Sleep- or lack thereof.

I am starting to wonder if there's some trick that no one has told me to get these babies to sleep at the same time at night.
Most nights, they are up and fussy from about 10 or 12pm until 5am. It's like they over eat and then their bellies hurt, then they hurl, then they're hungry again, wash, rinse, repeat.

SOME nights I get an hour here and there, but it's not a guarantee.

Lack of sleep is wearing on my patience big time. If I can't get them into some sort of routine where they sleep at night before my husband deploys in less than two months, I will lose my mind without him here to hand them off to on the weekends. As it is, I sleep all weekend long.

The boys are two months old... any advice for me??

 

Are you swaddling them? After a bunch of sleepless nights with my first daughter, I read the happiest baby on the block by Harvey Karp. We bought his white noise CD and started swaddling her with her arms in and it worked wonders. I think using a good swaddle blanket also makes a big difference. We use the miracle blanket and it's really easy to get a good tight swaddle.

Another thought, are they sleeping together? We quickly learned that one of our twins does sleep well unless his brother is right next to him. He fusses until his brother is next to him and will wiggle until he is touching his brother. It might be worth a try. Alternately, if they're already sleeping together, then you might try separating them.

 

Are you in any sort of routine? Do you swaddle? At 2 months old this is what our day looked like: And I'm approximating the times, we tried to start the day at 6 am but if they woke up at 5:30 we'd feed them, of course. We did 90 minutes awake/90 minutes asleep all day.

6 am - wake up and bottles. Each baby got 30 minutes to eat, so that took 1 hour total. Then for the 30 minutes they were un-swaddled and in the swing or bouncy or whatever. At the end of the 90 minutes of awake time they were both swaddled and placed in the crib. Of course, if someone was fussy then they slept in the bouncy or swing but I always tried the crib first.

9 am
12 noon
3 pm
6 pm

Was all the same routine of 90 minutes awake time/90 minutes swaddled and sleeping.

After the 9 pm feeding there was no unswaddled time. I unswaddled them to change their diapers before the feeding but after the feeding they were immediately swaddled and I started trying to get them to sleep. Eventually I had to move that up to after the 6 pm feeding and I don't remember at what age that happened, but they started to naturally fall asleep right after the 6 pm feeding. I really think that getting them in a good routine and that last feeding of the day not having any "play" time was the signal to them that it was night.

 

Definitely time to get into a nighttime routine if you havent already. We did/do baths before bed to start the bedtime ritual. I would also suggest white noise and swaddling if they will still tolerate the swaddle. Also at night low light, no talking during feeds and changes, and during the day make it a bit noisy. I would also read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Weisbluth if you havent already.

 

I also suggest a white noise machine. It made a world of difference for us. We also seperated our LO's at that time, and that seemed to help them sleep a bit better. Also, how much are they eating during the day vs night? Are you feeding them when they fuss? Have your tried offering a soother?

 

Me again...I also noticed that my DD was spitting up a lot at night and that she was eating more than my DS during the day. So when she fussed at night I gave her a soother and that seemed to work. She stopped night feeding around 2.5 months.

 

I do swaddle them and that helps... and offer them pacifiers. They sleep together. They do better together than alone. They hate their swing and bouncer. We have a nightlight, and a fan for white noise. They're in our room right now. During the day (and night) they eat every three hours.