Looking for suggestions on helping babies to get themselves to sleep

[rinap]

My girls are both nursed to sleep pretty much all the time. I can get them to sleep by walking them in the stroller, but that's very time-intensive, and transfer is difficult. I used to be able to bounce/sway them to sleep, but my back has gone south and I'm no longer supposed to carry them at all. I've been reading sleep books, but I find it very hard to manage to get the logs written that I'm supposed to for some, and I'm finding it hard to adapt others for use with twins. (I can't drop everything and put a baby to bed now now now, or comfort a baby, because I may be feeding the other baby; I can't keep it quiet, because the other baby may cry)

Does anyone have suggestions or references specifically for twins? I feel like if I could reduce the hours of crying at bed time, and get them to go to sleep by themselves at least some of the time at night, I might be a far happier person.

[twinpossible]

I know exactly what you are talking about, that was us 3 months ago! The only thing that worked was to divide the parents. I started doing every other feeding with bottle so daddy could take over sometimes. Then at night he takes one and I take one, we rock them to sleep then hold them until they are totally out and put them down. I love this because we can do it ANYWHERE! They have gone down to bed at friend's houses, grandma's and home. The trick is coming up with a bed time routine that works for your kids that you can do anywhere at any time. I did not want to be weighed down by a twin schedule or sleep schedule, we live life randomly :)

[rinap]

Thank you!

I'll think about how to adapt it to one person; my husband is often not home until after bed time, and even when home, his solution to "put this baby to bed" is to play with the baby in a brightly lit room until I'm done getting the other to sleep, then hand her to me.

Are you using formula for the bottle? I have trouble doing the little pumping I'm doing now (for a friend's baby), much less pumping often enough to feed my girls. I suppose if I pumped during their naps it might, but they often don't nap at the same time. Which is part of the same problem. :)

More experimentation is in order. And maybe some rocking chair time.

[queenofchaos]

 A few things that might help:  nursing both babies at the same time; stop relying on nursing to get them to sleep (difficult I know), if they fall asleep when nursing, put them down as soon as possible and if they wake up, use another method to help them go to sleep.  A good book I read that had some perinent info about the mechanics of sleep was "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Twins."  There is valuable info in this book that if you don't know, will make it hard to make good decisions about how to proceed.  "The No Cry Sleep Solution" is another great book, but I don't think it gives enough background info.

It really is important to catch your LO when she is just giving tiredness cues.  I even went so far as to time it out.  The "Healthy" book has info for how much sleep babies need and how long they can reasonably stay awake before needing to sleep.  It is difficult to develop sleep routines without that info.  Like, when they were newborns, I would keep track of when they woke up (tried to do everything at same time) and when an hour or so had gone by, then it was time to settle in for the next sleep period.  (This kind of timing duration stuff changes as they get older of course.)  I found that if I caught them before they started getting tired, they would go to sleep by themselves, much easier.  Of course, one twin went to sleep much easier on her own, but if my timing was off, then it took a lot of effort and sometimes a lot of crying before they finally went to sleep.  (Never left to cry it out, tho, if they were having trouble I generally rocked them.)

If you are concerned about one crying and waking another, music or a white noise machine may be helpful. 

so sorry to hear about your back.  it must be very difficult to manage.  can you get someone to help at least part of the time? (Not necessarily with the sleep issues either, just in general)

HTH

[rinap]

I started a log today of waking and sleeping times, and we managed bed time much better today. My local library has the twins sleep book (yay!) and I'll get it tomorrow if someone doesn't beat me to it. The twins had an incredibly unsynchronized day today, but one thing at a time, and we managed to do bed time all at the same time, so, fingers crossed, we can have a new start tomorrow.

The back is annoying, but is getting better bit by bit, and I have a prescription for physical therapy to get my strength back up. And that will be awesome.

[twinpossible]

"Are you using formula for the bottle? I have trouble doing the little pumping I'm doing now (for a friend's baby), much less pumping often enough to feed my girls. I suppose if I pumped during their naps it might, but they often don't nap at the same time. Which is part of the same problem. :)"

No, we do not use formula, in fact, my girls are formula intolerant. We get breast milk donations from other mommas to use in our bottles. I mainly nurse to bond with them and for their comfort. A very long 11 week NICU stay dried up my milk supply and I never got it back. My friend who has twins nurses one baby on one boob and pumps on the other while the second baby has a bottle. I think that is what I would have done if I had the supply.

I forgot to mention that we swaddle them at night, I have found that a swaddle blanket is a good cue to let them know it is time to sleep. It must be hard to have your hubby come home so late but including him in the night time routine would be good for his bonding with the children. It is not my place to say what you should or should not do but my husband loves to help with the night time, it makes him feel needed and important.

Keep us posted on your progress!!!

[Shuli]

Boy do I remember those times! It was horrid to have one baby go down like a dream and the other was so hard to put down without nursing and transfering was really hard too. (Now at 4, a train could go through his room and he wouldn't hear it). The first thing we did was establish a bed time routine at the same time every night that included dinner (when they started eating solids), a little play time and then a bath, pajamas and bed. I found that this helped because if for some reason we were running a bit late, the routine was there and they knew what was coming next. We also started putting them to bed in seperate rooms, one in a cot and one in the pack'n'play. That way R could just go to sleep on his own and D could cry and be fussy without disturbing him. We read the No Cry Sleep Solution and really only had to apply it to one of the babies, and it worked for him. I remember one night I just couldn't anymore and landed up leaning over into the crib with one boob in his mouth until he fell asleep and let go becuase he just wasn't transfering. We used the pick up put down method in that when he was going to sleep I would stay in the room and pick him up until he stopped and put him in again and wait where he couldn't see me and as soon as he started again pick him up until he settled. It took about three nights of this and each night he settled faster and eventually went to sleep on his own.

I know this seems terrible right now, but it does get better as they get older. You just have to pick the way that works for your family and stick to it and it will work. Good luck!