Separating them at night

My son, Jack, really enjoys his sleep. His sister, Lily, really has no use for it. They are four months old and now that she is more able to "play" she would much rather do this than sleep at night...particularly from 5am on.

I have already separated them for naps. Jack naps in his crib in the nursery and Lily in the pack n play in the guest bedroom next door to the nursery. She screams every time we even head towards the stairs to take her up for a nap so keeping them together for naps was completely unrealistic. She only naps for about 45min (when lucky) and he will go for an hour and a half or two hours even.

They go to bed at the same time and he is able to fall asleep amid her nightime protests. Lately; however, she is into rolling and then complaining about being on her back, etc.... and if she wakes up in the middle of the night on her back she will talk and play for a bit and the scream for someone to flip her. I am sure this is just a stage, but, I can completely picture this happening with all of her milestones. He learned to roll and practiced for a couple of days and got over it...she has been going at it for a while now! He will never get any sleep with her in there with him.

Has anyone separated their twins for nighttime as well? Our ped has mentioned letting them fuss for a little while to get rid of the random 1:30am wakings and I cannot imagine how we can do that with them both in their. Some nights one will sleep through, other nights the other will, etc... I hate to have one waking the other up if they were going to sleep on through KWIM?

Has anyone separated their twins for nighttime as well as naptime? We have the space, do you recommend it? I have such anxiety from 5am on as I wait for her to start playing and then do not know what to do. I HATE it when she wakes him up and then I have two babies wanting to start the day at 5:30am. The past couple of mornings I have been moving her into her pack n play but then she treats it like a nap and eventually falls out for about half an hour and wakes up again not well rested.

Jack is very very good at putting himself back to sleep but sometimes needs to grunt and groan a bit to do it and Lily is such a light sleeper this also wakes her up.

I hate to separate them but I think I have to if we are ever going to get any sleep. Any feedback or success stories? They are four months old...do you think they will miss eachother?

Thanks,
Amy

 

We were in the same boat as you a few weeks back. DD started sleeping through the night whereas DS was getting up 3-4 times a night (and these days it seems to be more frequent). We have separated them for now...not sure if we will from here on in, or if we'll put them back together...it's hard to say. We are going to start letting our DS fuss through some of his nighttime wakings, and I don't want to even take the chance of waking her right now--he is about all I can handle in the middle of the night. I say give it a try, at least through the sleep learning process, you can always put them back together when she is sleeping better for you. We also have them separated for naps right now--we are really starting to get into a nap routine and I don't want to jepordize that time either due to one waking up and the other sleeping through--eventually, when they both go down more smoothly and stay down, we can probably have them together for naps. Good luck--let me know if you figure out the sleep secret

 

I have our girls' separated for naps (separate rooms -- still in swings, working on that -- tough, it's not going well) and in separate cribs (in the same room) for night time. I decided to separate them at night because one night at about 0500 I walked in because Naomi was crying and Maya was sound asleep, kicking Naomi in the head (through her swaddle - those are gone now too!). I do think they miss each other - mine will kinda move toward the other crib, or curl up with the crib slats (we don't have bumpers) -- but I needed less awakenings at night. I don't know about a separate room at night - I didn't want to because I didn't want to be checking both rooms in the middle of the night for who was crying.

We had a really rough 4th month as far as night awakenings went - things seemed to have calmed back down to up twice at night, and it has gotten better since we moved them into separate cribs.

Maybe when they get older then can go back together, but for now, they are apart.

Good luck. HTH.

Erica.

 

I set up a pack and play in the master bedroom (sometimes I move it to the office, depending). For naps one baby is in the nursery and the other is in the pack and play. At night, the moment James starts fussing/crying/playing etc. I quickly whisk Evan off to the pack and play. It helps. Evan is a good sleeper and James isn't great (at night anyway).

 

I was very reluctant to separate my twins at night, and very teary-eyed about doing it the first time (about a wk ago) - but they are sleeping SO much better now. DD started STTN as soon as she had a crib to herself.

 

I'm sorry, I don't have any good sleep advice to give you. I'm contemplating separating mine at night since they have been keeping each other up the last few nights... let me know if you have any luck with yours!

I couldn't help but notice your twins' names! I have a Jack and Lilly, too! What are your middle names?

Helen

 

I dont really have much advice but I know around the earlier months, we always said that if we had an extra bedroom, we would have separated them. I know one would sleep longer in the mornings if the other did not wake up. They do sleep thourgh cries at night but int he morning they are close to getting up so when one wakes the other does too. The only positive is that they remain on the same nap schedule throughout the day. If they were in separate rooms at night and one slept an hour longer, the whole day they would be on deifferent schedules for everything.

 

QUOTE(kuchar @ Oct 6 2007, 07:29 PM) [snapback]438518[/snapback]
I'm sorry, I don't have any good sleep advice to give you. I'm contemplating separating mine at night since they have been keeping each other up the last few nights... let me know if you have any luck with yours!

I couldn't help but notice your twins' names! I have a Jack and Lilly, too! What are your middle names?

Helen


Hi Helen,

It is Jackson David and Lily Marie. We do tend to call Jack "Jackie" though. I guess I kind of hope that we drop that eventually, but it is cute for now!

We can't fit the crib through the door to move it to the other room and have to take the door hinges off. Oh brother, one of them is always napping, I cannot imagine when we will move it. I will let you know how it goes when it does happen though. I am a little sad about the change and am happy it does not have to happen tonight - even though DD is up there playing and "talking" as we speak and it is 8Pm and DS has been sleeping since they were put down a half an hour ago! Goodness I really hope he does not wake up...

Amy