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Multiples
almost 8 mos - anyone else's lo's not STTN?
So, we are going on almost 8 months now and my girls are still not STTN. They sleep in the same room, different cribs. We have followed their sleep cues and we have a nighttime routine - bath, last feeding, sleep - and most nights they go down pretty easily between 7p-8p. On a good night they are up only twice. They sleep until 10:30-11p the first time. Usually one wakes up and we've been following the one up/both up rule. We feed them and they usually go back to sleep in their cribs within 20-30 minutes from the time they woke up. They sleep again until anywhere from 1a to somtimes 3:30a. Again, we get both up, feed, and put back down.
One of my girls does not sleep long after the second wake up. Maybe an hour and then she's up fussing again. I've fallen into a (bad, I'm sure) habit of bringing her back to bed with me and nursing her until she finally will detach and sleep in bed with us until around 5:30-6a when we have to get up for the day (we both work full time jobs). One or the other of them is usually waking up around this time, so we are waking them up just because we are getting up.
I've been afraid to stop doing the one up/both up thing because, on the few occassions that I've tried, as soon as I get the first baby back down to sleep the other one wakes up and I'm up twice as long as I would have been if I'd just have fed them both and put them back down. I'm aware that they most likely don't NEED to eat through the middle of the night, but quite honestly it helps them fall right back asleep so I've done it for our convenience.
I've only tried to let them CIO once or twice in the middle of the night and after 20 minutes I've reached my breaking point where I can't stand to hear their cries anymore (too upsetting to me) and I go in to retrieve them and soothe them with my standby methods. It seems to me that they get more worked up the longer they cry rather than worn out.
On bad nights, one or both girls are up almost every hour and we are rocking them back to sleep. We still only provide two feeding sessions...we're just up pacing the floors with them trying to get them back to sleep.
I don't know what to do. We are both sleep deprived. I feel like a bad mom because everyone keeps saying that they should be sleeping through the night. I don't know if I can do CIO, but I worry that if they don't sleep better it's going to cause problems for them (developmentally?).
On maybe three or four occassions (over the past few months) one or the other of the girls has slept for a 5.5 hour stretch or so. I've always been hopeful that this has been a sign that they will start to sleep better, but it seems that it's always been a fluke.
Any advice or words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated. I sometimes really feel like I'm the only MoM out there that is having this issue. I don't have any MoM groups locally and all my mom friends with singletons offer advice, but I can't seem to apply the advice to two babies at once. Last night was a long night, so I'm actually tearing up as I type this. 
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Re: almost 8 mos - anyone else's lo's not STTN?
I breastfeed and provide formula (had supply issues and had to supplement formula from the beginning). They still eat every three hours or so, 4-5 ounces total between breast and bottle, at the recommendation of the doctor (they had reflux early on too and the doctor said it was fine to continue this feeding schedule). Since 6 months, they've been eating some solids - about 1.5 ounces or so twice a day.
I haven't discussed it with my pediatrician since their 6 month appointment. But, she and her nurses have always pretty much indicated that all babies are different and that their sleeping habits seem totally normal. That may be the case, but I'm trying to survive and function at work too - which I'm not feeling very successful at, haha! I had recently been considering calling her again to discuss this because they won't go in now until their 9 month appointment.
They are going to a home day care during the day and the only report I get is that they slept well or they didn't. She's not great at giving me specifics. So, it's been hard to tell if good nights happen after good nap days or vice versa.
I am sorry, I feel your pain. My triplets STTN at 5 months, but my 19 month old singleton still is not STTN
All I can say is every baby is different and they will do things when they are ready...and this won't last forever, which is hard to take right now, but that is what I am living on myself LOL. I hope they sleep for you soon.
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.
WARNING: Super long response.
Our boys didn't STTN until 9 months...it was he!l so I feel your pain fellow MoM! People that said they would STTN at 3months were liars! Liars I tell you! Then those people said they would STTN at 6 moths...liars AGAIN the whole lot of them!
Words of encouragement: The good news is one day they will STTN, I promise. Even better is when they sleep 11hrs a night, that too will happen I promise. (Can you imagine sleeping a full 8 hours again??? Oh what a glorious day it will be!) I can tell just by your concern that you are a good mom so please don't doubt yourself when it comes to mothering your children. You are doing a great job I'm sure.
#1 peice of advice: do what works for you and babies at all times, screw what everyone else says.
That being said, here's what worked for us. We tried a modified CIO method. When we put them down for the night we would go in every 2 minutes to calm them, put in paci, etc but did not pick them up. Going in to see them/touch them helps them know that you are still around even though you aren't in the room. DH and I would take turns going in and I have to admit I had to drink a beer during this time to calm my nerves about this method (this sounds like I am a terrible mom but really I'm not I promise). Did that for a few nights then we upped it to 3minutes, then 4 minutes. It took 2 weeks but they only cried about 20 mins the first night and less and less every night after. It was a rough 2 weeks but totally worth it. All our freinds/family have been amazed how well they go to bed ever since we did that. Now some nights they play/talk in their cribs for a while but they rarely freakout/cry when going to bed.
Another thing we did to help them sleep was move their cribs across the room from each other for a while. One of our little guys was a very noisy sleeper which woke the other up. We were this (picture me pinching my fingers together with a tiny space in between) close to putting them in seperate rooms but discovered that moving the cribs did the trick. Once they became better sleepers we moved the cribs back and now they love playing next to each other.
Hang in there, it will happen I promise.
I 100% agree with this. I did everything I could think of to get my boys to STTN, and nothing worked. Then they just started doing it (around 12 months). Now they are consistently sleeping all night. Some babies are just better sleepers than others. Don't blame yourself!