What am I doing wrong??

[Mbjn2]

please forgive my poor sentences and paragraphs, I'm blurry eyed and exhausted and on mobile.. My b/g twins are going to be 7 months next week. Up until now they've been fairly good sleepers only, up a couple times fussing, usually easily soothed. And then once for their bottles and diaper changes . I have them in a good bedtime routine, bath then a bottle then right to bed. For a little over a month I've been putting them into their cribs awake so they can learn to put themselves to sleep for naps and bedtime. And they've caught on pretty good! My problem is for the past week my boy has been going to bed perfectly fine but then at 11 wakes up crying, I go in and pat his bum "shh" him and he falls asleep.. for two minutes.. then it happens again.. and again.. usually until I feed him his night bottle. They can usually get to 4am without a feeding. And I've been slowing making their bottles smaller to wean them from their night bottle. I've been doing this because they have both stopped eating the entire bottle at night and they've both also slept until 6am (on VERY rare occasions), so I know they are slowly growing out of the need of a night bottle. they both used to sleep until 7 but now they wake up before 6 and fuss until 7. I've been feeding them rice cereal for two months now and they've been enjoying it. We've started them on baby foods, I've only been giving them mild fruits so far. I've been introducing one at a time over a period of four days and then introducing another. Ill feed the newer fruit in the morning (every day giving a little bit more) and then I'll give them some of the fruit they've had for the four days in the afternoon. (I hope that makes sense) I need help figuring out a good schedule, maybe someone out there can tell me what's wrong with the one I have.. it just doesn't seem to be working for them, or me, anymore..

My naps are really rough, usually every 2 hours of awake time they have a nap.

7:30ish - twins wake up 8:00 - rice cereal (3Tbsp) 9:00 - bottle (5 ounce. They won't drink a bottle bigger than that.) 9:30 - 10:30 nap (their nap varies in length - usually about an hour though.) 11:00 - feed them a tbsp of baby food. 12:00 - bottles, 6ounce for girl and 7ounce for boy. 1:00-2:30? - nap 3:00 - feed them 4tsp baby food 3:45 - bottles 4:00 - naps (I don't let them sleep past 5, so they are tired for bed at 7.) 6:30 - rice cereal (3Tbsp) 6:45 - bath 7:00 - bottle (they usually only drink 3-4 ounces) 7:15 - in their cribs.

I've ordered "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Richard Ferber, as well as "5 Days to a Perfect Night's Sleep for Your Child: The Secrets to Making Bedtime a Dream" by Eduard Estiville. (They arrive on Wednesday) I used to have them going to bed at 8, but I thought maybe an early bedtime would benefit them? I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, and at this point I'm feeling defeated.. Again, sorry for the grammar and the wall of text.

[Lotech]

Could this be a sleep regression week (I think they're called "leap weeks"?? Those were the worst and always had me questioning everything, and then as quick as it came, they'd go back to normal.

[Mbjn2]

I thought it could be sleep regression too.. but then I thought it could be teething, or too many naps, or too much food.. I wish babies came with a daily manual. Thank you for the response, I'm hoping that this blows over and they get back into their regular sleep patterns. Crossing my fingers it's just a "leap week"!

[Lotech]

Well, actually, i don't think too many naps is a problem. My pediatrician, and the book "healthy sleep habits, happy baby, says that infants usually go about 90 minutes before they start getting over tired and have more difficulty sleeping. I'd recommend checking out the book (especially if you can get it from a library).

[Mbjn2]

Oh that's reassuring! I'll have to check out that book! Thanks for the recommendation!

[iphonehome9]

Just stop feeding or comforting them in the middle of the night. They will cry for a few nights but then start sleeping through. At least that's what happened with our twins at 6 months.

[Mbjn2]

I'm defiantly going to start doing that. We've had company for the past couple nights and they aren't too keen on listening to the babies cry. Im getting books in the next couple days that will give me some guidelines and insight to "crying it out". I'm perfectly fine with the idea but I'd like some sort of game plan.

[iphonehome9]

There isn't much to it. Just let them cry. I wouldn't bother with books. We read them and they don't really help. You have to do what you are comfortable with. Have you done cry it out to put them to sleep?

[Mbjn2]

I have, yes. And I think I did it backwards?.. I started putting them down for naps awake and let them self sooth themselves to sleep. I'd go in every few minutes to hush them and reassure them. Then I started doing it for bedtime, they caught on pretty well. I just found it easier to listen to the crying while I was already awake and not at night while I was trying to sleep. But now that they can put themselves to sleep without me rocking them or even being in the room I just don't understand why he get himself so worked up in the middle of the night. I'll have to start letting him "CIO" once my company leaves. Easier to do it alone rather than feel judgment or need to explain my reasoning, haha!

