Nighttime expectations?

We did a little sleep training and the babies are now sleeping in the same room (separate cribs)! We did an initial round of training so they learned to fall asleep on their own at bedtime...we started with DD and then moved onto DS. Once we put them in the same room, we started over with our check and console timing. Both babies go down SO EASY at night! It is a miracle

But, I need a little advice on how to handle the night wakings...

Babies are in bed by 6:30/7pm...there may be a few minutes of fussing, but no crying.
There might be an episode of crying around 10ish, but it only lasts a minute or two...they fall right back to sleep.
After midnight, I will nurse on demand...last night DS was up at 12:45 and DD was up at 1:30. Both took good meals, but...

DS woke at 3:45am crying and DD woke crying at 4:30am...How should I handle this??

Our ideal wake time would be 6am, but most mornings the babies are up at 5/5:30.

It has been a week since they were transistioned into the same room...and we just don't know what amount of crying might be acceptable at this point during the night! And if I feed them again around 4am, will they start to force themselves awake at this time every morning??

 

I just posted a similar question to this Eager to hear responses

 

IMO at that age, waking ONLY 2x a night to eat is fantastic! Most pedi's will tell you babies NEED to bed fed during the night till at least 6 months and some like in HSHHB will go as far as 9 months. I dont think babies are manipulative (especially at that age) and if they are hungry they should be fed. They could be approaching their next growth spurt as well.

You mentioned you want them to get up 1/2 later in the morning, have you thought about moving their bedtime back 1/2?? When they woke at 345 & 430 were they ready to be up for the day? Do you do a good job of making it very clear when day and night is? for example at our house when its morning (which is anytime after 630) I go in and open the blinds, turn on the lights and say good morning in a loud cheery voice! If I go in at all dring the "night" I dont speak to them, I try to not even make eye contact!

You cant expect babies to sleep more than 10-12 hours. so for a 630 bedtime you should expect them to wake for the day between 430-630am. Make sense?

 

QUOTE(E&Msmom @ Jan 5 2009, 11:38 AM) [snapback]1133882[/snapback]
IMO at that age, waking ONLY 2x a night to eat is fantastic! Most pedi's will tell you babies NEED to bed fed during the night till at least 6 months and some like in HSHHB will go as far as 9 months. I dont think babies are manipulative (especially at that age) and if they are hungry they should be fed. They could be approaching their next growth spurt as well. I am totally willing to feed them at night...I think we just unsure how to tell if they are hungry?? Seems like something I should have figured out by now...but I still can't differentiate the cries. And we are worried that we might undo some of the sleep training by going to them too often??
You mentioned you want them to get up 1/2 later in the morning, have you thought about moving their bedtime back 1/2?? When they woke at 345 & 430 were they ready to be up for the day? Do you do a good job of making it very clear when day and night is? for example at our house when its morning (which is anytime after 630) I go in and open the blinds, turn on the lights and say good morning in a loud cheery voice! If I go in at all dring the "night" I dont speak to them, I try to not even make eye contact! My routine is just like yours...very obvious when it is morning!

You cant expect babies to sleep more than 10-12 hours. so for a 630 bedtime you should expect them to wake for the day between 430-630am. Make sense? Makes total sense...I just don't know how to get them to last any later than 6:30pm (see below)


Thanks for all the input, Jess! I appreciate it

I agree...waking twice a night is wonderful!! Before we worked on it, I was nursing DS at least every 2 hours at night...and soothing him back to sleep with a binky, rocking, etc. DD was a bit better, but I was feeding/comforting her off and on through out the night. Also, putting them down for the night was always a challenge...they would need at least an hour of soothing for that, too!

I guess I am just trying to find a good "schedule" that works for everyone...I am back at work FT. We leave the house around 7am, drop the babies off at daycare, work, pick babies up from daycare, and arrive home around 5:15pm. They are generally SO CRANKY (they do not nap well nor with any predictable pattern, yet!) that just making it until bath time at 6pm can be a challenge. Any advice on how to adjust their schedule a bit?? We would LOVE to spend more time with them at night...and let them sleep longer in the morning instead of starting the day off at 5ish...without getting a good nap at daycare until around 9am!!! It is so hard now that I cannot stay at home and have good control over their daytime schedule.

