When did it happen?

I have 20 week old twins who still take 30 min naps, although DD has occasionally taken hour naps here and there. I usually have to wake her up so that both are on the same schedule. She sleeps at night a lot better than DS (up 2x and can be put down awake sometimes with no fussing).
DS is the 30 min napper who doesn't sleep well at night. So I'm just wondering when both will start to consolidate their naps? HSHHC states babies should by this time but i know each baby is different. So when did yours start to take longer naps or are they still 30 min nappers?

 

Oh, I can completely commiserate! My twins took 30 min naps and it was so hard. Hopefully your twins will grow out it before mine did - they didn't grow out of it until around 10.5 mos!

The short naps just stink, not only are they up at night but then you get no break during the day.. then you are having to do naps all day long! First it was 5 naps/day, then 4 naps/day, then finally around 6.5 mos mine went to three naps. I did have one rule though, I always made them nap at the same time so I could get at least a small break. DD would about twice a week do a one hour nap, but DS was pretty much 30 min on the dot. He only slept longer if he was sick or had a bad night. People online said you are putting them down too early and too late but no matter how long I kept them up between naps it was always 30 min. So don't think you are doing anything wrong! We did three naps until 10.5 mos then they were suddenly able to go longer than 2.5-3 hours between naps and starting taking two one hourish naps. However, there was a trade off, they started sleeping less at night and more in the day and they started waking around 5-530 each day.

Hang in there. I did remember reading online a lot of people said they would outgrow it around 6-7 mos. Hopefully yours will do it sooner than later.

 

Honestly, my guys were perpetual cat-nappers (30-45 minute naps) until they dropped to one nap at 15 months. At that point, they started taking a nap that was usually more like 1.5 hours. My kids never, ever slept as much as people say that kids need to, and still don't. They stopped naps entirely about three months before they turned 3, and now I'm lucky if they sleep 11 hours a night - last night it was more like 9.5 hours. They were up at 5:30am and raring to go! (and me, I've been a grump all day because of it! :lazy

I also tried a gazillion sleep methods and ideas over the course of a couple of years, and nothing made much change in their sleep patterns. I don't say this to discourage you, but like texgirl said above, don't blame yourself and think you are doing something "wrong" if your kids don't follow the "normal" sleep patterns for whatever age. I spent MONTHS driving myself crazy over it, and just finally gave up and accepted it for what it is. Try different ideas and methods, and you may find something that helps or works, but if not, try not to take it personally and remember all kids and people are individuals and are going to have their own normal for sleep.

 

Thanks eagleswaiting
I'm trying to accept DS's short nap status but I often think he can sleep longer if I changed his environment around. We are currently housing with the in laws and they take their naps upstairs in the living room in their swings so I know it's not the best place but if I move the swings downstairs all they hear is the stomping around upstairs so who knows..

My biggest gripe is DS night waking now. If he wakes up before midnight we don't give him a bottle- I can rock him to sleep but EVERY time I lay him down he WAKES up! When i re-try it takes longer and longer to get him to fall asleep. Sometimes I try rocking him in the crib but he gets irate and I'm worried he's going to wake up DD (separate crib but same room with us). He will gladly sleep in bed with DH in the guest room but I know that's a bad habit but don't know what to do?

With all this night waking it would seem logical that he would sleep longer than 30 min but he doesn't but DD can sleep an hour on those days, of course.. I just don't know what to do at night? I don't want to keep feeding him but then I don't want him to sleep most of the night in bed either. He is also waking up earlier for the day (630 ish) which means waking up DD earlier which she doesn't like.

any suggestions? THanks

 

If co-sleeping with DH works for your son I would reconsider if co-sleeping really is no option for your family. It is not necessarily a bad habit. Initially, we had not planned on co-sleeping but it sort of evolved for us - me falling asleep while nursing, for example, or baby falling asleep while nursing and me not taking the risk of waking them by moving them to a crib, soothing baby with your touch and the rhythm of your breathing before you or the baby fully awakes etc.

DH and I got a lot more sleep in those nights so we decided to research safe co-sleeping and moved to the family bed solution and never looked back. Moving them to their own beds around age 2 was not difficult and now, by age 4, the phases when we have one or two night-time visitors are rare and short.

