Really need advice about sleep ...

TobieRose · January 2014

My twins are now 10 weeks. They start the night out in the pack-n-play together, and then when one wakes up he'll come into bed with us. This is what we did with DS1 until he was about 5 months old, and it helped me get enough sleep at night.

It worked okay with the twins up until maybe two weeks ago. Twin 1 ate once or twice a night, twin 2 ate two or three times ... it was manageable. But now between the two of them I am nursing someone EVERY HOUR. I am so crabby during the day with DS1 and have a horrible headcold/sinus infection that I haven't been able to get over for almost a month ... I am just so run down.

I don't know what to do at this point ... I don't want to wake one up when the other eats. I guess I could try moving them into their own room but I am terrified that it will make things even worse by adding a trek down the stairs every hour. I tried putting them back in the pack-n-play at 3am and at least one of them would NOT have it; the other tolerated it for one sleep cycle.

Any advice or recommendations about what worked for you would be much appreciated.

LottaLattes · January 2014

I had the same routine for #2, and it did not work at all for the twins. While it seems ridiculous to wake a sleeping baby, you need to get them scheduled together at night if you want them to let you sleep. Eventually as they get older one might fully skip one feeding or the other and it is super helpful to be able to get them to skip the same feeding.

It will get better, but I found I had to change a lot from parenting a singleton to parenting twins (some things I gave up rather resentfully).

carrotcake06 · January 2014

Even at 7mo, I still do one up both up in the MOTN for nursing. It's always always the same one that gets the train moving, but both eat.

I don't change diapers MOTN anymore, so it's like a dream feed for the sleeping one - H gets them for me and helps me put them back, so not a lot of disruption.

PurpleIris30 · January 2014

I'm not sure I have any suggestions other than waking the other up to eat at the same time.

There have been a couple of nights (say one wakes up early and we decide not to wake the other since it has only been 2 hours) that we have not done one up, both up, and it has resulted in them alternating waking every 1.5 hours or so with no sleep for us. It was awful, so I can somewhat commiserate as I can't imagine doing that every night.

TheDairyQueenx3 · January 2014

I have always done one up both up from the beginning. Tandem nursing is the only thing I do at night. Often the one twin who didn't wake will dream feed so really he doesn't even open his eyes just nurses and back in his RNP. At around 6 am they both wake for a final time and I tandem feed then bed share for about an hour and a half until DS1 wakes up for the day. You really need to get them on the same schedule otherwise it will wear you down. Especially during the cluster feeds. My twins are 10 weeks now too and are on the same schedule twin A always was first to wake so although B never fully wakes at night at least I'm getting both feeds done at once and going 4 hour stretches unless we have a particularly fussy night which happens maybe once a week where I'm up every 1.2 hours.

CaliCarly77 · January 2014

Looking forward to a good night of sleep! Mine are 3 weeks on Saturday and while they are eating every 3 hours now, it takes a good 45 minutes to do each feed cycle (feed, change, burp, settle)

They sleep in their room in separate cribs, my husband takes the first shift - 8:30 - 3:30, and I take the second shift 3:30 - 10 a.m. and my husband brings baby B to me to feed through his shift (once or twice) because she has nipple confusion. He feeds Baby A a bottle and she is fine with that.

Wishing35 · January 2014

Like others have said we did one up both up , don't know how we would have survived without doing so.it only ladted until 4 months when they started sttn. If you are really against it how about pumping ,this way DH and you can rotate night feedings?

raraavis28 · January 2014

Another vote for one up both up....I hope you can get a little sleep soon!

Pittpanther · January 2014

Yea we tried letting baby b sleep because she doesn't wake as much as A but it was a disaster. We tried it for two nights and were completely exhausted! I would say try one up both up until they are sttn . Good luck!

e74 · January 2014

We did one up, both up, but we had to wake them and feed at least every three hours for probably the first 4 months. The reasoning given to us was that they were preemies.

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