schedules

when did you put your twins on a real schedule? and when do they start staying awake/taking naps? (don't get me wrong... i don't mind that all they do is eat and sleep. cuz when they sleep, i sleep! )

just wondering. thanks!

 

Mine ate and slept for about the first 3 months. It wasnt really until month 4 that they started staying awake after they ate for longer periods and then we slowly started to work in the am nap first. Enjoy the sleep while you can!!

 

QUOTE
when did you put your twins on a real schedule? and when do they start staying awake/taking naps?


I still feed mine on demand and put them down for naps when they're tired (almost always 1.5 hrs after waking up), not by the clock. Works great for us. Of course you can put them on a schedule when they're older - just wanted to be the lone voice in the wilderness telling you you don't have to.

PP is right - it's around 4 months adjusted age that daytime sleep gets more organized, and you start seeing real wake/nap cycles.

 

They have been on a schedule since the hospital. An eating schedule that is. Around 2 months I set it in stone. They eat every 4 hours now at 8-12-4 and 8 and they do well with that. As far as sleeping goes. They go to sleep around 9 and wake up for the 8am feeding. Recently they have shown signs of wanting more night time sleep and have been going to bed around 8:30 and waking at 8:00.

They nap from 9:30 - 10:30 every morning and the rest of their naps are kind of scattered. I do not yet have a read on a regular time to put them down. Sometimes they are ready for nap #2 at 12:30 after they eat and sometimes it is not until 2:00.

My babies sleep maybe 2.5 hours during the day, but the 11 hours an night more than makes up for it. They have been this way since about 6 or 7 weeks when they started being awake a lot more.

 

We always had a feeding schedule (NICU set it), but they started to stay awake longer around 3-4 months. We don't have their naps scheduled since it depends on how they slept the night before, what time they woke up, etc, but we do have a routine thats developed over the last 2ish months: morning nap between 9 and 11 (usually for about an hour), mid-afternoon nap around 1ish, late afternoon around 4ish. Sometimes the mid-afternoon nap is 2 hours and then that pushes the late nap later (that nap is usually 45 minutes to an hour) Bedtime at 7pm- this is firm because I've tried to push it later and they are just DONE by 7 (even if they just woke up from their late nap at 6pm, they are still ready to go to bed for the night at 7).

Hope this helps, Leighann

 

we've been on a feeding schedule since birth and added nap times etc around 3 months.

 

QUOTE(ddancerd1 @ Nov 1 2007, 01:00 PM) [snapback]476080[/snapback]
when did you put your twins on a real schedule? and when do they start staying awake/taking naps? (don't get me wrong... i don't mind that all they do is eat and sleep. cuz when they sleep, i sleep! )

just wondering. thanks!


Mine have been on a 3 hour schedule since about 6 weeks of age. They are now almost four months old and sleep from 7.30 pm to 7 am, with 3 naps during the day usually 1 hour long each. Enjoy it will you can, as there awake time gets longer and you have less time for napping and all the other things that you need to do around the house. I find this routine works well for all of us.

 

They pretty much ate every 3 hours and then went back to sleep for the first few months.

Starting around 4 months, we started to work towards eating every 4 hours, not letting them stay awake for more than 1.5-2 hrs and early bedtime and they have slept 11-12 hrs a night since about 4-5 months old.

 

After the first two weeks, I made sure to nurse them every 3 hours during the day and let them on-demand feed at night, but if one woke, the other one I would wake up, too. A schedule just kind of evolved over the first few months, PP are right, until about 3-4 months you just wing it but then everything kind of settles into place. All of a sudden you kind of notice that they start to wake at the same time, and can only be up for about 2 hours before needing a nap, etc. But they are so little right now that everything is haywire!