post #1 of 1
1/25/12 at 7:52am
Thread Starter 

So in the ever changing sleeping arraignments in our house we have been doing pretty good, getting lucky and kinda going at it blind and delusional for most of the past year, and so far that has been "working". Now that i have a actual goal, i have hit a step I'm not sure about.

I have been slowly moving the twins out of our room and to their own cribs in a room right now the hall. 

 

Timeline so far:

  • up until about 10 months they slept in first a arms reach cosleeper and then a sidecar red crib next to my side of the bed, often coming into bed to nurse and at times staying there in the wee hours of the morning. (as a interesting side note this sleeping mornings in my bed did not really happen till after 6 months when they got better at nursing and we finally got away from bottles of pumped milk. part of me wishes i has kept to pumped milk just at night because they actually slept MUCH better when that was the norm. oh well it is what it is.)
  • at around 10 months i set up one crib in their room and started napping one or the other in there each day time nap
  • a few weeks later i started night sleeping my more independent twin, the girl in her room. moving her in the middle of the night when she woke, back to my room. i let DS sleeping alone and he sleep solo in the sidecared crib. slowly taking her back to my room later and later in the night. i am now at the point where i can settle her in her own room most of the time, though i dont fight it too much if she really wants to come back to bed with me after about 4-5am. we regularly sleep till 9 around my house.     She is really doing quite well, most the time going to sleep at 8pm, waking ti nurse once around 1-2am, again around 4-5 and at times skipping even one of those and sleeping thru till 7 or even later.
  • at about the 12 month point i finally moved the second crib to another room right next to ours and started the same process with my son. that was about 3 weeks ago and it is going better than i expected, he is more of a snuggler and was often the one that did not like to leave my bed once he came to it to nurse. so the fact that i can settle him in a crib has impressed me. he goes to sleep at 8ish, usually nurses around 12, 3 and is almost always in my bed by 4, and then sleeps soundly till we all wake.

 

issues now are that they seems to be waking each other more and more, so i dash into their rooms the second i hear any noise to prevent that, but this is so counter productive and i think they are getting worse and worse now. i need to belle to let them babble and take a wait and see approach to if they need me to come in, but i am just so gun-shy of having them both wake or them getting so worked up that it takes long stretches to get them back to sleep. 

 

I've been very guilty recently of doing the path of least resistance,

even though i know that path does not lead to a good place

 

ok here are some of the issues to over come and questions i have:

 

  • they will wake each other if i let them fuss nearly at all in the middle of the night, from down the hall. more so than when they shared the same crib it seems! what the hell? how am i ever go to have them back the same room? how do i support them learning to sooth themselves and drift back to sleep if i have to keep both so quiet? i do not let them cry per se, but i will let them "talk thru it" as long as they seem unstressed.
  • my girl actually seems to need it, often getting more and more worked up if i try to calm her, but if just make sure she is full, got her binkie and something to hold (currently a wooden ring she loves) and leaver her to her own, she fusses/talks for about 1.5-2 minutes (I've timed it) and then goes right to sleep. it was hard to let her do this, but timing it helped and i now understand it is just her style and i need to support that.
  • my boy does not like to talk thru it at all and if left to do so he will work himself up more and more. but he responds well to one of us just sitting next to his crib, sometime with out hand resting on his back, sometimes not. it seems he just needs to be reminded to stay laying down so that sleep can come. i tell him that sleep is not good at finding him when he is siting up and that we need to lay down and wait for it. 

 

how do i balance their different needs and style, 

how do i go in to the room to attend to one without the other one getting all worked up wanting my attention or boob at the same time. 

should i have the cribs super close to each other so i can maybe help both at the same time a little or as far apart as i can so they may wake each other less or not notice that I'm nursing one?

 

or do i have to wait till they are night weened or mostly STTN before putting them back into the same room again?

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