 

When they wake for the second time, I would feed them and get them back to bed. If they eat and go down without too much of an issue, that would be easiest. At that age, mine were waking at least twice a night to eat and then going back to bed. It sounds like you have a good handle on what to do. Keep up the good work. :good:

 

I don't know if our experiences can help you since we are formula feeding, but for about 8 weeks now ours have woken once an evening - they go down after bath, bottle and swaddling in low lights at 8:00. They wake around 3:30 usually and if a pacifier or soothing (while they are still in the cribs - they share one) does not work we feed them. If they wake up earlier than 7:00 AM (rarely, but sometimes they do at about 6:00 - 6:30) after that we give them a pacifier or reswaddle and they are usually good for another hour or so. Our pediatrician said that now that they are over 12 pounds and 12 weeks old that they do not need to be fed in the middle of the night if they are eating adequately throughout the day. Before getting colds they were sleeping from 8:30PM until 6:30AM, but lately we have suctioned their little noses and gave them a paci and they go right back to sleep. They are growing well and seem to be happier throughout the day thanks to the extended nights sleep.

 

QUOTE(SMax @ Jan 5 2009, 10:51 AM) [snapback]1134029[/snapback]
Thanks for all the input, Jess! I appreciate it

I guess I am just trying to find a good "schedule" that works for everyone...I am back at work FT. We leave the house around 7am, drop the babies off at daycare, work, pick babies up from daycare, and arrive home around 5:15pm. They are generally SO CRANKY (they do not nap well nor with any predictable pattern, yet!) that just making it until bath time at 6pm can be a challenge. Any advice on how to adjust their schedule a bit?? We would LOVE to spend more time with them at night...and let them sleep longer in the morning instead of starting the day off at 5ish...without getting a good nap at daycare until around 9am!!! It is so hard now that I cannot stay at home and have good control over their daytime schedule.


Well your certaintly making great progress! What kind of childcare situation are they in? Are you able to leave instruction as to the type of "schedule" you would like your little ones to be on? Most babies need a nap 1-2 hours after they wake-up for the day. This could be hard as they may fall asleep in teh car on the way to daycare or they may seem re-energized when they get to their new location. When mine were going to childcare they got up at 7ish, we dropped them at the sitters at 740, and they took their first nap 9-930am. A second nap early afternoon, and often times I would arrive at 5 to pick them up and they were taking their 3rd nap then OR they would nap in the car on the way home and I would make them continue that nap when we got into the house. Could your daycare write down for you when they are napping everyday for a week? maybe that would help you see a pattern? Maybe you could get them down for a 45min nap when you get home? then you have time to get things done after being at work all day, they can wake up you can have dinner, do baths, play etc and then try for an 8pm bedtime?
Its very hard to get all the sleep stuff worked out, hopefully you guys will find something that works for you!

 

I suspect that if you feed them that second time at night, they'll sleep later in the morning (probably a total of 12 or so hours per night - so I guess they'll wake for the day around 7). I also suspect that that first feeding of the night will disappear in the next month or so and you'll end up with just one early-morning feeding (around 5ish) and then they'll sleep through to 7ish (with one feeding). Two feedings wouldn't be abnormal at 5 months old.

I just read your follow-up about your early day-care start. I think your kids need to go to bed earlier - you should try to "offer" 12 hours of sleep time per night.

 

Thank you all for your advice!

Yesterday when I picked them up from daycare, they hadn't napped well and fell asleep on the way home (4:45pm). They slept in their carseats in the house until waking at 5:30pm. I then bottle-fed them 4oz and had a little bit of playtime before starting their baths around 6:15ish. We nursed at 6:45 and they were WIDE AWAKE when we took them upstairs at 7pm. I expected them to cry in their cribs for awhile since they are generally a lot more drowsy when we put them down. However, we could hear them cooing and talking a bit...and then silence. They fell alseep so easily on their own! Another night that I am so happy we did a little sleep training...but then it gets confusing again!!

DD woke at 1:30am to nurse. I waited patiently for DS to awake...and decided I needed to pump a little around 2:30am to relieve the pressure. He woke at 3:30am to nurse...and was pretty awake when I put him back in the crib. He then started crying (3:50ish) and didn't really let up. DD woke with all the racket that DS was making! DH and I are bickering by this point b/c we don't know what to do?!? We are so fearful that we are going to mess-up the sleep training by going to them too often (we still check every 20 minutes). In the end, I decided to nurse DD at 4:30am b/c it had been 3 hours since she last fed. DS had settled down a bit, but by the time I snatched DD from the crib, he had cranked back up and was crying. I know he wasn't hungry as he had nursed really well...so DH continued to check on him until he fell asleep. It took DD awhile to settle back down, but everyone eventually fell back asleep...until 5:30am.

We really don't know what to do at this point! We have a ped appointment tomorrow and hopefully she will help us out.

