I Need your STTN Secrets!

I am beyond the point of exhaustion. My DH works 48-72 hour shifts at a time, so I am solo a lot, and its killing me. My girls are 4 months old adjusted now, and are not even close to STTN. I know, they are still young, but I need to do whatever it takes to maximize the possibility of them STTN and maintaining whatever is left of my sanity. TIA!

 

Are your girls Breast or bottle fed?

 

This is what changed our LO's sleeping.....we put them on their stomachs. I don't know if you are comfortable with this or not but, it changed it for us. Ours could hold their heads up while on stomach when we started this. They could also roll over.

 

[SIZE=10pt]Mine were bf and didn't really sttn until about 9 months, when I say sttn I'm talking 12 hours so that's not to say they didn't sleep longer stretches before that though. I think the best nights were the nights where they really got good naps during the day, when I stuck to their early bedtime, and made sure they had nursed a lot during the day. At that age they start going through a lot of developmental changes and it seems that a lot of baby's sleep is disrupted. I also had stopped diaper changes during the night unless they had pooped which wasn't very often so I was able to nurse them in bed and put them right back to sleep. Also like pp said, mine slept much better on their tummy, but I guess it's all what you are comfortable with. Good luck and I really know how you feel but it will get better. A lot of times this can just be a phase and they will settle down shortly. Are you a SAHM? I know that even when I had a ton of housework to do if I just made myself lay down and shut my eyes even for 30-45 minutes during the day, it made all the difference in the world.[/SIZE]

 

All babies do this at their own pace. Mine are sleeping 10-11 hours through the night (but they have not started hard core teething yet), but I can't say we did anything special to make it happen. We did institute a bed time routine and had done so since they were couple of weeks old. Not sure if you have a bedtime routine but ours is something like this:
7:00 clock hour (non bath nights)...we wipe them down with the Johnsons and Johnsons wipes
ears are cleaned out, mouth is wiped with a wash cloth
they are lotioned with Johnsons Lavender Bed time lotion
we diaper them (we use the Playskool plushies 8-18 lbs, we found these diapers are pretty thick and can hold their overnight pees, so they do not get up due to a leaky diaper) and then they are put in their sleep sacks and PJ's

They get their bottles and we put them to bed in their crib and usually within 15 minutes they are asleep...they get baths 3x a week and it's pretty much the same routine.

I empathize with you, my DH works the night shift, so on his work nights, I was the one up with them with every night feeding and then had them during the day while my DH slept (he usually slept 4 hours, so then I could at least lay down). It was tiring and frustrating! Good luck!

 

I hear you! What seems to work here (like pp said) are good naps during the day and an early bedtime. I also find if they ate well during the day they will normally sleep through. Right now at 6 1/2 months corrected P sleeps through the night very consistently and E about 4 days a week and when he is up he eats and goes right back down, so that's not to bad.........way better then it used to be.

What time do your girls go to bed?

How many times are they up in the night?

Are they in the same room?


Erica

 

As strange as it sounds, my girls needed a third nap in the late afternoon and then bed at 7. Breena slept through first at 4 months and the ped said it was because she weighed a little more. Her sister got up once a night for another couple weeks but by 4 1/2 months, she was doing 12 hours too.

I followed some advice on here that said to put them down to nap after just about 2 hours of wake time. I was trying to keep them up after their 2nd nap so they would sleep at night, but that just made them overtired and miserable. Once I let them take a short 3rd nap got them up and then started their bedtime routine, sleeping through happened.

Oh and mine are bottle-fed. I tried adding rice cereal to the bottle but that didn't help. I swear it was the 2 hour rule and the 3rd nap that worked for us!

 

Like pp said, mine sleep a lot longer when they are on their stomach. Even with naps, they will sleep a long time on their stomach.

 

I am skeptical about my twins ever sleeping through the night, as my other ones didn't until about age two! They come from a long line of very bad sleepers. I do hope yours start sleeping better though. I know what it is like having a dh work long shifts and not be home at night. It is so much better to have help for a feeding in the middle of the night!

 

:hug99: I am so sorry you are having a rough time. This is just another one of those prematurity issues I think. It took mine until they were 9 month old (7 adjusted) to STTN consistently. If they are still waking and eating well, I would say they just need to eat. Sorry. Hang in there.