Feel like they're not sleeping enough

Well, right now one of them is crying in bed after a 30 minute nap.

They sleep about 10 hours at night. We've been starting bedtime earlier and earlier because they just become inconsolable. Right now, they're generally asleep by 8-8:30. They're up for good at 6:30AM. I can't for the life of me get them to sleep longer, and to be honest, the only reason they "sleep" past 5:00 am is because I bring them to bed and become a human pacifier for the last hour and a half. Are there actually people out there who can get up before their babies? And who are these babies I hear about who coo and chatter sweetly over the monitor when they wake up?

Mornings start off OK, but go downhill FAST, and I feel like I race trying to get them nursed, changed, me scarf a bowl of cereal, feed them their oatmeal, nurse again, and back for a nap. Sometimes this nap is a nice, 2 hour one. Generally it's only 1 hour.

The rest of the day ends up a disaster and I just count down until bedtime. Whining and fussiness, and then finally I'll get them to nap when cheering them up becomes impossible. Repeat. I think some days they end up with about 3 30 minute naps in the afternoon. And let me tell you, I'm getting tired of taking two trips upstairs to get them up, two up to bring them down, when all they do is sleep for such a piddly amount. I feel like I don't even want to pretend to be happy anymore because nothing I can do for them keeps them happy for longer than 3 minutes. I feel like I nurse every hour, just because it's something that keeps them quiet for a few minutes, even if they're not actually hungry or anything.

And I'm so exhausted. Hubby's been doing a TON of work around the house to get it ready to sell, so I feel badly complaining, but I haven't gotten more than 2 hours of solid sleep in what seems like, well, 7 months. It's adding up, and I feel like a zombie.

I'm daydreaming about walking away and coming back home in a week. And this sounds even worse, but I'm like looking forward to getting my gallbladder taken out because I'll get to "sleep" during surgery. Gyuh.

 

I don't have any advice, but I can say I feel the same way. My girls (who'll be 4 months on Monday) will get to bed around 8 (after I start the process around 6:45) and D will stay asleep (with a little fussiness during the night) until around 6:30 while L will wake up at least once during the night wanting a bottle. Then during the day it's eat, play for about 20 minutes, and then fuss and cry until I get them to sleep for about 20-30 minutes and then they fuss/smile until the next feeding.

A happy baby is a baby who sleeps, and I cannot figure out how to get them to take better naps! Maybe we'll find the answer together.

 

Wow! I thought I was the only one who DIDN'T get up before their babies! Mornings are hard--and a bad morning definitely gets the day off to a bad start and downhill from there I hope you get some good suggestions.

 

I'm across the ocean, hoping the same thing! My girls are five and a half months old now and really bad at napping. The nights are better as they always go back to bed without a problem after nursing, but they still eat at about 12, 3, 6, 8 and then the day starts.

A big sympathy hug to you!

 

My daughter was a terrible napper. For the life of me I could never figure out what her problem was. We suffered with her until she turned 15 months. The days were bad and worse. I was just like you, could not believe that ppl were tellng the truth about babies, who nap.
Now, I think I did everything the same way with my twins and the boys are great with the sleep.
Would they sleep better during the day if you took them for a walk? In the swing? In the car? With white noise?
I'm sorry I don't have a real advice for you. :hug:

 

Maybe they are overtired & that's why they aren't napping long in the afternoon. How soon after the first nap are you putting them down for the second nap? Maybe you need more of a schedule? I would try putting them down for the afternoon nap before they get too fussy & keep it at the same time for a week or two. For what it's worth, I never was able to get up in the morning before any of my kids! I was never lucky enough to have those sleeping babies, I guess. Sorry, I wish I had more advice for you. :hug:

 

I think you've got all you can get out their nighttime sleep, but 1/2 an hour isn't good enough for a nap by a long shot. Ideally they could take an hour, 1.5 hour am nap then a LONG pm nap (minimum of 2 hours... maximum dare I say 4?!) My rule is you do not have to sleep, but there's no way I'm getting you up, either. If they wake up, they fuss for a little bit (ok, a lot bit in the beginning) and go back to sleep. I really try not to comfort nurse unless something major happens and they have trouble calming down- I used to have a boss who brought her baby to work and would comfort nurse the baby/1 year old every hour or so... it turned me off to that. :hush: I find that when the boys are uncontent like that (2 minutes per toy, etc)- we've got to get out of the house. If we spend a day at a friends' house or out for a couple of hours they are much better when they get home.

 

My one baby is a great napper but my other isn't. So last week I started putting her in the Jumperoo about 30 minutes before naptime and she jumps so hard she is exhausted by naptime and presto-ZZZZZZZZ'S. I also second the white noise machine, I don't think my kiddos could go to sleep without it. Good luck.

 

Getting twins on a good sleeping/nap schedule is frickin hard yet so incredibly important (as you know). Mine started napping rather crappily (is that a word?) around 7 months old, particularly A who regularly took 30 minute naps. At that point they were taking 3ish naps a day (the "ish" was a 4th catnap before bed). That didn't seem to be working for them. So I overhauled their schedule - I put them on a slightly modified 2-3-4 schedule and extended the time between their bottles to 4 hours (they had previously had a bottle every 3 hrs). That helped A LOT. So they now go down for their first nap 2 hours after they wake up (sometime between 6:30-7am...and I am DEFINITELY not one of those people who gets up before their kids) - they sleep anywhere from 1-1.5 hrs for this nap (sometimes less but not often) then have their second nap 3 hours after they got up from their first nap (the afternoon nap is anywhere from 1.5-2.5 hrs). The modified bit comes at bedtime - on a 2-3-4 schedule they are supposed to go to sleep 4 hours after they get up from the last nap but that doesn't work well for them. Instead they take a short catnap (usually in the stroller because we go for walks most evenings) before their last bottle at 7:30pm and then in bed at 8pm.

