sleeping

Hi everyone...

I have 5.5 mo old boys. My mom was visiting last week and was trying to help me get the boys to sleep at night in their crib (previously we were co-sleeping with hourly wake-ups).. I was not looking for STTN, just more like 2-3hrs before waking up. One baby took very easily and quickly to sucking this thumb and going to sleep in the crib. (he just started rolling over so we stopped swaddling his arms at this same time). The other one, is very stubborn. We started with constant patting, crying for 5min intervals and finally flat out cry it out, but he never NEVER went to sleep 3 nights in a row. He basically cried and cried and would rest for 10-20min periods but then cry again. I thought CIO usually works after 3 nights? We were so exhausted that we decided to take a break for a week, leave one baby in the crib and take the stubborn one back to bed with me.

At first the one in the crib was sleeping great, 3-4 hr stretches and once a 6 hr, but now he is back to waking up every 2 hrs. The one that is co-sleeping wakes up every 1-2hrs. So I am back to no sleep. Either they wake up alternating hours and I go into the one in the crib and nurse in the rocking chair, or they both end up waking up at the same time and then its a huge mess of crying and me back and forth between 2 rooms.

For naps the stubbon one is swaddled in the swing, where he goes to sleep very very fast, the other is in the crib and fusses a lot, often not sleeping at all. (previously he was in the swing for naps, but now rolls too much to leave unattended). Currently he is lightly crying and tossing and turning.

Both can usually sleep through the other's crying unless it happens between sleep cycles.

I am trying to follow the weissbluth book, but I just seem to be failing. Some mornings they wake up too early and have 2 morning naps, about 40 min each, other mornings they wake up too late and the first morning nap is not until 9:45 or 10. (i have not forced a wake up time b/c some nights our best sleep is from 5-8am). By late afternoon I am so tired that I cannot even keep track of how long they have been awake, so we just give up go out and about and they fall asleep if/when they are tired. I am really not a schedule person. I have a 4.5 yr old who was never on any schedule. I lived in nyc at the time and we were always out and about in the stroller and she just slept when she was tired. I tried a couple times to follow a schedule but i just could not. I really want/need a schedule for the twins... i do not see how we can exist much longer without one. With the 4.5 yr old, i never let her cry, tried all the Dr. Sears and Pantley no cry tips, but was never able to get her to sleep other than nursing her in my bed..... needless to say she still sleeps in our bed several nights a week.... so this time i am all for CIO, I just can't seem to make it work so far.

so... both napping and night sleeping is not going well. I need a plan. Which should I focus on first? Those of you who did CIO, how long did it take? Should I work on the baby who likes the crib and getting him to go longer stretches? If so, how? Should I try harder or differently with the stubborn one? any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

a couple more things.... adjusted age is 4.5 months.
bedtime is 7pm. babies are breastfed, aside from a 3oz supplement at 4:45 and a 4oz at 6:30

 

Are they eating at night, or just waking up? Do they take a pacifier? Do you have a white noise machine and room darkening curtains?

IMO, they are too young for CIO, but I understand how the sleep deprivation is so, so hard. I tried all the sleep methods, and none worked, so I finally gave in and did CIO at 9 months. But at that point, we were sure our boys didn't need to eat at night at all and just needed to learn to self-soothe rather than being rocked to sleep every time they woke up, and that their reflux was under control. We went in at intervals, so it took a bit longer than full-blown CIO. We did nights first - they were going to sleep on their own and STTN by night 5. We then did naps. The whole process took around 2 weeks until I felt like they were consistently going to sleep on their own and not needing us to help get them back to sleep at all.

As far as a schedule, at that age we followed the 90 min. sleep cycle rule - I knew they should be sleepy about 90 minutes after they woke up. We didn't really have a real set schedule until they went to two naps around 8 months.

 

Sorry! No answers here. My twins are the same age. They rarely sleep through the night either but I usually get at least 3-4 hr stretch. My DD has started rolling over too.

First of all, how often are the eating during the day? We pretty much have a 3 hr feeding schedule. I am going back to work next week so I am trying to really stay on top of getting them into a schedule for when I am gone; I'm not normally a scheduler either but with two I can't just feed whenever and I do have the rest of my family to care for. They need to be getting enough calories in the day to not want to eat all night; if they are "snacking" all night then make sure they get a good full tummy and then put them back down. I feed them when they first wake up so they don't nurse to sleep.

My DD is ready to give up a second morning nap, DS is not. We have used a co-sleeper beside the bed. It helps to have the babies near by and then I can pull them into bed to breastfeed. If they fall asleep in the swing I turn it off and leave them sleeping there

We need to try and wean from the swaddling but I love swaddling them up and they sleep so much better! I may just have to make bigger blankets!

 

I guess in my sleepy brain i left out some details....

they eat all night long! I try to only feed them every 2-3 hrs and pat them back to sleep the rest of the wake ups, or now let them cry soemtiems, but very often in the middle of the night I cant remember who ate last and when, so sometimes i think i feed them more frequently.