Does anyone have a good suggestion?! We just don't know how to handle the early wake up time...please help

 

When you say that DH is checking on him what does he do? Does he go in the room and let DS see him or just peek through the door. I know that when mine were fussing, if I went in there I would make it worse and just prolong the crying.

 

QUOTE(DATJMom @ Jan 6 2009, 12:04 PM) [snapback]1135459[/snapback]
When you say that DH is checking on him what does he do? Does he go in the room and let DS see him or just peek through the door. I know that when mine were fussing, if I went in there I would make it worse and just prolong the crying.


Thanks for the continued comments/advice, Rachel!

Yes, DH is going in and rubbing his chest to comfort him...and it does ramp up the crying. I guess because we started this before the babies were 6 months, we felt that we needed to take a more gradual approach. But, as you point out, going in might be making it worse.

 

QUOTE(SMax @ Jan 6 2009, 07:30 AM) [snapback]1135260[/snapback]
Thank you all for your advice!

DD woke at 1:30am to nurse. I waited patiently for DS to awake...and decided I needed to pump a little around 2:30am to relieve the pressure. He woke at 3:30am to nurse...and was pretty awake when I put him back in the crib. He then started crying (3:50ish) and didn't really let up. DD woke with all the racket that DS was making! DH and I are bickering by this point b/c we don't know what to do?!? We are so fearful that we are going to mess-up the sleep training by going to them too often (we still check every 20 minutes). In the end, I decided to nurse DD at 4:30am b/c it had been 3 hours since she last fed. DS had settled down a bit, but by the time I snatched DD from the crib, he had cranked back up and was crying. I know he wasn't hungry as he had nursed really well...so DH continued to check on him until he fell asleep. It took DD awhile to settle back down, but everyone eventually fell back asleep...until 5:30am.

We really don't know what to do at this point! We have a ped appointment tomorrow and hopefully she will help us out.

Does anyone have a good suggestion?! We just don't know how to handle the early wake up time...please help


I wrote a response once but it got deleted
Im wondering when DD woke to nurse, if you know you are uncomfortable and you know DS is inevitably going to wake for a feeding why dont you try a dream feed? Theres no since in pumping during the night when you have 2 babies to help you, and I certaintly woudnt wait for him to wake me up -- sleep is maximized when you can get more of it together
My other question, when DS did finally wake are you nursing him in his room next to his crib? In the dark? with no talking? nothing? just plain boring as if you arent even there its just your boob? LOL
Im afraid the pedi might suggest CIO and I personally hate that advice, simply because I think there is a kinder gentler way. Im curious to see what pedi says.

 

What I would do differently is that if the second one wakes up because the first is fussing, I'd feed him/her right away, no matter when they ate last...

For the early wakings, we fed them and put them back to sleep if it was before 6am... My babies never really fussed at night when they were not hungry though...

 

QUOTE(Fran27 @ Jan 7 2009, 12:34 AM) [snapback]1135880[/snapback]
What I would do differently is that if the second one wakes up because the first is fussing, I'd feed him/her right away, no matter when they ate last...


That is a great point. What if you feed them both when the first one wakes and that way you arent up for hours at night?? Also, if they have already been sleep trained, instead of DH going in and rubbing his chest, I might be inclined to let it go and see if he stops instead of stimulating him and ramping up the crying. I dont think there is anything wrong with feeding them at night to get them to settle back down even if you dont think they are hungry. I fed mine until they were 9.5 months old and then they dropped the bottle on their own. Again, just my thoughts. Let us know how tonight goes.

 

I am not sure if this would work for you, but here is what we did (I breastfeed). We started to do a dreamfeed before we went to bed, so at around 10pm we did that dreamfeed (the babies mostly slept through this eating session!), then one (usually DD) would wake up at around 1-2am to eat, and we would feed her and get DS and feed him at the same time (since we knew he would probably wake up anyway). then we would put them both back to bed, and if they fussed we would leave them for at least 10-15minutes before going to them (and honestly, they rarely if ever fussed past the 15min mark, or if they did, it just meant they had a burp that they needed to be held upright to get out). Then DD would wake up again around 4-5am, again we would feed her and wake DS up again to eat. That way we were only getting up 2x/night for feedings. I know many people would rather feed on demand, but for us, waking the sleeping twin to eat worked and it meant more sleep for mom and dad - which meant happier parents!
Then they would sleep until anywhere between 6am-7am. And even if one of them did wake up earlier, we did not go and get them out of bed until at least 6am (and yes there was a bit of crying, but they did catch on quickly, and sometimes they even fell back asleep).
Also, at that age mine were going to bed between 530-6pm everynight. I don't know if I had sleep babies or what - but mine would sleep easily 12hrs/night, sometimes 13!