Not enough sleep?

My 6 month old twins have very different sleep patterns. Our boy sleeps very well. He takes naps at 9am and 12:30pm and another short nap around 4pm. He is asleep for the night at 7:30pm and awake around 7am with one night feed. Our daughter, however, is a different story. We can usually get her down for the 9am nap but it lasts for no longer than 45 min and her 12:30 nap doesn't go any longer than 30 minutes. For the evening, she falls asleep around 7:30pm but does not stay asleep for longer than 45 min and she is up again. She falls asleep again around 9pm (sometimes she cries, sometimes we rock her, sometimes we just let her stay up...we've tried everything for days at a time to see if something would work). She is up again at around 2am to eat and then at 6:30am for the day. If we hold her, she will sleep for a lot longer (2 hour naps, etc.). We only end up holding her for her naps about once a week (usually when we feel like she needs to get some sleep in whatever format she can get it). She used to sleep very well until she hit 4 months, then it all went out the window...

My question is this - is it normal that she needs this little sleep? I figure she is sleeping 10 hours a day at the most. She seems to have an abundance of energy otherwise.

Thanks!

 

That sounds A LOT like my boys were at that age. Most days they only got 10-11 hours of sleep. They finally got to be better sleepers when we dropped to one nap at 14 months. That made a HUGE difference for us. The other thing that really helped was taping cardboard over their window and then covering it with a blackout curtain so their room is totally dark. Sounds crazy, but it really helped.

 

Sounds to me like she is overtired. My kids were just like that. I started a VERY early bedtime around that age, 6:00 and it helped. They still go to bed at 6:30 and they are now 2. For naps I would go in at the first wake-up (30 - 45 min mark) and do everything in my power to get them back to sleep. Not sure if I'm the best person to give sleep advice though as it's still an ongoing battle in our house...some kids seem to get it (like your son) and others seem to not get the memo!

 

Thank you for the replies! It is good to know we are not alone I think we will start with trying to prolong naps along with the early bedtime for a few weeks to see how that goes.

 

Hi,

Your babies sound so similar to mine. Max sleeps so well, but Vanesssa isn't and your daughter sounds just like her at that age. We tried everything in our power to make her sleep longer, and it rarely helped. Even now at 16 months we still have issues with her night time sleep. Between 12-14 months it became worse, we suspected it was because she got 4 teeth at a time... but who knows? We do exactly the same thing with both babies, and he sleeps well and she isn't.

Were your kids premature? How big were they born and how big are they now? If she was premature and on the small side, maybe she needs more night feedings compared to your son. My kids were not premature and they were born 6 # 5 oz each, so by 5 months they stopped waking up at night, or whenever they woke up we gave them pacifiers but no milk after their 9 PM bottle, so no formula between 9-6 AM. Also, are they formula fed or breastfed? Breastfed babies wake up more often, since breastmilk is not as filling as formula - I noticed that from my experience, that's why we started giving them formula before going to bed.

Do you have a sound machine? That helps her sleep better/longer even at nap time.
Did you ever swaddle her? It may sound crazy, but I gave up swaddling and her sleep got worse in few weeks, than I started swaddling her again, and that helped some also. Of course, by 8-9 months we gave that up and now they sleep in sleep sacks.

I also think an earlier bedtime may help, but being that I work full time, I was never able to have them asleep before 7:30 PM.

All I can tell you from my experience is that it does get better, but it's slow, and at times when I have the feeling she's getting better and she sleeps longer, then she starts waking up at night again... It may be teething, it may be other issues, or it may be genetics - my parents say that I was worse than she is, and even as an adult I have issues falling asleep. I know how frustrating it is to do the same routine and have the same schedule for both babies and the one sleeps and the other one isn't .

Good luck, I hope her sleep improves.

 

I agree that she might be overtired. If she wakes for the around 630am, then maybe try bumping her first nap a little earlier to see if that helps.

I also agree about blacking the room out. Also if you haven't tried, add a sound machine. Maybe the dark plus white noise of some kind will help her too.

 

For some further background:

They were born at 35+5 and came home with me. DS was 4lbs 13oz and is now approx. 19lbs. DD was 4lbs 8oz and is now approx. 15lbs. They both usually eat once per night after their 7pm bottle but sometimes DS sleeps through the night.

As for feeding, they got breastmilk and formula until 5 months and now they just get formula. I think that change may have actually disrupted her even more since she used to get her 2am feed while she was half asleep. Now she has to wait for a bottle to warm up so it gives her more of a chance to wake.

We have tried the sound machine (heartbeat) but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Maybe a different sound?

We used to swaddle them both but they started breaking out of their swaddles at about 3 months. Even when she was a newborn, we could never contain her arms! They use sleep sacks now.

Today she napped really well and fell asleep nicely for the evening. However, she is now screaming.

Their current daytime feeding schedule is 7am, 10:30am (with some solids), 1:30pm, 4:30pm, 7pm (with some solids). If I move to an earlier bedtime, I guess I will need to adjust when they eat?

I am tempted to just follow her cues and let her sleep when she wants during the day and fall asleep when she wants for the night. Then maybe I can figure out how to adjust her natural rhythms gradually. Has anyone done this? I am just worried that she isn't getting enough sleep to function and/or is overtired.

I am really happy to hear that it does get better and all your experiences have made me feel so much better. I had no idea that getting a baby to fall asleep could be such a guessing game!

 

overtired. Try earlier bedtimes. Also, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weisbluth will change your life! Seriously!! You will be soo glad you read it! At six months, she is not getting NEARLY as much sleep as she needs to thrive. Once you break the overtired cycle, everything will make sense again!! Also, has she had a cold recently? Could it be an ear infection?