I too thought i would never do CIO at such a young age, but they cry all the time. every time we are in the car, they just cry, no matter how long. In the co-sleeper if I do not nurse the one who cannot self sooth yet back to sleep he will just cry and cry, with me right there patting him, rocking can help get him to sleep, but he just wakes up 20 min later, all day when i can only pick up one of them the other cries.

my husband does not help at night (most of the time he's traveling for work), so I am on my own for getting them back to sleep and remembering who needs to eat. Lately I do not sleep, the min i get one baby back to sleep the other wakes up, all night. I am going crazy.... so i feel there must be something i can do now that they are almost 6 months. Either I need to focus on naps, get them more regular so i can try to sleep during the day, or i need to do something to get them to sleep longer at night. The reason I started moving them to their crib and then the CIO was because I thought maybe they would sleep better away from me.. maybe i was waking them up, but it seems that is not the case with the one in the crib now.... he's still up every 2 hrs.

There probably is not an answer, but all the books seem to have answers for people with issues at young ages, so i feel like there must be something i can do.

 

I am so sorry that you are so sleep deprived. I know exactly how that feels. We are still trying to map out a schedule for our twins that are eight months.

I am also wondering if your twinkies are getting enough calories. I only breastfed my twins the first two and a half months (I just could not keep up, one had been in the NICU and was bottle-fed as a result and I just gradually started producing less milk), but by 5.5 months they were eating cereal at least once daily and also using Gerber first foods (one fruit and one vege each day). I wonder if you start giving them something with more substance if they will start sleeping more? I don't know how that works since mine weren't breastfed as long as yours have been...but it sounds like they don't feel completely full.

The 90 minute baby sleep program book has helped us the most so far, and I have read anything and everything.

A warm bath right before bed helps mine to sleep longer, but they are still waking some at night.

I hope you are able to get some rest soon. I would consult with your pediatrician.

 

Are you breastfeeding or bottle-feeding?

I would suggest trying to cluster feed during the day - feed more frequently during the day so that they get more during the day and hopefully can go longer at night. If you are bottle feeding, you can even move some ounces around to feed more during the day and less at night, and they may get so they don't need to eat at night, at least not at as much. At almost 6 months, it seems like they should be able to go longer than 2-3 hours at night, especially if they are getting enough to eat during the day. I would not suggest trying CIO unless you are sure they don't need to eat.

Some other ideas:
-Have you started solids yet? Maybe some solids would help them go longer between milk feedings.
-Are they showing any signs of teething? I know that REALLY messed up sleeping for my boys at that age.

 

I am sorry you're struggling with sleep. Around that age there's a lot going on developmentally that can interrupt sleep; the rolling over and becoming more aware disrupted a lot of naps here, along with teething and .

I did not have a good nap schedule at that age and once I started us all on a schedule my life turned around a lot. I am not much of a schedule person either, but I forced myself into it with the twins and it did make things more manageable. We still ended up having to do CIO some months later to get them sleeping through the night, but having a nap schedule and keeping the twins on the same schedule helped a lot.

Here's a rough example of what we did:

7 am - wake, nurse, diapers, play
8:30 - nap
11 - wake, nurse
12 - solids
1 - nap
3 - wake, nurse
5 - nurse, solids, bath
6 - bedtime, with about 2-3 night feedings until about 8 months.

Things that helped us tremendously were ALWAYS feeding them on the same schedule. If one woke up at night, I woke the other one to feed too. During the day I was a bit more lax about it, but I always fed them together at night. Also, an earlier bedtime seems to make the night time sleep a bit longer. We also relied heavily on pacifiers. It also helps to have a bedtime routine to signal that it's time for sleep; low lights, story time etc.

Good luck.. whatever method you choose for getting back to sleep make sure that you try it consistently for a good couple of weeks before you know whether it's effective or not.

 

I am so sorry!!! What you're describing with your "stubborn one" sounds so much like my DS...we used to say he could loan him to the military to use as a sleep deprivation torture machine! He would literally give us a break for maybe 30 min at a time all night long and I found CIO just made things worse. In retrospect when we looked back we think he was hungry. Since he was my first I tried to stick to a "schedule" and only feed him every 3 hours but as we saw with my girls they would cluster for a good 3-4 hours every evening and consume insane amounts of milk before sleeping for a good 4 hour chunk.

None of my kids are good sleepers...they all still wake up now and I think some kids just aren't that great at it but you need to get more sleep! Is there anyway you can try to feed them more often during the day to try to up the calories? I would also try moving bedtime earlier...at that age my kids were going to bed around 6:00 or 6:30. Also, my girls co-slept with us until they were 10 months old since there was always someone waking up and it was easier to deal with them when they were close by and less exhausting so there might not be a rush to move them to their cribs unless it does help everyone sleep more.

For naps, none of my kids got on a nap schedule until 8 months when they were doing 2 naps a day. At 5 months old I was still putting them down every hour and 15 min throughout the day (I think this is from HSHHT) and I found with my girls that this REALLY helped both daytime sleep and night time. I wouldn't try to get a schedule for naps just more of a routine. Start whenever they wake up in the am and put them down for their first nap 1.25 hours after they wake up. I always found this easier as it didn't matter what time they woke up, the routine was still that same. The timing for naps will be a little different every day but at least there is some predictability to it.

I also ALWAYS kept them on the same schedule for naps and feeds...if one ate, the other ate, if one woke up I woke the other one up. I couldn't deal with the even greater chaos of having them doing things at different times . GL!!!!