? If so, and your twins are completely not in sync, might consider each parent picking a twin for the night and alternating so you at least get a decent stretch somewhere. If not, I did all MOTN after 4 weeks, and I handed the kids to MH (and usually MIL or my sister) after their second to last feeding, did a power pump for an hour, and went to bed SUPER early. MH put them to bed (with help from someone usually) and that was the only way I got more than a 2hr stretch for a little while. Its hard. Hang in there, it DEFINITELY gets better!