sleeping at night - frustration, help?

amd1982

hi ladies - for those who are mobile bumping and can't see my siggy, our b/g twins are going to be 14 weeks this friday. of course they were a few weeks preemie, but are doing great weight wise, development etc.

unfortunately we've had some regression in terms of sleeping and both dh and i are at our wits end. i'm wondering if anyone here has any suggestions because i feel like we are going down a road of no return and need to make some changes. I've read all of the books (baby whisperer, healthy sleep happy twins, etc) and during the day our two are doing everything according to plan (most days anyway). They have a long morning nap, long afternoon nap, and a brief late afternoon/early evening nap. Usually are only awake for 1 hour and 15 minutes at a time or until they show sleepy signs.

Lately nighttime has been horrendous - putting down our DD has been really bad. We've tried a very modified CIO where we let her cry for 5-10 min, but she doesn't quiet down. It only escalates until she gets hysterical. We've stayed by the crib but that only seems to make it worse. A couple times we've let her go 20 min but it just is so bad. She'll be asleep in our arms and the second we descend to the crib she starts to cry. I know letting her get to sleep isn't the best and I should be putting her down drowsy, but sometimes DH and i get so exasperated that the only way to get them to sleep is by having them fall asleep and then put them in their cribs. Now for the past few nights she's started to wake up at 10:45pm crying and won't stop until we take her out and put her in our room. We've tried everything - acid reflux meds, white noise, swaddle, unswaddled shushing, turning on side and patting bum, literally everything.

Does anyone have suggestions or advice? I feel like this is a really important time to set good sleep examples and have our babies start learning to self soothe and be able to put themselves back to sleep at night. They used to have some long stretches, and still do (for example DD slept from 11pm until 4am) but it's only after an hour long crying and screaming fest. DH and I are just really tired (i know, normal) and frustrated that we're doing something wrong.

mschrick

I really don't have any suggestions to give you, but wanted to tell you that you are not alone in the quest for more/consistent sleep with your LO.  My DS is 15 weeks, and though he doesn't have the same issues that your LO does, I am still at my

amd1982

thanks for the response - i'm not as worried about them STTN. It's moreso the absolute hysteria that ensues once we try and put them down around 7pm. they don't normally freak out during naptime, so i'm wondering why it happens only at bedtime? it can't b

TheEditor

We started using the 

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/VTech-Soothe-Surprise-Nature-Light/dp/B00005LBO9/ref=s

mz07

As someone said above, 14 weeks is still really early to start sleep training/putting down awake, especially since your babies don't seem to handle it well. What I've read is that it's between 3-6 months that's the best time to start sleep training... tha

pb_bride

I feel your pain - DS was like that around that age, but at least it wasn't every.single.night.  Some nights he would go down relatively easy (~ 30 mins of rocking); other nights it would take us 2 hours of rocking, shushing, nursing (rinse and re

puppy_love6969

Been there, done that. With ONE baby. I am sorry your going through this. From about 3.5-5 months I went through this every night. LO was waking hourly, fighting sleep and naps. I was at my wits end!! When she *** 5 months I started sleep training and thi