Why aren't they sleeping?

My twins are almost 3 months at this point and they are developing some frustrating sleep habits--I hope someone can help or give ideas on how to straighten us out!

We are on a pretty strict 3/4 hour eat/play/sleep schedule and the twins are both bottle-fed breast milk. DD is pretty good about napping throughout the day but DS is nearly impossible to get down. We really have to be strict about the swaddle, white noise, dark room, etc. and even then he generally only sleeps for 30-45 minutes in that 3 hour stretch.

They had been doing better at night (thankfully). They would go down between 7-8pm, sleep for a couple hours, take one more feeding around 10-11 and then sleep until about 2-3am, then sleep again until 5-6am. My ultimate goal would be to have them sleep from 7pm-7am and that's what I'm hoping we can work toward. The problem now is that after the 2-3am feeding, they basically do not go back to sleep. Last night, for example, we put them back down at 3am and at 3:20, they started fussing. First it's DS, then it's DD. They are both full, burped, changed, swaddled and I don't think it's gas so I'm just not sure what to do. I really don't want to start my day at 3am.

This has been going on for at least a week now and both DH and I are a wreck. We're only getting 3-4 hours of sleep a night and it's getting reeeallly old. We're both on leave from work right now but we go back in about a week or so. I'm just not sure how I'm going to do this when I'm working as well.

Does anyone have any ideas about what could be going on or what do to? We tried adding in a bottle of formula at night but that created so much gas in them that they were still fussy all night and into the morning as well. I would also welcome any ideas on how to get DS to sleep during the day more. He gets so overtired but I'm not sure what else to do.

One last bit of info--they both have silent reflux but are on medication for it and it's under control. They sleep elevated (in bouncies or nap nanny) and it hasn't been an issue for about a month or so. I don't think it's the reflux waking them up because I'm not seeing those symptoms.

TIA!!

 

You are probably not going to like my answer, but I got tough. Whether they liked it or not, 3 am was bed time. I did not care if they were awake- they were going back into bed (bouncy or swing). They got used to it.

 

Thanks--so, did you let them just cry? My pedi actually suggested that 11-12 weeks was not too young to CIO so maybe it's something we should consider. 3am is not an acceptable wake up time. I realize 7am is probably a stretch at this point but 6am would be ok--even 530 would be ok. 3am, not so much.

 

First I came to terms with fussing is not crying. There's a difference between 'I'm Hurt/Hungry/Wet' or 'I don't want to go to bed right now!' So we let them fuss for a few minutes, then would go in and pick them up and calm and put right back down. If they were calming down after a couple of minutes, I wouldn't go back in-just wait and see. Now at 3 months they were in our room, beside the bed, but by 4 months they went into their room. We gradually upped the time they could fuss a couple of minutes at a time so that they wouldn't think 5 minutes was the magic amount of time. It's hard at first, but I just tried to remember that they were physically ok and it's not playtime. It's sleeptime and they have to learn that I'm not accessible at that hour for 'fun'. :babyflips:

 

At around 11 weeks I had to do CIO with my daughter who would not nap. It WORKED! Once we got her naps under control, she started sleeping much better at night. She sleeps from 7 to 7. Good luck. It's so tough when no one is sleeping!!

 

We also did CIO for naps about 12 weeks because we also had two who would not nap. After a whole day of not napping they would be so overtired that they were difficult to settle at night. We followed Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child and would give them an hour in which to fall asleep. It only took a few days before they were actually napping! We also made it a rule that if the nap was less than 30 min we would let them fuss back to sleep. We found that better naps led to better nights with much easier to settle babies when they woke to feed.

The other thing I found was that following a schedule led to overtired babies. It was much more successful to watch for tired signs and THE MINUTE we saw eye rubbing or yawning to get them swaddled and in bed. We made sure to never let them have more than 90 minutes of awake time because we found that if they hit the 2 hour mark they would fight it more. I would try laying them down for nap a little earlier during the day, basically watching the clock and aiming each nap to be 1 1/2-2 hours after waking from the previous one.

Good luck and I hope you start sleeping soon!