Another thing: they will often start crying while napping and if it happens when they've been asleep for less than an hour I will let them whine a little and the majority of the time they will go right back to bed (just moving through sleep cycles). You'll know when the crying is insistent enough to mean "I'm done napping now!" I also separate them for naps - not sure if you can do this but we have a crib set up in our bedroom and A naps in there and V naps in the nursery. They don't seem to sleep as deeply during naps so are more prone to waking the other up when they cry. I have also been known to take a baby into bed with me when they wake up from a nap early and we both get some more sleep. I don't do that if both are up but it's usually A who wakes up early so I just scoop her up and we snuggle until we're both asleep. Also, if they only nap for an hour that's not horrible - ideally they'll nap longer but as I said above, sometimes mine only nap for an hour and that just means they'll need to go down earlier for their second nap and tend to sleep longer (sometimes 2.5-3 hrs). Things are always shifting so try not to stress yourself out if they are going through a screwed up napping phase at the moment. You might also want to check out Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep/Nap Solution as she has some good tips on getting your babes to nap longer (helping them move through to the next sleep cycle without completely waking up). Good luck!! :grouphug:

 

The routine that helped us was the 90min rule. Going by the 90min wake/sleep cycle of our body. Every 90min we are receptive to sleep. My duo are bang on to 90min. If I get them down 90min after they wake up we're good to go for the rest of the day. The 90min starts from when they wake up. It takes about 2weeks to catch up on sleep but we started to see the naps slowly get longer and longer. Now they get up at 7, down at 8:30 for the first nap of day. They sleep anywhere from 2hrs to 3 if we had a rough night, but usually 2. If they are up at 10:30 they sometimes will skip one cycle and stay up for 3hrs - down at 1:30 and sleep for 3hrs. Up at 4:30 and then down again at 7:30. They dont' show signs of being tired other than the odd eye rub, ear pull. I went from having to rock them/nurse them to sleep to being able to feed them, have them awake, put them down walk out and them fall asleep.

There is a book out there about it - the N.A.P.S. 90min routine...amazing how it worked for us.

 

Mine are a lot younger than yours, but if it helps at all, they go to bed at 6:45!!! I hate putting them to bed that early, but they are miserable from that point on, and keeping them up later doesn't help them sleep later. They get up at 6:30. I do believe that sleep begets sleep - so the more they sleep the easier it is to get them to sleep. When they are overtired, it's really hard.

 

I didn't read all the replies so some of this may be repeat. I am going to just throw out a couple of drastic ideas. From what you describe they seem to be overtired (and we know you are overtired poor thing.) I would try a couple things. First, I would try a drastically earlier bedtime. Ironically, if you can get that bedtime timed out right, you can get a longer duration of sleep. Read about this in Marc Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child book - he talks about natural biological rhythms in a majority of children (get it if you don't have it - sleep bible IMO) I would not even go gradual...I would get them to bed by 6:30/7:00 pm latest. Many mamas on here can attest to this method (although many find the later bedtime can work, doesn't sound like it is getting your 11.5-12 hrs of sleep that is standard for this age at night.) Mine at 14 mos still go to bed by 6:30 and wake up between 6-7 in the morning. Second, if they wake at 5:00 am, don't get up "for the day" - act like it is 3:00 am. Get them their milk and put them right back down. Be quiet and calm about it. They will most likely fuss but see if you can extend that morning sleep if they don't do it themselves after trying the early bedtime. The goal at this age is to try to get that midmorning (9ish) nap and then an afternoon nap (1ish) and sometimes even a late cat nap...although mine never did that one. Obviously, some babies don't need the same amount of sleep but if I remember correct at that age they will be generally sleeping 11-13 hrs at night and another 3-4 hours during the day optimally, so it seems that they should be capable of more, especially since they are cranky during the day.

Lastly, we have the coo'ers in the bed for 1 hour after they wake if they wake too early. Sometimes they go back to sleep, sometimes they whine and cry. Honestly, my reactions seem to dictate a lot of what they do...they have figured me out. They were criers and one day I decided I had to get them more sleep, so I started leaving them to work it out. I remember any change I made taking a few days but improvement would always come. Logistically, we started putting a size higher diaper on them at night. Many times they would wake early because their diapers were so full (or pajamas soaked) they were uncomfortable. The higher size diaper at night still today brings instant results. I have been in your shoes many times when I realized I had to make an adjustment fast, try to be brave and figure this out. I get ribbed a lot for being a book reader, but I can't recommend HSHHC enough. Sleep is so important for everyone's health and sanity. Keep us in check on what worked for you to share with others.

 

Haven't read all posts - no time as holding a certain little girl who won't nap at all- with one hand while typing with other.

I KNOW they are not having enough sleep, and it's doing my head in trying to work out how to change this. I feel ilke I've tried everything.

I'm about to go and feed her - maybe she'll 'nap' for me then? (laughs hysterically ) :headbang: :rotflmbo: