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Multiples
mamatotwins0812
member
Bedtime help desperately needed
mamatotwins0812
member
in Multiples
My boys are 6 weeks old currently and up until now have been on a very good every 3 hour schedule. i dont know if its the age, or another issue, but all of a sudden the schedule is out the window and I am lucky to be getting them to sleep for 30 minutes at a time. As it stands we have a 7:00 "bed time" where I change, feed, swaddle and put down. The last feeding is then at 10. The past few nights "bed time" is out the window and after both fall off nicely after their bottles, as soon as they are put down they scream and carry on and we end up trying to rock, console and get them to sleep until 10:00 anyway. Clearly this defeats the purpose of a 7:00 bedtime and leaves me exhausted, frustrated and desperate. What can I do to change this and to get them to stop crying??!! When I had a later bed time for them I found they were over tired, Half the issue with one is the paci. It falls out every 2 seconds and he screams leaving me trying to console 2 crying babies. It seems impossible. Also, its leaving me no time to get anythung done between 7-10 like bottles etc. Since theyre not sleeping during the day as well I literally have no time to do anything including pumping which is causing me a shortage of bottles. And if I do stuff after 10:00 feeding I lose any chance of even getting a couple of hours of sleep. Help please!!
Fraternal twin boys born at 33 weeks 4 days
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Re: Bedtime help desperately needed
If they're not sleeping during the day, they are likely overtired at this point. Sleep begets sleep. What's going on with naps during the day? What kind of routine do you follow? Do you always feed them to sleep? We did eat/play/sleep with their wake time depending on their age. They napped after every bottle at that age though.
It may not be the 7pm bedtime, but the overall lack of sleep throughout the day. Do they have good sleep cues? I would try to follow those and get them down before they're overtired. Hopefully once you get some good naps in, bedtime will settle down again.
ETA: at this stage you need to sleep when they sleep. Time is relative when you have newborns.
First, sleep begets sleep. The more they sleep, the better they are at sleeping.
Second, your expectations of what they're capable of at this age are way too high, IMO. As a PP pointed out, you have preemies who are just barely at full term in terms of gestational age. With the exception of a few posters, I think most of us winged it, in terms of a schedule, until around 3 months old. Routine, sure. Schedule, not so much.
Lighten up a bit, and you'll be much less disappointed. In our house, the first few months were awful because that's just what having a newborn or two is. Things will get better, but you're not doing yourself any favors by trying to implement a schedule at this age.
Dx: MFI- 3% morph
IUIs: Gonal-F + Ovidrel + b2b IUI= BFNs
IVF with ICSI= BFP! EDD 11/25/11
3/18- Beta #1 452! 3/20- Beta #2 1,026!! 3/27- First u/s- TWINS!
Our twin boys arrived at 36w5d due to IUGR and a growth discordance
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
Mine were born at 37&1 so "full term" but I was still surprised at how their behavior changed once they hit the due date. It wasn't like a switch flipped, but, before that, they were decent at sleeping between feedings. Around their due date they woke up more and got fussier.
When mine were 2 weeks old, I ran into another family with newborn twins that were 2 weeks older than mine. The dad said "we were on a good schedule at 2 weeks but that's all out the window now." Theirs were born at 37 or 38w as well. The babies you take home aren't necessarily the babies that you keep. They go through HUGE development spurts and growth spurts and that messes up their sleep.
I was like you, I had a pretty rigid schedule at that age and figured if I followed the schedule it would all "work" and freaked out when it didn't. I spent a lot of time stressed out about getting off schedule and sleep and generally being panicked. Everyone told me I needed to relax a bit, but, they didn't have twins, so I said they needed to realize that this was not a situation where I could relax. But, it's true. You just do the best you can to get through each day, try your best to form good sleep habits (like putting them down awake) but for the most part, it's survival. And you are going to survive. You will sleep again.
*Hugs* Hang in there. The 6w mark was the low point for me. I was completely exhausted and the babies were getting fussier and fussier. But it gets better. I promise. It does get better. Mine are 21 months now and while I still remember the difficulties of the newborn days all too well, I think this is way easier than having 2 kids 18 months apart, and so much more fun. The first year is a lot of hard work but the payoff is immense.