tips for getting babies in sync!

So our 9 week old twins are starting to sleep longer intervals at night. Sometimes 4-6 hour stretches. But usually not together....of course! Last night my mom took our boy and I kept our girl. So I got a beautiful almost 5 hour stretch of sleep. My problem is normally our girl sleeps a TON during the day and our boy is more awake and active during the day. I try and try to wake her up. Now the feeding goes ok for the most part. I always feed them together. If only I could get them to nap during the day together so they could sleep somewhat together during the night, that would be AWSOME! Any tips on how you got your twins to sleep/nap at the same time??? I feel I al slowly getting my sanity back! ^_^ Next step is moving them to the crib! That's a whole other topic though...

 

NOt sure what you do for bedtime but no matter the schedule we always feed the boys at the same time before bed even if they aren't due to take a bottle. This tops them up with fully bellies and they wake up at the same time at night. Mine are also 9 weeks old and we give them a feeding at 7pm, put them to bed, then feed them at 11pm (we wake them for this) and now they sleep from that feeding all the way to 5am which is great. Sanity is within reach. Not sure this helps but thought I'd share what we do.

 

What do you mean by a ton? How many naps/hours during the day? I've been following the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and Happy Twins books (basically the same book but the Child one is more detailed). I did not let the twins stay awake more than two hours. I watched for their signs of drowsiness and swaddled them, put them down with the pacifiers and rocked them (they sleep in Rock'n Play Sleepers but we're about to move to their cribs). So they slept between every feeding. I would feed them, have some play time, then put them down as soon as they got tired. If one gets tired before the other one, it doesn't matter, BOTH go down. You have to be consistent. Sometimes it might be almost time for the next feeding by the time you get them both to sleep, but that is ok. Just keep doing it. In the beginning, they were really fussy, I could never get them to sleep it seemed, but around 7wks or so, the fussiness died down some and I consistently did the EAT-PLAY-NAP routine around the clock (no playing at night of course). I took the EAT-PLAY-NAP idea from the Baby Whisperer and some other books but it worked well with what I was doing. Now they are 15wks (we just stopped swaddling them this week) and they started sleeping from 5:30pm-7:30am and only get up at 1am and 5:30am to eat. And it looks like their 3 naps are turning into 2 naps.
Early on it takes so long to get them to sleep (and sleep at the same time!!!) but as you stick with it and they get a little older, it will take less and less time to get them to fall asleep and they will look forward to their naps. Don't keep them up longer than 2 hrs at this age. They will get overtired and it will be harder to get them to sleep at night. Sounds backwards but that is one of the main ideas in the book and I've found it to be true.

 

It was hard at that age to get them to consistently nap at the same time, for us. So I separated them at naps so that I could work on the difficult sleeper to settle to sleep. I only did this for a short time (a couple of weeks I think) until they got into sync then moved them together into the same room at naps to let them work it out to sleep through each other's cries. Even though I separated at naps, night time sleep was still together.

Also at that age, ours did 1.5 between naps, they just didn't last longer than that. Watch for their signs of tiredness, rubbing eyes, yawning, grizzle and put them to bed within a 5-min window of that.

Whenever one woke and I wasn't able to settle back to sleep, I woke the other and eventually they became in sync - I found at night time this worked the best, so if one woke for a feed, I woke the other to feed (even if it was a dream feed).

What I remember most about this time though is that everything changed when they turned 4 months, they started sleeping less during the day and longer stretches at night so eventually we cut out the night feeds and they day became more synced. Most important for me was them getting used to sleeping through each other cries.

Anyway I'm rambling, hope this make some sense and helps you in a little way. GL!

 

We didn't really get on a consistent nap schedule until more like 6 months. And even now, one of my boys wants way more sleep than the other one. Separating them has not be an option for us, but if you can separate them, that may help. Before 6 months, we pretty much went by the 90 minute rule - which is, they should be sleepy around 90 minutes after they woke up, give or take, and you should be soothing them and prepping to put them down again around that point.

 

When I say she sleeps a lot, I mean she just seems to sleep a lot more than him, she will wake up to eat but then goes right back to sleep a lot of the time. Although, the past 2 days it seems to be changing, she's been more awake. Yes I actually have the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins. So would you recommend I read the Happy Child one as well if it's more detailed? I have skimmed a bit through it as I hadn't had much time to sit down and read. I do remember though, that if I put one down, put both down when it comes to naps. My thing is that the one who isn't tired will just cry. How do you put them both down when one is wide awake and doesn't want to sleep? Just lay him/her down anyway and tough it out? I'll do whatever it takes to get them in sync.

I do remember my 4 year old dd when she hit that 4 month mark, sleeping a ton better. Actually I think she was sleeping through the night by then. Did you ladies keep a sleep log? I keep planning on doing that and I never do! I need to get on that. The book mentions how after a while, if you're keeping a chart/log you'll begin to see a pattern and work from that. And I do remember reading where he says put them down drowsy but awake. I have tried that but they always get fussy. I pick them up after a couple of minutes and repeat but they never seem to settle. So I'll probably just keep doing that even if it ends up being time for the next feed. I'll try that for a week or two and see how it works, I think my problem is consistency. I need to be more consistent!

 

The Happy Child book is a lot more detailed and gives some great tips - I actually read that one first before the twin one, and it's repetitive so as you read, the points get more reinforced, especially with a sleep deprived brain!. I kept a log for the first 3 months and I found it really helpful in tweaking their routines. You're right, being consistent in what you do, is the key point and with a sleep log, you can see how long it's taking you to settle etc.

With the fussing, I would leave it longer than a couple of minutes, maybe 5? before going in and trying to pat/soothe, then leaving it a little longer next time. I tried not to pick them up when they continued to fuss, unless they were really crying. This is why I separated them for a little while during naps. Maybe put the sleepy one down, take the other one into another room to try to settle. I also used a single stroller for a little while just to get the non-drowsy one, sleepier but I think that was when they were about 2 months old then.

 

Were your twins born early? Weissbluth goes by their adjusted age. So if they are 9wks (or younger when adjusted), then you will definitely still have some fussiness when trying to put them down.
I read the twin book first, then went to the regular book and I use it as a reference. It's a long book but just read the parts that you need right now for your babies' age.
At this age, you can do anything you need to in order to get them to sleep--at that point we were still using swings and holding them to get them to sleep sometimes but not as much as a few wks before. I know the books say you shouldn't let them rely on movement for sleeping but they are so young and you can't spoil them yet.
It was tough, sometimes I had to rock them for 45 mins to an hour to get both to sleep but to me it seemed like getting them to sleep was the most important thing and eventually it took less time for them to fall asleep because they associated the swaddling-pacifier-rocking with sleep. After playtime it was like they WANTED to go take their naps. You have to have some kind of routine--even a short one--so that they can learn "this+this=go to sleep" After we stopped swaddling a week ago, we also put them in their cribs the other day so we don't rock them anymore but still give them their pacifiers. One of our boys seems to love the crib since he can move around more while our other boy doesn't seem so happy about it and he's still very stuck on his pacifier. We are separating them for naps now since he's being fussy.