Cosleeping with twins?
LottaLattes
member
When I first became pregnant with my eldest, I never thought I would cosleep. But then he would.not.sleep at all and I ended up tucking him in with me and the world was happier. My second son I just coslept with because it was easier, honestly.
So I was planning to cosleep with the new baby, but now I'm fairly nervous about it with twins. Has anyone actually coslept with their multiples, and if so, how did you do it and where did you put them (a cosleeper?) It seems more confusing to keep track of two little bodies in bed.
I'm planning to BF both of them, I always made plenty of milk so I'm not worried about supply issues, but part of the goodness of cosleeping is feeding while you snooze, and I don't think it's possible to do that with two of them. Am I just delusional in thinking this is possible? Should I just get cribs instead?
Re: Cosleeping with twins?
I didn't co-sleep because my husband did want us to. He is in his last year of med school and from what he has learned he felt very strong about not letting them in the bed with us... especially with two. But if I had what I would have done is buy 2 cosleep crib things (at babies R US) they have little sides each like 3 inches tall. I saw them about 2 months after my girls were born so they were already in cribs and I thought that would be a pretty safe way to have 2 babies in bed with you. Just so you have some where to put them each. That is my suggestion, I think with our next one that is what I might try. It would have it easier to have them so close. Also, we did do bassinets- one on each side of the bed or some nights I'd line both up on my side. It worked well and it was a very easy transition to cribs.
Good luck with your twins!
Our master bedroom is small, so we used an Arms Reach mini co-sleeper that attached to bed and a small Travel Lite Graco Pack N Play that was free standing.
https://www.amazon.com/Arms-Reach-Mini-Co-Sleeper-Bassinet/dp/B000HKY1GM/ref=sr_1_2?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1322693639&sr=1-2
https://www.amazon.com/GracoTravel-Lite-Crib-Stages-Notting/dp/B004IEBOVS/ref=sr_1_13?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1322693669&sr=1-13
Kids took turns who slept in which bed, it varied throughout the night / day.
We also had 2 cribs in the nursery. Graco Lauren. Love them.
I co-sleep/slept.
Mine sleep/slept in bed with me.
My H is military and works nights, so its just me and the babies most of the time. When H is home, they sleep between us-we usually move them to the cribs once they're asleep.
Well they're mostly in their cribs in our room now, but we just started that a couple weeks ago when they started to need more room to roll around as they slept.
Its doable for us, so I'm sure it will be for you guys too. The "feeding while you snooze" makes me a bit nervous. I'd be afraid I'd accidentally smother them. I was always WIDE awake for night feedings b/c I wanted to make sure they got situated back into a safe position before I fell asleep again.I'd say if you have any reservations, just get co-sleepers or bassinets.
I have slept with one at a time on and off when having a bad night. Here's what makes it complicated, though. You know how when you're BFing one and you all doze back to sleep? Well with two, as soon as that happens, the other wakes up to eat, and you have to roll over to feed that one. Then you have ONE PISSED OFF BABY who just got a boob pulled out of his mouth on the other side, plus they cuddle up next to you and you have to worry about rolling back on them.
Anyway, it just never worked for me. Maybe if you have ENORMOUS go go gadget boobs that will flop completely to the side so you can nurse two at a time while laying on your back, but I've never seen that.
There have been many many times in this last 9 months of craptacular sleep that I had it as an option.
https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Infant-Deluxe-Travel-Bed/dp/B004QDKMNC/ref=sr_1_3?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1322695761&sr=1-3
I also used this travel bed in bed for the first 2-3 months... I had a really bad c-section experience and could barely move afterwards. This was a god send when I couldn't get up to get to the Pack N Play.
This is pretty much exactly what we did. At about 3 weeks old, we bought a cosleeper and sidecar'd to one side of the bed and a PNP with the bassinet setting sidecar'd to the other side of the bed. DH and I each took a baby for the night. It worked wonderfully, and we all slept really well.
