Multiples

Would love to hear a success story or tips!

Hi Ladies!
My girls just turned four months and I am heading back to work next week. They had been sleeping in their rock and play sleepers up until this point. They both suffer from silent reflux but after a couple months on Prevacid it finally seems under control. At daycare they will be sleeping in pack and plays, so I have been quite anxious to get them out of the RNPs. I started on Monday with naps in their cribs and last night was their first night in their cribs. The naps have not been great, I feel like we had just hit a good sweet spot in the RNPs for napping and have sort of undone that resulting in many 30 minute naps. Last night was pretty much a nightmare from 12AM on. Previously the girls slept from around 7 PM to 2 or 3 AM when they would wake for a feed and then right back down until 7. I have started a wake up schedule this week to help them get prepared (up at 6:30 AM) and have adjusted their bedtime back accordingly (oh my obsessive "Healthy Sleep Habits" reading…..). Last night they went down smoothly in their cribs (still swaddled and with pacifiers). They both slept until around 11. Then they were alternately waking about every 10 minutes. I fed them around midnight. They slept a stretch from 1 to 3 AM (my only sleep) and then were up alternately every 10 minutes until 6:30 wake up time. I kept just putting their pacifiers back in and repositioning them. The whole time I'm thinking that I'm making the problem worse but I want to give them a few nights to get used to their new sleeping environment before allowing them to fuss too much. It is so hard with twins! Sorry--I am rambling but I would love any success stories of transitioning your twins to their cribs or any tips from you seasoned veterans! I know it is going to be a long day and probably another long night so I guess I am just grasping at some light at the end of the tunnel. 

Re: Would love to hear a success story or tips!

  • I know not everyone feels this way, but if you don't think it's working, don't keep trying. I'm all for giving it a go for as long as you can handle it, but if you had a good thing going w the RNP, I wouldn't be in a hurry to change it.

    Daycare will deal w them needing to sleep in a pack n play. This is what they do - take care of babies, so they have tricks and ways of doing things that don't work for us parents.

    My oldest refused bottles for a long time. I started working at 9mo and daycare never once had an issue getting him to take a bottle. I tried all the tricks - bottle, temp, nipple type, position - and nothing. I sent him to daycare hoping for best and he never once refused a bottle.

    So I'd put them back in their RNPs until those no longer work and let daycare figure out how to get them to sleep in a PNP there.
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  • I followed healthy sleep habits book with my twins and it never worked for us. In hindsight, I wish I had given up on all the books and advice and just done what my twins liked best. By twins were terrible sleepers until 17mos and I think it would HSBC been offering if I had parented intuitively rather then following some book. Point being, you know what was working for you, I would stick with that and go from there like pp said :-)
    Two sets of fraternal twins, 23 mos. apart First set born 12/27/12 at 35w0d via IVF Second set born 11/18/14 at 35w6d via FET
  • Thank you for your responses and words of support! Those are comforting words to hear about daycare, I am definitely stressing about them starting. I was able to stay home with my son until he was almost 8 months old, so they feel so young (and little) in comparison. 

     I have considered keeping them in the RNP because our nights have been so fantastic, but ultimately I know the crib is the safest place for them. One of the girls "stands up" in the RNP when she cries which makes me really nervous and I also feel like it restricts them from learning how to roll over and move naturally in their sleep. Deep down I know that this is just a transition like so many others, but it feels so endless like all other hard transitions while you are going through it. 
  • We kept our kiddos in RnPs for a long time (this is a trend with me...  not ready to have them get big I guess ;-) ) and transitioned to cribs at about 6 mos, but had been using cribs prior to 6 mos for naps (sometimes).  Our transition was fine but with nursing and frequent waking, we ultimately opted to bedshare (yes controversial and not for everyone but it works for us).  I agree with PP - if you don't feel it's working, try something else.  Sleep is such a tricky issue!  It was the thing I was most nervous about with having kids and somehow, my body has adjusted to 2ish hr chunks of sleep for the past yr+.  Hang in there!  4 mos is also just in time for the biggest sleep regression, so there's that...
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  • Some people do a rolled up towel under the crib mattress at one end to create an incline when they transition. It may be worth a shot and then you could slowly lower the incline. Good luck. Mine sleep in a crib but are still frequent wakers so I am by no means a sleep expert!
  • Thanks all! 

    I really like this quote, "all transitions feel like they will never end, what if your kid never gets it? Am I pushing too much? Should I have been doing this from the start? Am I too lenient? Am I too tough?" Such truth! With every decision I make as a mom I am constantly running through a list like this! 

    We shall see how tonight goes! 
  • My son outgrew his RnP at six months. His legs dangled over the edge and he could roll over in it. We transitioned him to a crib. Our pedi recommended we put a firm pillow under one side of his mattress to form a slope for him. We also increased his Zantac dosage. It was a struggle to do sleep training, but it worked.

    He sleeps in a swing at daycare. They are trying to transition him to a crib, but they aren't allowed to use a slope so they have not been successful.
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  • My son had pretty bad reflux too.  We used to sleep him in his bouncy chair and put that in his crib at night (so we could see him in the monitor).  That worked for a while until he started rolling over.  Our pediatrician recommended putting a little bit of rice cereal in his bottle and let me tell you, it worked wonders for us.  You don't have to do it in every bottle, maybe just the one right before bed and middle of the night.  We had also put a towel under one side of his mattress to elevate it a little bit. After about a month of this, his reflux disappeared (around 5 months).  
  • I had a different situation when they started at daycare. They were so used to being swaddled for the longest time to sleep even for naps that when I went back to work, I didn't know daycare wasn't allowed to swaddle newborns. So the babies had a rough few days at daycare with not napping as well as they were used to but they soon adjusted. As will your babies. It will just take a few days.

    Things will get better. GL
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  • I was wondering this too. We are 4 months old too. At our last appointment, the pedi told us to move them out of the RNP, but we are already in a sleep regression, and we were travelling. I wasn't ready for ANOTHER change too! 

    I did try them for a nap today, and it was a total failure. Back in the swings for nap, and I'll try again tomorrow!
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  • We had the girls in their RNP's until about 4 or 5 months and I understand your anxiousness to get them in their cribs. Did they sleep in them in your room or in their own? We transitioned them from our room into theirs and kept them in the RNP for a while to get them used to being in a different room first. When we first tried to switch to the crib we had a few bad nights and I decided maybe they just werent ready and went back to the RNP. I waited another month and tried again and they were fine at night but not for napping. We resorted to swing napping for a while and then finally at 6 months we went cold turkey into the cribs and used the Ferber method for naps. It was a rough first week but now they love their cribs. I know you dont have the option of waiting another month to try but how about asking daycare for some tips? They must deal with this all the time, I wonder what they do if the babies are fussy and won't nap?
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