Sleeping arrangements for newborn twins? Suggestions?

[farmygirl]

Hi,

My apologies if this question has been asked multiple times already, but perhaps someone can just direct me to a thread?

I'm totally overwhelmed about how to sleep with our twins who are due in early April.  For some reason, I'm totally hung up on this (nesting? , and want to get it figured out (and something purchased) ASAP.  

We have a small apartment--2 bedrooms and one large living/kitchen space.  My original thought was to have them in the same crib in the second bedroom for as long as possible, but I'd really like to have them in our bedroom for a the first few months.  What can we use?  An Arm's Reach?

The main factors are: space (in the bedroom and also in the apartment in general--I don't want a ton of "gear"), safety, durability, and of course, comfort for the babies.

Any suggestions would be so appreciated!  Thank you!!!

[ThankfulMama]

I can't speak from experience with twins yet because mine are due in April too, but I have a full size arm's reach that I used with DD and plan to use again for the twins. Best wishes and congrats!

[~Adorkable~]

i used a full size Arms Reach until my twins were about 6 month old, and they stopped liking their swaddles. since they could not pull up to their knees when swaddled it was still safe. if i had net swaddled them i would have probably quit a month sooner.

i really liked the set up, i also had a very firm towel roll under my fitted sheet in my bed up against the arms reach, so that when i had one laying in my bed they could not roll to the edge and plop back into the cosleeper. 

when they outgrew that i took the crib i bought from ikea and took one side off (it was designed to be taken off to use as a small toddler bed, but in my case i kept the mattress level up high) and secured that between the side of my bed and the wall and used that in a very similar manner as the cosleeper. i might have been able to do the crib from the start had i planned it out and bought a very firm piece of foam to bridge the small gap where it met up with my bed, but i think the way i did it was safer and the extra cost was worth that. 

one nice benefit of the crib with the side removed was that i could literally lay the top half of me into it and nurse them laying down, their head pointed towards my feet and the main bed and their feet up above my head usually flopped over my upper arm. it was a bit too easy, cause i has really gotten them used to falling asleep after  nursing from day one and that did get them a bit hooked on nursing to sleep. i have worked hard now to get back on track of laying down right before they drift off.

then when they started crawling at month 9 i put the side back on the crib and then also had a crib in their soon to be nursery and started splitting them up as we did a divide and concur approach to teaching them to sleep in their own room and hopefully thru most of the night. we started with the more independent one.  they do usually end up with me in the early morning but at times not till 7am now, yeah!

we now just today moved the second crib away from our room to a mixed use room/ closet right next to us to work on helping the second one learn to go it alone, they turned one last week.  once he gets the basics down i will join them back together in their nursery and see how that goes.

i think my girl really does sleep better in a room without us, we will see if it improves my sons nights, he is more of the snuggler.

we are putting the cosleeper back in our room for now, on the playpen lower setting and with a good pad in it, for the possibly bumpy nights ahead with him or whoever needs it is teething and various things pop up.

one thing about the cosleeper is the the "mattress" is real a joke with how hard it is, at some point i think that was keeping them restless once they got heavier and noticed it, when they got onto really good crib mattresses they overnight got better at sleeping, also since it was nearly the same thing as our bed, i think they felt a similar emotional comfort in both and that help them be ok with sleeping in their bed next to me rather than mine.

[Amanda Leigh]

We had an Arms Reach co-sleeper next to our bed for a little while, but I didn't really like it. I found it hurt my back to be lifting them up and over the edge between the co-sleeper and our bed. Then for a little while we used one Snuggle Nest and one co-sleeper, but we found the Snuggle-nest baby slept much better than the co-sleeper baby and I didn't like having my back to one baby. We then got another Snuggle Nest and placed them end to end in the middle of our bed and later on my side (which was actually the footboard as we had rotated 90 degrees to have an edge) and that worked really well for quite a while until we were comfortable having them just in our bed. Here's a picture:

The biggest thing we learned was to be flexible and change our sleeping arraignment as the boys grew. Good Luck!

[~Adorkable~]

that looks like a great set up, i looked at those but by the time i thought they might be a better idea, they were outgrowing that stage.

[rinap]

We took the side off of our crib and bungeed it to the bed (with foam and sheets to make the mattress fit snuggly against the bed). The two girls sleep together in the crib, side by side the short way. They're just about too tall to keep doing this at six months. I pull whichever girl needs to eat into the bed to nurse. (though nursing at night didn't really start until three months. Before that we would wake up and pump and feed in the bed.) Sometimes I fall asleep with one baby in the bed, but this way she can't roll out (because she would roll into the crib).

Some nights I wind up between two girls. The next morning my back is always horrible. Figure out what your body needs to sleep well and be healthy, and do your best to protect yourself. Twins are hard on the body.