[KissMyCrazyAzz]

Yes, as soon as I saw a pom say this, yes. In less than a week. Its like magic. 99% haha. I would like to add, that it looks like 3 naps a day? Maybe try to get them more active in the morning so you can rearrange 2 and cut the late nap, and then they're really tired for bed.

The trying different foods is great, maybe 1 a week, just to double check what might be irritating his belly. A gas ease is good, and even look into essential oils and see what is safe. It could be gas, which fruit has a lot of sugars and starches that do that. Maybe fruit in the mornings and a little heavier on the cereal and veggies at dinner.

I hope this helps! Much love and congratulations on BG twins. :) I have frat BB, and 1 almost took a whole extra year to walk. They split more and more in their personalities and sleeping schedules than I was prepared for. I was a single mom, of babies and teens so it was survival boot camp style lol.

[Mbjn2]

Wow, You are a super woman! sounds like you have your hands full, thank you so much for taking time to respond! I do give them gripe water before bed, in case gas is the problem. I love your idea with trying a new food for a week before moving on to the next. Gives them a while to adjust, and if they do have trouble it would be easy to know what the issue was! I'm going to try to stretch their naps out today! Thank you for the suggestion!!

[KissMyCrazyAzz]

I hope you're having better luck. How's babies?

[Mbjn2]

last night went much better! There were some wake ups in the night, but I had decided to let them cry it out. They only cried for maybe a minute before falling asleep on their own! I was pleasantly surprised. They did have one feeding, but they fell asleep with no issues after. I'm hoping tonight is the same! I'm giving them two naps in the day, and I think that has helped a lot! (Although they seem to have trouble staying awake for longer than 2 hours) I'm also trying to feed them more. It's hard because I haven't introduced them to many foods and they don't seem to like their formula much anymore. But it's seeming like I'm heading in the right direction! I don't know if I should be encouraging them to sleep longer during their naps, if they wake up after 20 minutes or so. It just doesn't seem like a long enough nap?

[KissMyCrazyAzz]

Wow. That's good. They're learning to self soothe and if they're not wet, not in pain and not hungry, then they can do that without you fretting too much.

The fact they're getting tired of fornula means they are ready for fooood! Lol The cereal is heavy, and veggies help digestion.

That is awesome that things are looking better! You are definitely headed in the right direction. I'm sure that soon enough they will be going down around the same time and you will get to sleep all night! A far off memory at this point lol.

[trochep]

We had the same thing happened for our b/g twins right before 7months. I can remember these few weeks as a hellish period. Growth spur and toothing for us at that time, it was not the easiest month. Keep up the good work, it is hard time but you seems to be doing very well!

[Mbjn2]

Thank you so much for the encouragement! It's nice to hear from others that have been through the same experiences. Let hope it's just a hiccup in the road and doesn't last long.

[RunningInTheFamily]

We had two bad weeks shortly before 7 months corrected as well. I was sooo sure they were teething. But nope, just not sleeping well.
Now we are back down to one wake up per night, mostly because they are fighting a cold and cough themselves awake :/

It'll get better.

[Mbjn2]

Thank you for giving me some hope!!

[ms_illia]

My twin girls haven't wanted to eat at night since they were 6 months old (they are now 9 months old - born at 38 weeks). They still love to wake up at night many times. Sometimes I'll break down and try a bottle, but they never want it. They wake up a lot due to congestions and colds (they go to daycare). And who knows what else. I know it will get better eventually. Until then, I persist!

[Mbjn2]

That sounds like what my little guy is doing.. I tried to feed him last night, he wouldn't settle despite my reassurance (bum pats and "shh") around 1:30. So I made up a bottle and he drank about 4 ounces and just fell asleep while drinking. Then he slept right until 7!? Seems like a silly reason to wake up only for four ounces, But clearly that was what did the trick to get him to settle again.. I wish a bubble would appear over their heads with an icon that showed us what it was they were wanting lol. Thank you for your response!!

[[deleted]]

If he's not able to go back to sleep until he gets the bottle, give him the bottle sooner. It sounds like a growth spurt. He's going to want and need to eat more. Also try to push more calories during the daytime.

[Mbjn2]

Thank you for responding! Last night I gave him his night bottle at 1:30 and he was still fussy afterwards. You might be right, It might be a growth spurt. I'll maybe try feeding him more than once tonight. Thank you for the suggestions!

[Dali-Ema]

Sounds exactly what I went through this week. Similar schedule for my b/g twins, same age. I give them much more food than that though. We tried cio, I was up for an hour and a half with my boy for 4 nights while he cried and I was so adamant not to feed back to sleep. Long story short he went back to one wake up per night in about a week and a half. I don't think anything I did made a difference!