 

It sounds like maybe he is having trouble self-soothing. If he is napping in the swing, and you rock him to sleep whenever he wakes, then maybe that is part of the problem. We rocked our kids to sleep for awhile, but then we worked on weaning them off of it. First we would rock a bit, then just hold them to go to sleep, then put them down not fully sleep, etc. And yes, it took some crying, but they FINALLY started sleeping through the night that way. We didn't do a full blown CIO, but would go in at intervals and comfort them without picking them up. We did that over several nights, making the intervals longer each time. After a couple of weeks, that really cut down on the night waking, and eventually they STTN consistently. We started that whole process around 9 months, though, so your kids maybe are too young for that.

 

^^ this is my best guess also.

Sleep should begin to consolidate between 12 and 16 weeks (adjusted age). If your LOs are 20 weeks and have never had a period of consolidated sleep (at least one nap of one hour or more a day) then something is preventing this.
The possibilities:
-as Eagleswings says, he doesn't know how to self-sooth
-they are being kept awake when they should be sleeping either by putting them down to late or the sleep environment is not allowing them to sleep.
-teething (but this should be in spurts, not consistant
-ear infection, acid reflux, or other pain.


According to Wiessbluth you can use CIO as early as 5 months. So unless your LOs were preemie they are old enough. (Because sleep is biological you should always consider adjusted age.)

the problem with CIO is that if you don't commit and follow through you make the problem worse because you can teach them if they cry harder you will come or you teach them how long they have to cry until you come which just creates longer cry episodes. So don't try it unless you are committed.
I did a variation as eagleswings describes, with the number one rule to not pick them up.

I would also recommend a sleep log! The basic rules are the same but every child has little quirks. If you know those quirks you can make their sleep better. Those little details can make a HUGE difference.

For example: when my children get over tired. DS will is most benefited by being able to sleep until regular wake up time in the morning.. his naps will be short until he has a good night sleep. DD is most benefited by long naps.. she will NOT sleep late in the morning until she has had a day of good naps.. you can see the problem. They would have perpetually kept each in a state of over tired if i had not figured this out. The solution: 1) separate for naps when they are behind on sleep. 2) occasionally, i have gone in at first sign of waking from DD and brought her to our bed and allowed DS to sleep an extra 20, 30 minutes. Makes all the difference!

Another example: You may have noticed my post about trying to get them to one nap.. disaster. by trying to transition them early i made big sleep problems.
The discovery that finally fixed the problem: If they wake up at 6:30 or earlier they MUST have their first nap (be asleep!) by 9:00 and it must last NO longer than 1.25 hours. Longer than that and DD has a terrible second nap. Later than 9:00 first nap and they both have disturbed night sleep (multiple short wakings). WHAT?! from what i can tell at the moment, how good their night sleep is, is most dependent on what time they go down for their first nap (like 15 minutes late creates night wakings!). How crazy it that?

None of the above will help you. It is highly unlikely that these are the quirks of your children.
My point is, when your babies are sleeping many, many times a day and all that sleep is dependent on the previous sleep. There is no way for you to begin to see those tiny patterns unless you write it down and can look back. When they are down to 2 naps, you can toss the log and just pay attention but with all those little naps it is impossible to remember 15 minutes time differences in sleep for TWO babies.

In regards to sleeping in the living room in swings.
SWINGS: Not all babies but some appear to sleep well in motion but do not actually get good sleep. They appear to sleep but wake up tire.
LIVING ROOM: Hear me out because this sounds crazy. My brother and SIL have a daughter who was a terrible sleeper (maybe the worst i have ever heard of). They finally got her on track by following Weissbluth's advice but always had to GUARD her sleep carefully. When we vacationed together they use to put her pack-n-play in a closet or a bathroom. the extra set of walls muffled noice and they ran a fan outside the door for extra noise. I thought it was crazy at first but it worked well for her. Now as an 7 year old, when we vacations she still prefers to take her blankets and make a bed in the closet rather than a mattress on the floor.

INLAWS: You have my sympathy. Just having my ILs visit (in my house) makes me doubt if what i am doing is right and they always push me to adjust the kids schedule for their schedule and then we (the kids and I) pay the price. I am sure that is not an easy situation for you as a new mom. remember YOU are MOM. They had their chance to mess up their kids.. you get the final say. You are mom!