Twins on different schedules?

Does anyone have their twins on two different nap/bed time schedules? When I put my boys down for bed one sleeps 11hrs straight, very occasionally waking once to eat. On the other hand, the other wakes about an hour after going down and then every 45mins-2hrs after that. He is currently sleeping in a pack n play in my bedroom to keep from waking his brother. After about 5 times of getting up I get sick of it and put him in bed with me. He still wakes up just as often but I can usually just pat him back to sleep that way. I figure maybe he just doesnt need to sleep as much as his brother. I have considered pushing his bed time to 2 hours or so later than the other...? But then that means his napping schedule will be different and therefore probably his eating schedule. Any feedback? Does putting them to bed at different times work for anyone?? Everyone is telling me he just isnt sleeping bc he is 9mo and most dont sleep well around this age. Is this true?

 

Sounds like he is having difficulty transitioning through his sleep cycles. Sleep cycles move in around 45min increments. At night sleep, you will have two major light periods of sleep, around mid evening and again around 2am. (These times are approximate). Also if this has been going on for a little while, it's also possible that he has now become overtired and is having difficulty staying asleep.

One of my girls has never mastered the art of transitioning in her naps. She is fine with her night sleep (mostly) except when overtired.. So since 8 months, I have separated her at naps in a pnp in our bedroom, otherwise she keeps her sister awake.. There was a time around 10 months when we had a month of 2x 1.5hour naps but then it was back to 45min again. Every few weeks she plays catch up and sleeps 2-3 hour naps. And right now we are going through more challenges.

So to answer your question, yes there is an 8 and 9month regression. But whether you are going through it would depend on whether he was sleeping well, before now. Babies at this age need a minimum of 11 hours consolidated (uninterrupted) sleep per night with a total of 13.5-14 hours in a 24 hour period. So pushing his bedtime later is only going to give him a sleep debt which will cause you more problems later on and be harder to recover from.. If anything, I would suggest, an earlier bedtime, to make up on his already accumulated sleep debt until you can start working on him falling back to sleep on his own at night.

There are a number of ways you can help him transition through his sleep cycles, I have tried soooo many of them and I still use them when we get to the desperate stage of overtiredness. I spent almost a month of going in just before she woke and patting her through the sleep cycle, which worked 95% of the time, but it killed my back. There are plenty of other methods so please feel free to PM me. I'd be happy to pass on what I've learnt about this (I've spent literally hundreds of hours online just on this topic alone!).

ETA: With anything you try, it's very very important that there is consistency. I read in your other post that sometimes you feed at middle of night when you are on your own to get them back to sleep but not when DH is home.This seems confusing for them, I suggest be more consistent with your response at night awakenings.

 

I agree with the idea that he might have problems transitioning from one sleep cycle to the next and I agree that pushing back his bedtime is probably not a good idea because (1) babies that age still need a lot of sleep and (2) having to handle different napping and feeding schedules during the day would be exhausting for you and restricting for the whole family (e.g. how would you fit in time for running errands, goig for a walk, seeing friends etc. if one or the other of the babies is asleep at more or less any given time of the day?).

Sleep begets sleep, so I might even try to give him more sleep during the day or an earlier rather than later bedtime. I would also try to as peaceful a bedtime and nighttime environment for him as possible, maybe try a white noise machine.

I do not know how you feel about co-sleeping or using a co-sleeper by your bed as a mor epermanent solution so you can soothe him at nights without having to get up, maybe even without him or you fully waking up because you can lay a calming hand or offer some body contact when he gets restless. If you are resorting to this during the night anyway, doing this right from the start might give you and him more peaceful nights.