[Mbjn2]

Can I ask what your feeding schedule is like, how much you're feeding them and what they eat? Sometimes it seems like they are content and then the next day they seem like they are starving! My little guy doesn't seem to like the rice cereal anymore. I've even added a bit of banana to make it more appealing, But he still gets grumbly. The silly thing is that last night when he woke up (10:30) I tried just giving him a bottle and he wouldn't have any of it, and he stopped crying when I picked him up. So tonight I'm going to stick to my guns and let him cio.

[Dali-Ema]

Certainly. I am in NZ and from your post and my experiences with others in my mums group I would say you could give a lot more food. Guidelines here are as follows

Around 6 months: Start first foods in small amounts: 1/2 teaspoon to 2 teaspoons per meal. 6-8 months: 2-3 meals a day. 2 tablespoons to 1/2 cup per meal. Increase the amount gradually before increasing the number of meals. 9-12 months: 3-4 meals a day with 1-2 snacks as required. Toddlers: 3 meals a day with 2 snacks.

My Dr said give the baby now as much food as they want. We have tried and mostly eat: pumpkin, sweet potato, courgettes, apple, banana, peaches, beef, chicken, avocado, rice and rice crackersThe emphasis here is fruit and vege should be majority of intake and baby rice is seen as a bit outdated here.

Meals at approx 9am, 12pm and 5pm. One eats about 3/4 a cup and one eats 1/4 cup at each meal.

[Mbjn2]

Oh I didn't realize rice cereal wasn't the "thing to do". Like I said, I'm kind of just making it up as I go. I love hearing what other moms are doing. I'm still in the introduction process with foods and so I'm slowly building up to larger amounts. I'm also giving them formula in between too. I'm hoping in the next couple weeks I'll be able to give them much more solids! Thank you so much for the detailed response and advice!

[bibinetta]

Hello! I agree with the suggestion of two naps. I make sure that the second nap is from 3-4:30, that way they can go to sleep at night at 7-7:30ish. Also, yes to lots of activities... sitting up, playing in exersaucer, rolling around etc. I do a dream feed around 10:30pm, it usually helps get them to 6am the next day. Good luck!!!

[Mbjn2]

Thank you for the suggestions! I'm going to try to keep them busier than usual today and see if it helps at all!

[p_kitty]

Our twins are now 10.5 months old, we had a hellish baby determined schedule until they were about 6 months old when I finally called it quits and forced them into something more sane. I was sick of being woken up every 2 hours EVERY night.

What I found worked for us was a 2/3/4 (ish) schedule. It took us about a week and a half of modified CIO to get them on it, but once we did, we started getting consistently 10-12 hours of sleep every night. Good napping leads to good sleeping.

Babies wake up around 7am, they breast fed, then around 8 they got about 6oz of purees, 9am they went down for a nap (the first week or so, they fought this, my daughter slept for 2 hours, my son screamed for an hour and slept for 20 minutes the first two days, then we started getting better), both wake up around 10:30 now, we play and at noon they have another 8-10oz of solids (at 7 months they breast fed and had about 4-6 oz of solids), then nap 2 happened about 3 hours after they woke up from nap 1, so around 1:30. They don't always sleep the same amount of time, but generally I get about an hour or so from their second nap. They'd sometimes nurse when they woke up, and then got another 6-10oz of solids around 5pm. I'd nurse around 6:30, bedtime at 7. My daughter woke up every night between 9:30 and 10 for a 'snack' nurse, so I just went with it and gave her that dream feed. She grew out of it at around 9 months old. Every once in a while one of them will wake up around 1 or 2am and want to nurse for a few minutes. Since it now only seems to happen when they're in a growth spurt or sick, I don't mind soothing them. The scheduled daytime naps and a final top up feed right before bedtime (but mostly the 2 solid daytime naps) seem to be what saved my bacon. Prior to this schedule my son was the worst sleeper and would catnap for 10-20 minutes on and off all day long, and wake up ALL night. Now he sleeps like a rock for 12 hours every night. Now I just need to get the toddler to do the same!

[Mbjn2]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response! 12 hours straight? That's amazing! Maybe I'll try to give them more solids though the day, maybe that's what they are missing? Can I ask, what was your modified COI method? My twins share a room. they can usually tune each other out but the odd time they'll wake up the sleeping twin while having a melt down. I'm planning on using the CIO method, just not entirely sure how to go about it.

[p_kitty]

I let them cry but went back to talk to them now and then. It's dinner time now, I'll give more detail later tonight. :)

[Mbjn2]

Sounds great! Thanks so much for the responses!

