what am I doing wrong?

Discussion in 'The First Year' started by keirin, Sep 11, 2011.

  1. keirin

    keirin Well-Known Member

    Our b/g twins were 10 weeks 9/9 (7 weeks adjusted, if you need to adjust a baby born at 37 weeks).... and they are still getting up 3-4 times a night. I'm sure that this has to do with the fact that they have gravitated toward a 5 pm "bedtime." They go down around 5pm and typically sleep until a feed between 11 pm and 12 am. I do get them up around 8:30 and feed them in their sleep before going to bed myself. After that if I'm lucky they sleep til almost 3 am, and then again between 5 - 6 am. We're up by 6 am most mornings. If I'm not lucky I have a night like last night... we're up closer to 11 than 12, then again around 2 am, then again around 3:45 am, then again around 5:30 am. I have tried keeping up our baby girl a little later in an attempt to get their first feed closer to 2 am, but if she gets overtired she turns into a cranky monster who screams for hours on end before collapsing into sleep... and then she gets up at the same time anyway. Also, they typically will only take a small amount to eat at each night feed (2 ounces at most) except the one closest to 6 am when they take four ounces.

    Any suggestions?
     
  2. jjzollman

    jjzollman Well-Known Member

    It sounds very normal - exhausting - but normal. :hug: Some people see some sleep relief around 12 weeks and their babies start sleeping longer stretches. :hug: Hang in there! :youcandoit:
     
  3. TwinxesMom

    TwinxesMom Well-Known Member

    Very normal especially for early babies. They have very tiny stomachs and get hungry
     
  4. eagleswings216

    eagleswings216 Well-Known Member

    Sounds very normal to me, too. That doesn't make it any less exhausting, though. :grouphug: :youcandoit:
     
  5. MrsWright

    MrsWright Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    Ditto pp...nothing you can do but wait it out for a "schedule" change. Hope you get a few more decent nights in!!! :grouphug:
     
  6. maybell

    maybell Well-Known Member

    I followed "The Happiest Baby on the Block" - Harvey Karp theory... most of it was related to mimicing the last trimest to another 3 months... or 12 weeks... he called it the "4th trimester" I think.


    He talks about the 5 Ss... swaddling, sushing (white noise), sideline (how you hold if you are actually holding baby), swinging, and sucking.

    so with that in mind

    Swaddling - not sure you could start swaddling at this age, but I did "restart" at 5 wks and it was AMAZING!!! they immediately dropped a feed. we swaddled until 6.5 months! we had to keep getting bigger blankets to swaddle with, but it was totally worth it. they seem to really jerk themselves awake.

    Sushing - totally get some white noise!! you can crank it up, hopefully they'll love it like mine! it really calmed them down, and we ran it all night long like he recommended... that way if/when they wake up in the night it hopefully will lull them back to sleep!

    Sideline & swinging... are techniques on holding them so that would help you get them back to sleep,, but not keep them asleep.

    Sucking - if you don't have pacifiers, get them. That really helped us too. Actually my dd didn't even take a paci until maybe 2 months old. I just kept trying different ones and she liked the Mam ones. my ds loved the gumdrop ones that BRU carries now. his were from the hospital and kinda had a vanilla scent that lulled him to sleep! I tried tricking him several times and he knew the difference! (though not sure all the ones available in the BRU store are vanilla scented)...

    anyway, good luck!!! you will get through this. the bad news is that for us, the twins started waking again at night when they started teething at 6 months! UGH!

    My other book I liked was The Baby Whisperer. She had specific pats and pick up put downs she recommended at certain ages... to help them learn to go to sleep on their own. i.e. not nursing or bottle feeding to sleep so that they could put themselves to sleep when they wake on their own too...
     
  7. carrie-

    carrie- Well-Known Member

    I think it really depends on the baby. My first set was a lot like yours - just not settled sleepers at all and didn't drop the last overnight feed until 6 months.

    Having said that, swaddling did seem to help as did a nap & feeding schedule during the day. But the night wakings might continue for a little while. As pp said, 12/14 weeks could be the magic number.
     
  8. keirin

    keirin Well-Known Member

    I am swaddling our baby boy because it seems to help him, but our girl HATES it and she also falls asleep easily on her own so I haven't felt a need for it with her. We also run a fan in their room for white noise and have since we brought them home, and I give them a paci when they will take it... our girl generally hates it but the boy will take one when going to sleep sometimes.

    We don't really have a schedule during the day, other than that we get up at 6 am and go down for the night between 5 - 6 pm (the babies decided that one, not me!). I want to put them on a schedule, but I haven't had much luck. I can't imagine not feeding them when they are hungry, and I am putting them down within two hours of being up in an attempt to keep them from getting too cranky (I've tried keeping them up too, it wasn't pretty). I keep hoping as they get older they'll fall into a more normal schedule.
     
