7 month twins sleep is ridiculous! Suggestions welcome!

Hi folks,

I am new here, and am a first time mom of boy/girl twins, 7 months old now. They have never been good sleepers, but I feel they should be farther along by now.

They are on a relatively consistent feeding and nap schedule, and go to bed around 7:30 nightly. Our son does well in the crib for the most part, except we thing he is teething now because he wakes up and seems uncomfortable. Our girl wakes up frequently, even hourly sometimes, and just cries out. She has acid reflux, but I do not think that is the cause of her upset anymore at night. Is like her little motor won't shut down. She does a lot of flailing and leg thumping in the crib until she wakes herself up. Then if she carries on long enough (and doesn't settle herself), our son wakes up too. We are down to one feeding in the night.

My heart kind of sinks when I read of others with twins that sleep well, and slept well early on. My husband and I take the night in shifts because of their sleep issues, and I haven't slept in the same bed with him since they left the NICU. We are hoping for this to resolve sooner than later.

I have tried to distill our good nights down to common facts, as sometimes they do sleep well. But I can't seem to identify what makes a night good or bad. As far as sleep training and self soothing, they wake each other up when we let them work it out on sir own, and then amp each other up.

So, with all that said, can you offer any specific things you did with your twins that made the biggest positive impact on their sleep schedules? I look forward to your suggestions from experience!

 

I don't have any advice to offer but trust me not every baby or set of twins sleeps through the night at 7 months of age.  Baby's don't exactly read the books about how they should be sleeping. 
 
 
My "good" sleeper was still waking every 3 hours until he was 14 months old (12 months adjusted).  Neither really "STTN" until age 4.
 
The problem we had was that we didn't want to sleep train and we couldn't.  Both had reflux and reactive air way disease (now its asthma).  So crying for any extended time frame resulted in vomiting and breathing treatments.  Is your reflux baby on meds?  They can outgrow the dose.  The pain of reflux can make them tense and make it difficult to sleep.  One of mine had to be on meds until he was 3.  He still goes through phases of having problems at 5. 
 
Ours actually ended up co-sleeping their sleep was so horrible.  It made the night waking's tolerable since we could comfort or feed without a big production.  It was the only reason we both didn't lose our sanity that first year.  So I don't have much advice.  I do know that we have to keep them on schedule even now for bedtime.  They have a very strict bedtime routine and bedtime. Even with night waking's we tried to keep a routine. 
 
Just know you are definitely not alone.  And it does get better. 

 

You are definitely not alone.  Mine didn't sleep through the night until 9 months old.  What are you doing for your little girl's reflux?  The meds are dosed by weight... if this is happening more frequently maybe she needs her dose increased?  Also is her mattress propped up? That helped both my reflux babies.  We also did a dream feed before DH and I went to bed (around 11pm) to try to get them to sleep until 6am-ish.  But for our reflux girls we'd have to make sure they burped well after that feed or it would backfire because their little tummies would be upset. Also how much are they eating (number of feeds or bottles) during the day?  Have you introduced solids?  This could also have an impact on your little girl's tummy issues.
 
Finally, as much as it would be difficult, can you move her into your room in a pnp to preserve your son's sleep?  I had one that was a much worse sleeper than the other (she still is at 7 1/2 years old!). We had to do this for a little while so at least the other baby would stay asleep.  Good luck and hang in there!  

 

My twins were awesome sleepers. So much so that I bragged about it. 
 
Now we have a nearly 8 month old who has an allergy to sleep. (Ok, not really, but it certainly feels that way!) 
We just started some light sleep training last night. And honestly, it went better than I thought it would. I think our biggest issue was he was still in our room in his crib. We moved his crib out yesterday. 
 
Hang in there. You are not alone. It really does get better. (I have to say that to myself A LOT!) 

 

My twins were TERRIBLE sleepers at that age.  They had really bad reflux, so that was a big factor.  They also had MSPI (milk and soy protein intolerance), so if they got something (like someone else's snack at church) that they weren't supposed to have, they slept even worse.  I would say around 7 months, we were MAYBE getting 4-5 hours a night and they never, ever slept through.  Not one single time for either of them.  They weren't eating at night anymore, but they were up a lot and just generally very fussy.  Teething was also a major factor - my kids had 8 teeth each by 8 months, plus learning to crawl, pulling up, etc.
 
They finally were STTN around 10.5 months.  And honestly, what finally made that happen was sleep training.  Not trying to start a debate, but I was very against CIO for months.  That all changed when my kids were around 8.5 months.  I fell asleep while driving home with them and ran off the road.  Thankfully it wasn't too serious, just some damage to my car, but it scared me to death what could have happened.  So we started sleep training around 9 months.  We had tried other methods earlier (babywise etc.) and none of them worked despite trying them for several weeks each.  We started modified CIO around 9 months.  We did night first, then naps.  We would go in at longer and longer intervals, comfort them without picking them up, until they went to sleep.  It took several weeks, but finally they were able to go to sleep on their own totally and to STTN consistently.  Naps got way better, too.  Instead of napping 30 minutes, they would nap an hour or more.  Of course we still had nights that they were up because of sickness or teething, but they were now sleeping through 95% of the time or more.
 
Part of the right timing was not only ME being ready for the process, but them being ready, too.  The teeth spell was over, they weren't sick, and their reflux was under control and they were outgrowing it (we stopped meds at 11 months).  It's not right for everyone or every child, and some kids just naturally sleep.  That was not us and I was so glad we did what we did.  I was much more sane and happy once I was getting more sleep!

 

My girls are 6 months and they still dont sleep the whole night either. They wake up at around 4:30 for their bottle. My husband and I are in the process of mentally preparing ourselves for thesleep training. It is time for them to go their own cribs in their own nursery. We are definitly ready for that too! We first have to get them the second crib though.

 

Sorry it's taken me a few days to respond. Thank you for sharing each of your scenarios. It is nice to know others have had the same challenges, but eventually things improved.

In answer to some of the questions above, our daughter is no longer on Prevacid. We took her off when it was evident that the side effect of stomach cramps were worse than the helpfulness. I think she still is affected by it, but I'm concerned about restarting meds. She's a much happier girl off of them, despite our remaining sleep issues.

We currently have them sleep appt the first half of the night, since that is a rougher period for daughter, we then haven her join him in the nursery, each in their respective cribs following a 12:30 feeding.

I notice most people do their dream feed at 11. Maybe the is something to that, as in its a better time for their natural rythym.

I am not opposed to sleep training, except that I'm not sure Wed have optimal success now with her remaining reflux and his teething pains. He can self smooth about 75% of the night unless he's really hurting. Sleep training her will be the key to helping our issues, I think.

Las night I kept her in another room with me, and he did very well. We only had to comfort him twice in an 11 hour time. She needed constant attention, and slept in her bouncy seat. She was starting a lot, and seemed uncomfortable, so I gave Tylenol and she was much more peaceful until morning.

Again, thank you for sharing your situations, and encouragement!

 

Good luck rinaownsu on your crib transition!

 

Leighann, we feed them 6 times a day, with their last meal at 7pm. I give them 5-6 oz formula, small serving of rice cereal mid morning and mid afternoon, and at lunch I give them a veggie and fruit. I've tried shifting around times when solids are given, but I can't find a factor that makes a difference.

 

Hi ladies! Here's an update--we have completed 4 nights of CIO and it's gone very well! The babies caught on quickly and we are much more rested! Thanks again for the support you gave me above a couple months ago. I have some questions about maintaining good sleep going forward, but that's a different topic.