Sleeping issues

jezebel57

Can I hear what works for everyone in terms of getting their twins to sleep? My boys are 4 months (3 adjusted) and getting them to bed can take between a half hour to 2 hours depending on he night. We have tried putting down drowsy but awake and they scream so loud forever and stop breathing. It's so frustrating. Don't mind letting them cry for a few minutes but not willing to CIO completely yet. They aren't soothed by me just being there, I have to pick them up and shush and bounce and walk them until they are asleep. I want to get this under control before six months so it doesn't get harder for them and for me.

BabyCarryingVessel

I remember that was a frustrating age. Could they be overtied? Maybe try an earlier bedtime. I also played the youtube video baby got colic (even though they didn't have colic) and it seemed to soothe them to sleep sometimes. You have to play it relatively loud, it worked decently for us at that age. Otherwise I don't have great advice. I think I would let them cry a few minutes, but I was like you. It will get better, hang in there!

ballygirl

My girls were the same way until recently (7 months).  My girls were screamers and there were occasional nights that they would scream for hours - like 3 hours and no one could get them settled.  DH and I would be rocking in the corner by the time they finally wore themselves out and went to sleep.  We never really figured out why. They also never slept through the night - 2-3 hours was about the maximum I could get out of either of them and they only napped in 20 - 30 minute intervals during the day.  It made scheduling them nearly impossible and gave me some serious anxiety problems.  It really was a nightmare.  Putting down drowsy never worked for us at that age either.  They didn't even like to be rocked, weren't comforted by me being there - the only way we could get them to calm was to carry them around the house and by 5 months my back was killing me and they were just too heavy to do this all night, so that's when I started researching other sleep training methods.

 

I had tried a couple no-cry sleep training methods when they were about 4 months but we didn't really have any luck with them.  I finally bought and read the Ferber book (which is not nearly as heartless as I was lead to believe and actually has some interesting and helpful suggestions and information that do not have anything to do with CIO).  One thing that helped me that he mentions in the book is that when you do start a sleep training method (any kind of method,  not just CIO) to start it at the time they actually fall asleep, not at the time you start putting them to sleep.  So, for us, I was trying to follow their sleep cues and I would see them start rubbing their eyes and yawning around 7, so that's when I would try to get them to sleep.  Every other book I read said to get them to sleep at the first sign of tiredness to avoid getting overtired, so I was putting them down around 7, but it was always a struggle and usually they didn't actually get to sleep until 8 or 8:30.  Finally, we just moved their bedtime to 8 and it has been going much better.  They do get fussy during that last hour, but we just sing and read to them and distract them as much as possible until 8.  So - even though it seems to go against most sleep recommendations to keep the girls up longer after they start to get tired, that is ultimately what worked for us.

 

We finally did Ferber sleep training last week though because they still weren't sleeping through the night (up every 2 hours ugh) and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  There was actually less crying with this sleep training method than we had when we were trying to get them down without crying. The longest they cried was 12 minutes - much better than the days of carrying a screaming baby around the house for 45 minutes! Now they may fuss for 3-4 minutes and go right out by themselves and are sleeping much better through the night.  Your LOs may still be a bit too young for sleep training (I didn't feel comfortable with doing a crying method like this at that age either) but if things don't improve in a couple months, you might consider it.  If you do though, definitely get the book and read it. There's a ton of misinformation online about it.

 

 

 

jezebel57

@ballygirl‌ thanks so much for all the info!