  9. KeriU

    KeriU Well-Known Member

    I wouldn't kill yourself trying to get them into a routine. I did that and I drove myself crazy trying to stick to it! sometimes it just doesn't work. My twins fell into a routine about 5 months old on their own. I have always fed on demand, but once they started to be consistently tired at the same time for naps, I stuck to that for a routine. they are still on the same sort of routine. their naps have just moved back an hour because they have gotten older and can be awake a little longer between naps. Good luck and hopefully they will fall into some sort of routine soon for you.
     
  10. maybell

    maybell Well-Known Member

    I will say that maybe they are just getting too much sleep too early in the evening... if you could keep them up 2 more hours... maybe they'd sleep more overnight?? I know theory works with my 3 yr olds now... I had to drop that final nap b/c they weren't going to be until almost 10p.

    anyway just another thought, good luck!
     
  11. Rollergiraffe

    Rollergiraffe Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    It all sounds pretty normal to me! And tiring.. oh how I don't miss those early days of being up every 3 hours. But, it will all be over before you know it.

    Sleep begets sleep, so make sure that you're putting your kiddos down early enough that they're not overtired in a quiet, dark room. White noise is great. And if you're not doing it already, always wake the second one to feed when the first one wakes so that you only have to get up one time to feed both. By about 12-13 weeks they should at least occasionally be starting to sleep at longer stretches. It may be a while yet before they're sleeping all the way through the night; many babies still need a night time feeding until they're about 8-9 months. But at least if you can get a couple of good stretches of sleep you can plan around it, and hopefully get some more rest yourself!
     
  12. JoannaD

    JoannaD Well-Known Member

    I agree- sounds normal, but that doesn't make it any less tiring :( The good news is that you should only be a few weeks away from some longer stretches of sleep! You can make it through a few more weeks and when you get your first stretch of 5-6 hours of sleep, it will feel great!
     
  13. Henderson

    Henderson Well-Known Member

    sounds about right mine were right there at that age ;)
     
  14. eagleswings216

    eagleswings216 Well-Known Member

    You know, that reminds me that we had that problem, too. For awhile, our boys would take their longest stretch of sleep starting around 6pm. Then they would be up around 9-10pm and up every couple of hours after that. Somewhere in some book, I read about not letting them sleep that long that time of day. So we would let them sleep about 45 minutes, then get them from their cribs. We would bring them out with us in the living room, and even if they were dozing, the lights, TV, etc. would keep them from being in a deep sleep. We would then feed them around 10ish and put them down again. They still woke up a few times at night until we did sleep training at 9 months, but at least the long stretch was later at night when I could actually sleep. Might be worth trying....
     
  15. keirin

    keirin Well-Known Member

    I'll try that... we tried just keeping them up but it led to hours of screaming on our baby girl's part (she really needs her sleep!). Maybe if I let them sleep a little then try keeping them out with us for a bit it will help. I don't mind putting them down around 7, but 5 is just too early!

    Thanks for the reassurance everyone... I feel like I can't turn around without someone telling me that their baby was sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. I keep thinking I must be doing something terribly wrong!
     
  16. maybell

    maybell Well-Known Member

    hope it's going better! and NO you're not doing anything wrong!! I would kinda recommend you finding a book/theory and reading about it...and trying it out for a few weeks at least... I mentioned already, but I like "Happiest Baby on the Block", "The Baby Whisperer", "BabyWise", and "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child"... I'd pick one and see how it works for your babies age group... all of those have similar aspects, but are different. I think when mine were that age, i was doing more of the Baby Whisperer... but I've heard great things about all of them.

    good luck! this phase will pass... and then it will be something else! :)
     
  17. cheezewhiz24

    cheezewhiz24 Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    What I loved about Happiest Baby on the Block is that it was a video! ;) I didn't have to read (& I :wub: to read normally).
     
  18. PinkDiamonds

    PinkDiamonds Well-Known Member

    You are definitely not doing anything wrong. They were getting up around the same number of times, if not more, especially my son. It is VERY tiring, but things will definitely get better! If you could get some help at least a night of the week, it would really help a lot!
     
  19. PurplePenguin

    PurplePenguin Active Member

    We swaddled our girls til they started rolling over - now they roll over onto their tummy and get upset. So we have to wake up and flip them over a few times a night. One of them won't stay asleep in the crib - they're still sharing a crib, and we worry that one crying will wake the other, but we don't want to jump to every little cry - don't they need to get used to soothing themselves?

    One of our girls is still startling at over 4 months - we were using the miracle blankets but they grew out of them - any other suggestions? We really want them to sleep through the night again - we're tired!
     
  20. maybell

    maybell Well-Known Member

    I kept making bigger swaddle blankets from flannel. i believe I made it about 42" square. I believe there are blankets out there now that are that big. though I just watched a little video of the Miracle Blanket and it seems that it would be wide enough... are your girls too tall for the feet part? ours didn't need their feet swaddled so I cut that part off.

    anyway, another idea is to put in a sleep sack and keep their arms inside... so that they still feel a little snuggled, but give them a little freedom. A friend got a special sack kinda like a sleep sack but without arm holes, she got it from New Zealand and it zips on the bottom. it was quite pricey, but I think that the sleep sack with their arms inside would do the same thing.

    good luck ladies!
     
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