Fussy at night--normal?

Hi everyone. We've been having such busy days and nights with our 11 day olds, Lucy and Maren. We've cOme to realize they sleep 3 hours easy during the day but max two hours at night, and often even less. We are hanging in as best as possible, but wondering when/how they can start to sleep more at night. Any words of wisdom? based on looking at old threads, it seems like night feedings can be rough at all stages...

 

It's still pretty much early days but I recall the first 6-8 weeks or so being a milking machine, lol! The only thing I would keep an eye on at this stage is day/night confusion - keep the night times, dark, soft voices etc and make sure to show them light during the day.

How are you all coping?

 

Our first few weeks were very rough at night. It did even out though!

Hang in there!!!!

 

First of all, congratulations on your newborns!

The first weeks are a blur but you can try and start nudging them toward healthy night and day rhythms from the beginning which should then lead to longer intervals between feedings/nursing sessions at night. Things will fall into place, although every baby takes its own sweet time. So try and keep night-time quiet (as little talking as possible, use soft voices), calm (gentle movements, no "play") and dark even if you feeding/nursing, have to change them etc. Let their awake times during the day be bright (sunshine or natural light), a bit more active, a bit more stimulating but take care to watch their cues for tiredness.

 

Thanks for the posts, we really appreciate it. We are going to start to make more of a day/night distinction, which we haven't really been doing. We are all hanging in all right. Thankfully we are both home the next few weeks and very supportive of one another. After losing too much weight the first week, the babies had a checkup and regained some weight and are on the right track as far as breastfeeding/weight gain. Yay!! Right now they are having awesome sleeping/eating during the days, and during the night the biggest issue isn't their needs, but us being tired. Not sure if that makes sense, but we just approach each night being as positive as we can and go from there.

 

I took a different approach with days/nights mixed up. I figured they'd figure it out soon, but until they did I put the light on all night in our closet and they slept in bouncy chairs in the closet. Gradually I moved them into our room with the door ajar. After a week or 2 they were sleeping in the dark at night, and normally during the day.

 

The first 12 weeks are often called the "Fourth Trimester" with babies needing lots of feedings, lots of snuggling and lots of soothing as they adjust to the outside world.

For whatever reason, fussy evenings/night times are really common in newborns. http://kellymom.com/parenting/parenting-faq/fussy-evening/

As for sleep, my singleton (my first son) never slept more than 2 hours in a row until he was almost a year old, no matter what we tried!

My twins were much better from day 1, often taking 2-3 hours naps during the day and going 2-3 hours at night and going right back to sleep (they were sleeping 7 hour stretches by 8 weeks, but then regressed when I went back to work and it's been random ever since with them sleeping through the night some night or, like last night, waking up every 2 hours again!). The first year of sleep is usually just a long ride trying to guess what will come next.

I did the day/night distinction with all my kids as soon as we were home from hospital--bright days with curtains open, going outside if possible, etc, and nights keeping it dark/dim for feedings, etc. They all caught on to going back to sleep at night after feedings pretty quickly as long as we kept it dark and low stimulation. They napped in a bright room during the day until they were about 4 months old then moved to their cribs with the curtains closed (so still lighter than nighttime but not bright light as they nap better that way now).

Congratulations on your babies and welcome to the world of twins!

 

This is also the time that Dr. Harvey Karp's "The Happiest Baby on the Block" comes in handy with soothing fussy babies. Rent the DVD- it's 30 minutes and very helpful.

 

Thanks for the advice/shared stories! We had a good night last night-waking up every two hours to feed, so we got to sleep for two hours at a time. Big improvement over one or less hours. The day/night distinction seems really important.

 

Keeping them on the same schedule can also help. They have always had the same bedtime and for the first 4 months or so, I would often feed the one who woke up first then feed the one who was still sleeping (just pick them up and nurse them), then I was guaranteed a few hours in a row that way. I didn't always do it because I also wanted to see how long they would go sometimes.

it's become very clear in the past 8 months that they do have pretty different sleep needs and habits but in the newborn phase, waking one to feed to try to guarantee a longer stretch for mom can be helpful.