On the nights my wonderful wonderful parents have taken the girls (either all night with bottles or where I take them the babies at 5AM and then get to go upstairs and go back to sleep) they've done more of the snuggle nest solution.

[twinpossible]

I know it's hard but be flexible! My twins went through 3 different sleeping arrangements at different stages. I highly suggest a full sized Arm's Reach! We use one now. Here is what we tried,

Both twins in the crib. They seemed fine with it but I could NOT sleep! I just had to feel them breath (I am hard of hearing) so I pulled both into bed with me and used the in bed co-sleepers in the post above. That worked until one twin started a restless kicking stage! Then kicking twin went into the Arm's Reach. Now I have one in the Arm's Reach and one in bed with me. We still have their crib in their room but I have NO idea when or it it will ever be used which brings me to my next suggestion, buy a convertible crib! I have not felt any guilt about the none use of our crib because I know that eventually they will use it. Ours converts from a crib to a toddler bed and then to a full sized bed. Best of luck and congrats! Welcome to the twin club :)

[ShanaV]

First we side carred a convertible crib. Put both in there, or one crib side and one in the middle of mommy and daddy.

Then they got bigger and the middle one was squeezing daddy off the bed, so we needed a change...

We put our queen mattress on the floor and bought a full size mattress too. Shoved em together to make a superbed. Added bed rails. Now we all have plenty of space!

[Spring Lily]

We used a full size Arms Reach during the newborn stage.

Then when they were able to nurse in the side-lying position (and I was getting slightly more sleep and felt safer cosleeping) I put them in my bed, one on each side of me. That way I could simply flip from side to side to nurse through the night as they woke up. I put a guard railing on the side of the bed and we also put the mattress on the floor so it would be lower.

At about a year old, we side-carred the crib and had one baby sleep in there because she needed more space and startles awake easy. The other stayed in bed with me.

When they turned 2, we set up twin beds in their own room and pushed them together like a king-sized bed. We went to the store and they picked out their own sheets. We said they could sleep in there whenever they wanted or stay in mommy's bed--they made the transition immediately on their own and have been in there ever since.

[ladydodson]

i used the wood arms reach co sleeper when they were really small. it has extending legs so it was the same height as our giant king bed. i would start them both in there, shortways, and then pull whoever woke up into bed w/ me...and they eventually just ended up in bed with me.

now we use the crib that is side carred to the side of my bed for one twin and the other sleep in bed with me/us (hubs is still transitioning back to bed since he sleeps in the living room to wake up with our older kids and so the babies can sleep (they're night owls) in in the morning...so i nurse them down. the same twin goes into the side car and then if she wakes up, i pull her up to nurse and either lay her back into the crib or just let her sleep beside me.

[ziursrm]

I just had my twins last week so I'm hardly an expert, but I've been cosleeping with them in a recliner. They can tandom nurse and then we just fall asleep reclined. Expect to try several things while you figure out what works for you. 

[tipper]

My twins aren't born yet, but they'll be our third and fourth children, and that previous experience has told me that I want to have babies right next to me in bed. Everyone gets more sleep that way; even my mellow second baby wouldn't sleep on his own fora long time. Our midwife had the brilliant idea of getting a second queen-sized bed rather than the king-sized bed we were contemplating, so now we have two queen-sized beds with box springs on the floor, tied together, and the plan is for my husband to sleep on one surface (he'll appreciate being able to use blankets, and the big kids can lay by him if they come into our room for a snuggle) and for me to sleep on the other with the babies. After talking to a friend of mine who bedshared with her twins, the twins will be next to each other, and I will be on the far side of them, and my husband and I will switcheroo them during the night for nursing. 

[ithappened]

We're basically doing the same thing as tipper. The twins will be #2 and #3 for us and we live in a studio apartment, so we are going to put the 2 queen beds on the floor for a year or so and just make it work. There will be 5 of us in one bed. We hoped to get DS1 sleeping in his own bed by then but since we have no real rooms, didn't see the point and so we're just going to have one giant slumber party and hope that the twins don't cry all night and DS/DH can get some sleep. With BFing I found I get the most sleep if we co-sleep.

[4Marmalade]

We co-slept with our twins right from the start in our king-size bed.  The boxspring and mattress was on the floor and shoved into a corner of our room.  They were born in June so we never worried about sheets or blankets.  My dh slept with us or with one of the older dc's if they needed a parent with them.  We had lots of room and I found it reasonably easy to roll back and forth to nurse them at night.  I usually had one on either side of me.  Good luck.  And like a previous poster said - you'll have lots of different stages where you'll need to revisit your sleeping arrnagements.  Just be flexible and do whatever you need to do so that everyone gets the best sleep possible.