very different sleepers

I have 13 month old twin girls who are very different sleepers and am wondering how to handle it. One DD generally sleeps through the night and is ready for one nap a day. My other DD generally does not sleep through the night and is on the fence about one nap a day; sometime she can do it and sometimes she really is misreable. A lot depends on their wake up time but my DD that needs an AM nap more is the one that is an early riser. They are in separate rooms but I have an older child so I try like heck to keep them on the same schedule so I have a bit of alone time with my older DD. Any advice?

 

I have not yet had to deal with your type of situation but the one thing I was thinking, because it sounds like you do want to keep them on some kind of schedule (I know I would be stir crazy if both of mine were on separate nap schedules), that perhaps the one who wants to take one nap you could have them upstairs for quiet time while the other one is napping. Perhaps leaving them a book or some stuffed animals to chill with during quiet time. Hope that helps!

 

I would put my "bad sleeper" on the "good sleeper's" schedule. There's really no sense perpetuating the problem by going w/ the habit.

When one of mine wakes early, he has no choice but to "make it" til scheduled naptime. I would do this in hopes that eventually the other one will either 1. STTN better and or 2. Sleep in.

I don't have another child plus twins so I can't even imagine how difficult that would be. I insist my twins be on the same schedule even if they try to buck the "system".

Good luck!!

 

Both of my boys sleep well overall, but they have different sleep needs. I try to keep them both on the same schedule, but sometimes it just makes sense for everyone involved if I just let Jack take 2 naps, and Jacob take one. Yes, that means we are stuck at home all day.... but I don't want to go out of the house with a couple of miserable kids, either.

Frustrating? Yes. But, it works better for me than forcing their bodies to do things they are simply not ready for.

 

When I started my twins on one nap, DD was absolutely ready and DS could have hung on to two naps for a bit longer. I decided to give one nap a try for both of them because, like you, I wanted them to be on the same schedule. What works for us is to put DS down for his nap about 30 minutes earlier than DD. His target naptime is 11:30 and DD's is 12:00. If DS is really tired from an early wakeup or a rough night, he goes down a little earlier, around 11:00. When I put him down early, I tend to put DD down a little early as well. You can also stagger bedtime. If the sleepier DD is super tired after one nap, put her to bed early that night.

For us, the most important part of the two-to-one nap transition was that once we started on one nap, we never went back to two. If we went back to two naps periodically, they'd stay up super late, and everything would get off track.