LOs refuse to sleep in their cribs

BelleBaby

We can't get our boys to sleep in their cribs!  They can be sound asleep when we put them down, but the second they hit the matress, they're up and screaming!  If we put them in their bouncy chairs or swings, they're fine.  It gets DH and I some sleep, but I don't want them to get further into that habit.  They need to learn to use their cribs.

Anyone have any advice?  TIA.

MrsAlliP

Are they swaddled?  White noise and swaddling made a huge difference for us.  Even if they seem to fight the swaddle some, if you stick with it, you might find they sleep a lot better. 

Kaar17

Do you have mobiles? The precious planet mobile has saved us. DS loves to watch the lights and animals go 'round and he gets sleepy watching it, then falls asleep.

It also helped us lay DS down right before he falls asleep instead of after.

Keep trying, you'll make it!

iteachk

Have you tried swaddling?  They may resist at first, but it's (still) the only way Kate will fall asleep in her crib.

BelleBaby

MrsAlliP:

Are they swaddled?  White noise and swaddling made a huge difference for us.  Even if they seem to fight the swaddle some, if you stick with it, you might find they sleep a lot better. 

We have done that.  We can swaddle Benjamin, but Eli runs a little warmer and kicks his way out of everything we ever wrap him in.  Maybe if we kept the temp a little cooler it would work.  We just don't want to freeze Benjamin!

Sunny1inTucson

I tend to be of the mind that at 4-6 weeks old, you can't teach them bad habits. So by letting them sleep in the swing or bouncy, eh, it works. They won't like this forever.

Now I absolutely understand why you want to keep trying the crib though, as I can't imagine how hectic it must be with twins and trying to get them both to sleep.

And it never ceases to amaze me how they can be in deep slumber and the minute their back touches the mattress - they know!

courtneyaok

3 things made big differences for us (not all at the same time, we've used these as they've grown):

1 - swaddling

2 - putting them right next to each other in the same crib -- DS would just not sleep without being snuggled up against another warm body, and DD never seemed to mind.  Later, we had to separate them because DD was waking DS up.

3 - Crib soothers by fisher-price.  We have the rainforest and the aquarium, and the babies love them -- usually we'll put them in their cribs drowsy, or they're asleep and wake up soon as we put them down, but we put on the soother and they play and talk to it until they fall back asleep.

GL!

misty wink

My DS didn't sleep in his crib until he was about 3 months old.  We swaddle him, use a sleep positioner, and have white noise on.  It was funny because we would put him in his crib at first and he hated it, then all of a sudden one night we put him in and he went right to sleep!