We stopped doing this around 4 months b/c they were starting to wake each other at night, and no one was sleeping well. So, we moved them to their own cribs in their own rooms (Graco Laurens), and the transition was easy. We didnt' have any problems at all.
One good thing about the cosleepers was that DH and I could put them down for the night around 7:30pm, and they'd go to sleep easily in the room without us. It wasn't like if you were actually bedsharing where you'd likely have to wait to put them to sleep until you were ready to go to sleep.
The reason we started at 3w is b/c prior to that, we were trying different sleeping arrangements that didn't end up working. This cosleeping arrangement worked out great.
OP, I'm confused as to whether you're talking about bed sharing or co-sleeping.
I don't think I would bed share with an infant, whether it was one or two, but DH and I plan to co-sleep with 2 Arms Reach Co-sleepers (one on each side of the bed).
Cosleeping can include bed sharing, cosleepers that attach to the bed are a newfangled idea
I've done my research on it so I'm not really debating that part of it.
I don't have mega boobs, and I don't think it's reasonable to feed them both at once while lying down, which is a little sad. I also seem to recall that my youngest son, at least, needed to be changed like every single time he woke up, so that probably factors in somewhere. We're considering putting a small bed in their room that I might sleep in at first, until we get things into more of a routine. My husband wakes up pretty easily and I don't actually mind the nighttime routine when I'm not working. Well, at least with one, I might change that when I get to it with twins.
Thanks for the feedback, definitely some food for thought for me.
https://blog.bummis.com/#!/2011/11/two-tiny-milk-vampires-breastfeeding.html
A friend just sent me this today. We aren't co sleeping with ours, I just can't see how we would all fit in the bed and have it be safe. I sleep on a futon in their room so its easier to feed them thru the night but this is a great story about nursing and co sleeping with twins, if it doesnt come up scroll down to the nov 11 post.
I'm not a big fan of co-sleeping/bed sharing. It scares the bejeezus out of me. I did doze and nurse my DD1 and bring her to bed with us though, so not sure why I feel so differently about it now.
Anyways, I just wanted to contribute that the most efficient way I've found to handle nighttime feedings is to tandem feed. We do one up, both up. MH and I each grab a baby (they share a cradle in our room right now), change their diapers, then I tandem nurse them using my double Breast Friend pillow, then burp, back to cradle. I do not rock or cuddle them back to sleep, as it would be too difficult to always have to do that and then transition two sleeping babies back to bed. I will only lay down to nurse one kid at a time if that baby is fussy and needs comforting in between feedings.
I'm a big fan of co-sleeping, because it just feels natural to me. But it hasn't logistically worked out as well with twins. When mine were small, I had them both in the same Arms Reach co-sleeper on my side of the bed, but I couldn't attach it because with my c-section recovery, it was too hard to get out of bed. I moved one to a Pack N Play pretty early, because they woke each other up (often by projectile vomiting on the other).
I was supplementing early on, and then gave up and formula-fed, so DH or I always have to get up for feedings to make the bottles. DS2 ends up in our bed a lot when he refuses to sleep in his crib - he had a tough ear infection that lasted more than a month, colds before that, etc. But that means DH has to handle all of DD's wakings, because DS wakes up as soon as I try to move.
I've also found that I sleep a lot more deeply than I did when DS1 was an infant. I've fallen asleep and dropped a baby, and I always thought my mom instincts would prevent that. But I guess sleep deprivation is a lot stronger!
co-sleeping is how we survived!
we started off with a queen bed and quickly realized that did not work. So we bought a king size bed and put it next to the queen bed...it was a massive, super bed! The babies pretty much slept on the queen, and we slept on the King. and when one baby woke up, i was able to just roll over and quickly put them back to sleep (or nurse).
We did that for 6 months and slept great!! the transition into their cribs was very easy.
That made me choke on my coffee from laughter..