When do you wake them?

Hi All -
I have 3 1/2 month old g/g twins. With my 3 year old daughter, I was always of the school that you never wake a sleeping baby. But with the twins...

Do you wake your sleeping twins in the interest of a schedule?
Do you do it both during the day and at night?
How do you ever figure out if one is sleeping longer than the other and/or sleeping through the night?

I am just SO TIRED...and am not thinking through this topic clearly.

Help me?
Thanks so much!
Jo

 

Hi!
Our boys are about the same age as your girls, and I've been struggling with the same thing! Right now, we've got one who sleeps through the night (like 11 hours) and the other who wakes up to eat twice and fusses a bit in between. I don't know if this helps, but I wake them during the day to eat to stay on schedule and then let them go until our night eater wakes up at night. I found that if I woke him up at his normal eating time at night, he'd be so sleepy, he wouldn't eat and then would wake up an hour or 2 later starving, throwing us off schedule.

 

I got online to ask nearly the same thing!!! I'm noticing my little girl seems to be able to sleep longer at night. Last night when I tried to wake her after feeding my son, she was all sleepy and barely ate half of her normal. I only did it because I feared her waking up in another hour and messing up my chance to sleep, terrible me huh? I think I will let her go tonight, though if she will.

Mine seem to be on opposite schedules sometimes during the day--one awake and one asleep then switch...I haven't tried to "alter" it, mostly because I try and use the time to get stuff done...Not sure, but am looking forward to other replies!

 

When mine were babies, I never woke one because the other was up. Waking, I figured, they would work out.

My hard and fast rule was one down, all down. So they went to sleep together, but didn't necessarily wake together (they still don't). I would generally leave the awake one in the room and was amazed at what the other one slept through.

Ultimately, you have to decied what YOU can live with.

 

um... I usually let whoever's sleeping sleep. I hate to wake a sleeping baby, and sometimes the one who is sleeping sleeps through a feeding, and the scheduel is all back on track for the next feeding, but I figure it's not that bad for them to miss 1 feeding a day. if they're that tired they must need the sleep. my babies tend to just eat and sleep tons when they're having a growth spurt. it goes something like eat and eat for days, then several days of sleeping more than usual. so really I kinda let 'em do what they want. if they're up I feed them, if they're asleep I let 'em sleep. it's rare that I wake the other one if one is sleeping. but that's just me. it stresses me out more to have to wake a sleeping baby than it does to have my scheduel thrown of.
Michelle

 

I always did. This was only in the night time hours. I did try to keep them on teh same schedule, One eating right after the other during the day, within reason, but at night, I always would wake the other and feed her once the first one who woke on her own was done... I couldn't handle the thought of the other one waking a half hour after I got back to sleep...

 

A friend of mine have twins they are 4 now but Mom was told to wake them every 3 hours as babies to feed them, Till this day they still get up every three hours. So I would let them sleep. If they are eating enough while they are awake then let them sleep. Plus I have heard that babies grwo when they are in a deep sleep.

Heather

# boys and expecting twins in December!!!

 

I almost always woke the other one until they were about 3.5 months old. But I did that due to their weight. That's when the doctor said it was okay for them to start going longer between feedings and to just let them sleep if they want to.

 

If one gets up...I give the other one 30 minutes and if that one is not up by the 30 minute mark, I wake him or her...which is still hard to do - their little swollen eyes just want to sleep!? But, after about 1 minute...they are wide awake.

jen

 

Unless I have to be somewhere, I let the other just sleep. I find that it is vry rare that the other is not awake within 30 - 40 minutes.

 

I wake the other up. I found for us it works, but I also tandem nurse too. During the day the girls are usually on the same schedule, so it's rare that I have to do it at this point and they're both STTN, but when they weren't, I did wake them because I tried for one week, letting them sleep. That was probably the worst week for me as they were directly opposite each other! I would just get back to sleep and the other would wake up.

 

Do you wake your sleeping twins in the interest of a schedule?
When they were younger (when we were on a 3 or 3.5 hour schedule) yes. During the day I would wake them if they hit 4 hours and at night I would wake them both if one wake. They began sleeping through (9 pm - 6 am) at 3 months. Today they sleep from 7 pm to 6:15 am. Today if one wakes from nap early I let the other sleep, unless it is close to feeding or they have been asleep longer then 2 hours, then I just leave the one that is awake in the bedroom and let he wake the other up.

Do you do it both during the day and at night?
Yes

How do you ever figure out if one is sleeping longer than the other and/or sleeping through the night?
I don't think that we ever will! Some days Emma is a huge sleeper and some days Mia is. They are always switching roles and trying to confuse me!!

 

Yes. I tried leaving them to wake up when they wanted but i wasnt getting any sleep at all so if one woke up i got the other up too. I couldnt handle falling asleep after feeding one baby and then half an hour later the other one waking up. That way i could get a couple of hours in between each feed to grab a nap. That was the only way that worked for me x

 

QUOTE(Erykah @ May 10 2007, 07:17 AM) [snapback]249932[/snapback]
Unless I have to be somewhere, I let the other just sleep. I find that it is vry rare that the other is not awake within 30 - 40 minutes.


Same here. If one is awake, I use that time to play with them alone for a bit.

 

I let mine sleep when they want and wake when they want for the most part. At night, they are sleeping MUCH better, as in DD gave me 11 hours last night!! DS woke up twice between 8 pm and 6 am, but hey, if only one wakes, that's not too bad! Anyway, during the day I let them sleep as much as they want unless we're going out (rarely it seems!) and yes, when one gets up and the other is still sleeping we use that as our 'Mommy & Me Time'. We're still working it all out even after three months, no REAL schedule here, just a nighttime routine that seems to work for us! I do try to have them awake for a bit before we start the evening routine around 6 or so, and I'm finding that since we really don't work on getting them on a strict schedule during the day, they tend to work it out and are sleeping through pretty well at three months! Good luck and sorry for the novel