co-sleaping with twins?

[susan13]

Does anyone do this? if so, how and how big were your twins when you started?

Trying to make this work for my family

thanks
Susan

[nudnik]

Did it as soon as they were born!

Me and DH have separate beds, so no worries of rolling daddies. I put two twin size beds together, directly on the floor, so I have in essence a king size bed. Turns out I only use one side, pretty much, so I probably could get away with a twin size bed too. (Well, would be pretty ironic otherwise, right?)

My bed is against the wall, and babies stay away from the edge - usually between me and the wall. I tend to put the two of them right up next to each other and switch sides as necessary to nurse. I have sometimes put both girls on opposite sides of the bed, and switch vertically to nurse as necessary, but I have a less comfortable sleep that way because I stay very stiff not to kick anyone by accident!

[Nanette56]

Thanks for posting this- I'm interested in knowing too. DH and I do sleep in the same king bed though, so I'm wondering how that would work. My DS slept with us until he turned 5 and then we got him a bunk bed for his room, and he had no desire to sleep with us anymore (unless he's sick or there's a bad storm), but four in the same bed seems it would be impossible? Thinking about the arm's reach bassinet coupled with a co-sleeper so that I can just keep swapping them out, but that will only last for so long...

[rachel7628]

We're planning to side-car a crib so there's some extra space for the babies. When they reach the combined weight limit for the crib, I don't know what we'll do. H may sleep in the guest bed while I share with the babies. I don't like that idea, though. I like having H near me. Our older daughter moved into her own bed at about 18 months and I think we'll move the twins into a full bed to share at around the same age. We'll see.

[4Marmalade]

We've co-slept since day 1. We have a king size bed on the floor (mattress and boxspring) and it's pushed into a corner so 2 sides are against walls. Ds is against the wall, then me, then dd then dh on the outside. We still sleep like this over 2 years later (they are 27 months now). We find it comfortable. Once in a while dd1 comes in during the night and only then do we find it a bit cramped.

[Dena]

We have since day 1 as well. Dh set up the co-sleeper, picked up one of the babies, and crawled into bed with her. We took down the co-sleeper briefly, and then set it up again when they got bigger and dh said he needed more room in bed. I walked into the bedroom several days later to find the co-sleeper occupied by the mei tai, and the bed occupied by the babies.

Basically, the babies go in the middle and we sleep on our sides facing them with our butts hanging over the edge.

I don't know that we'll last much longer with this arrangement, but they are our last, and we are loathe to change before we absolutely have to.

[Llyra]

We coslept with our twins from birth-- in an odd sort of way. I had been an "accidental" cosleeper with my DD1-- never planned on cosleeping, was kind of scornful about the idea, but then it just seemed so natural. So with the twins, I never even considered doing anything else. We started with me and DH in the queen size, with one baby between us, and one baby on my far side, with a sidecarred crib on that side. We juggled lots of different arrangements as the months went by, ranging from the twins and DH and me and three cats all crammed in a queen-sized bed, with DD1 on a mattress on the floor, to DH on the couch downstairs with DD2, me in the bed with DD1, and DS in the queen-sized all by himself, and everything in between. Whatever was working, at any particular time, to get us all the most possible sleep, while meeting everybody's needs.

We had a sidecarred crib, a portable crib across the room, a twin mattress in the corner, and the guest bed downstairs, all available to us so we could juggle arrangements as needed.

Cosleeping for us seems mostly to come to an end at around a year old-- all of mine were in their own beds by 16 months, and they now sleep in a room all together, each in his/her own bed. (Actually, DD1 coslept for while when the twins were infants, on and off occasionally, I think.) I still have DD1 in bed with me on Fridays, sometimes-- she has a long week at school, and we miss each other, so we like to have a little cuddle at the end of the week-- she's six. And I keep the crib mattress under my bed, to pull out when somebody's sick.

[JuneBugMama]

We have a bed rail and I sleep either between DH and the babies or between the bed rail and the babies depending on who I fall asleep nursing. We also have a crib next to the bed, but I don't like putting them in it. Our 4 y/o DS usually crawls in with us in the morning and sleeps on the other side of DH. We've done since they came home from the hospital when they were 2 weeks old.

[lissame72]

If you're worried about having them in the bed when they're very little, you might consider something like a Snugglenest. We have a double and a twin strapped together on the floor, so there's plenty of room. Still, I was nervous initially (they are our first kids), so we used a snugglenest at first which made me more comfortable. They actually both fit into one snugglenest for a few weeks (they were about 6 lbs each at birth), then when they got bigger we used two nests for a while. At about 3 months they were too big for the nests, plus by then I knew I wouldn't roll over on them, so we got rid of the snugglenests and had both babies between me and the wall: wall-ds-dd-me-dh. DH always wakes when they cry and seemed very aware of them in the bed, so eventually we were comfortable with him being beside a baby as well. They're 8 months and 20+ lbs now, and our current arrangement is wall-ds-me-dd-dh. DD wakes more often than DS but usually will cuddle up to her daddy at some point in the wee hours and then sleep til morning. I don't know how long we'll keep it up, but co-sleeping was a lifesaver early on when they woke to nurse every couple hours, and now it just feels cozy.

[dknees]

We've had all sorts of arrangements. At first, they slept in our bed (king) in between dh and I. I had bought those little co-sleeper thingies that go in the bed to use when they were super tiny, but my ds refused to sleep in it. He preferred to be cuddled up next to me (which is where I wanted him anyway, my dh wanted the co-sleepers). He has mostly slept in our bed between dh and I, with our older ds sleeping at the foot of the bed. Dd was with us for a while, but had neck/spine surgery at 4mo, so could not be jarred or moved much while she recovered. She slept in the crib (in our room) then eventually came back into our bed. She is a very light sleeper and sleeps better on her own. We side-carred the crib and now she sleeps there, next to me. Most nights she sleeps by herself, but sometimes she just wants to cuddle, which is okay too.