Catch up sleep?

Hi I have 16 week old twins and I've been noticing that every few days they take long naps- over an hour. Lately- for the last month or so they've only been taking 30 min cat naps but since they are nearer 4 months it seems that need to catch up on sleep. Is this common in other twins or babies?

Their night is a bit different- DS used to sleep through the night but after his growth spurt is still waking up 2x to feed while DD has always been waking up once and occasionally twice to feed at night.

 

You are right 16 weeks is the first big change in sleep. This is the first time that WHEN they sleep makes a difference. Before this, time was not really important.
As they get older they will sleep longer periods and the times they sleep will become more regular.

Sleep is biological and what they need will change as they age.

At around four months the first nap should develop around 9 or 10 am. I found if i could get them down at 9:00 they would usually take a longer nap. If i missed that window the nap was not as good.

The other thing that was helpful to me at this age was early bed time!
for my kids, night waking means they are over tired. you might try the early bed time and decreasing the awake time between naps during the day to see if the night waking stops/decreases.


edited for typo.

 

Thanks amy but my LO's are still all over the place with naps and bed time. Last night we tried a 615 bedtime (no nap btw 4-6) and it was a disaster- they woke up 3x within 45 min. It seems they need that 4th or sometimes 5th nap at that time. We've been changing our bed time for weeks now to find a good time and at first it was 8 pm then it was 7 pm and now I think 630 is a better time but DH still believes putting them to bed later and having a mid afternoon nap is better. I know we need to give each bedtime a few days to see if it works but for two days we did 7 pm and yesterday 615 (yes it was a big jump so I know it was partly that as well)... I don't mind the 7 pm bedtime but it's just sad that the LO's can't seem to make it to 7 without crying their brains out--well DS can't but DD does great with 7 pm bedtime (meaning she sleeps a much longer stretch but DS doesn't sleep a long stretch).

Has anyone staggered bedtime with your twins? Put one down earlier than the other? My DH wants to also do that but I find that confusing and I don't like that idea- I try soo hard during the day to get them on the same schedule that to put them on different schedule's at night doesn't seem right but who knows.

B/c they are waking up more frequently at night (2-4x each) they are much more tired during the day. As far as their morning nap- they wake up at 7 or sometimes 8 and nap before 9 b/c they are soo tired when they wake up at 7 so I put them down at around 830- but this isn't consistent.

 

How long is their awake time between naps during the day?

You might try shortening that time. There were days when i felt like all i did was put kids to bed. I know we had days when 1.5 hours was all they could handle.

 

Like you, I'm not sure if this is normal, but my six month old twins are still taking about four short 30 minute naps, and at least once a day have an awake times of only an hour and a half...the other awake times are more like two hours. I am also in the same boat--not really sure if this is because they need to catch up on sleep or if they are just not developmentally ready for long naps and longer awake times. They go to bed a little after six and get up between five and six, usually with one wake up at night. Sometimes I think the fact that they wake each other up at times or we wake them could be making it hard to get them exactly the sleep they need.