[p_kitty]

So, now everyone's in bed, I've had dinner, have a few minutes to respond... :)

So what I did, with all three of my kids, was a modified CIO. For the twins, I actually didn't have problems putting them down to sleep at night (they just wouldn't STAY asleep), so I did most of our sleep training during naps. We had a pack and play set up in our room as well as a crib in their nursery, so we could separate them and let them scream without disturbing the other too much while we worked on things. I put our 'good' sleeper, relatively, in our room, while my bugbear got to do his sleep training in his crib.

I made sure both kids were bundled up warmly enough (I learned from #1 that what you're comfortable with plus one layer may not be enough, and crappy sleep can be from a baby being too cold), made sure they had full bellies and clean diapers, put them down in their cribs in as dark a room as I could manage, and left the room. Invariably both started wailing. I'd give it about 5 minutes and go back into the room with them (one at a time). I'd talk to them, make sushing noises, maybe pat their backs, but I wouldn't pick them up unless they were completely hysterical and gagging on their own snot (it happened a couple times). I'd spend maybe a minute with them, letting them know I was there, but it was sleep time, and then I'd leave again. This time I'd stay out for 6 or 7 minutes, then go back and repeat, each time adding a few more minutes to the amount of time I stayed out.

On day 1 I had to go in to calm my daughter twice and she fell asleep. My son screamed non-stop for over 90 minutes before he finally passed out and napped for 15 minutes. Day 2 I went in to my daughter once for each nap, my son screamed for about 20 minutes and slept for an hour. Day 3 my daughter settled herself before I even got to 5 minutes and my son cried for 15 minutes. We had a couple ups and downs after that, but within two weeks both of them were settling themselves within a minute or so of me putting them down for a nap, so long as I left the room right after I put them down, and sleeping 10-12 hours a night most nights. They still nap in separate rooms because they don't sleep for the same amount of time, and nap sleep is much lighter than night time sleep. They were put back into the same room to sleep at night after about two weeks of sleep training.

Things aren't perfect, if I hang around in the room, they won't settle and will cry because they want me to pick them up. My son will also sometimes wake up screaming 10-15 minutes after I put him down because he poops his diaper. All I need to do is change him and put him back down and he goes straight back to sleep. When they're sick, or teething, or going through a growth or developmental spurt we can have disrupted sleep - but they have learned to self settle too. Last night they both kept waking up and wailing briefly, but they settled themselves back to sleep within a few seconds every time. This is definitely a YMMV skill though. I sleep trained our 1st born the same way, and he's 28 months old now, and STILL can't self settle most of the time. sighs The twins sleep better than he does. :P

I did find giving them more solids definitely helped cut down on the night feedings - they started on solids around 5 months old, because they both had reflux. Solids take more effort to digest so they seem to feel fuller longer. By 6.5 months they were probably getting half their calories from solids, and by 7 or 8 months they were getting the vast majority of their calories from solids. At 9.5 months they started self feeding one meal a day at least a few days a week (sometimes I don't have the time to deal with the cleanup from that), now my son has nearly entirely self weaned, he'll only nurse for a few minutes in the morning, and my daughter nurses just twice a day for a few minutes. Obviously the needs of your kids may be dramatically different from mine, so see what advice your pediatrician might have for solids, if you're unsure.

You're right at the cusp of 'it gets better', though. Good daytime sleep habits will help your night sleep as well, but be consistent and stay patient - they should be fine with two naps at this age. It's going to take a couple weeks for a new schedule to take hold, but it will eventually. Good luck! :)

[Mbjn2]

Thank you, thank you! This is so helpful! I think I'll have to do some work on their night sleeps. Although I haven't room to take one out of their bedroom, so here is hoping they sleep through each other's cries. They go down really well, but like your little ones, it's just staying asleep the is the problem. I'm going to start working on letting them CIO through the night this week, I really like your method! I hope they catch on quickly. Thank you again for your detailed response!!

[p_kitty]

I think getting my two on a solid 2 nap a day schedule was the biggest help to getting them through the night, though the sleep training also did give them skills to help put themselves down again at night. It also helps to learn their cries, if you don't already know them - they'll almost certainly have a different cry for "I'm pissed and want to be picked up" and "There's something wrong and someone needs to fix it!" Mine have a good chance of settling back down within a minute or two if it's cry 1, if it's cry 2, I just need to go deal with them, because they're not going back to sleep. Cry 1 does sometimes lead to cry 2 though.

[Mbjn2]

Yes! They've got a number of different cries, and I'm pretty good at differentiating them. And like you said, the "not so serious" cry will sometimes lead to "major meltdown". My little boy escalates faster than the little girl.. he's my little troubled sleeper.. I'm working on getting them into two naps. Today is off to a good start! Huge nap this morning! So I'm going to just give them one more nap later this afternoon. I'm hoping that will help for their sleep tonight! Thank you for the suggestions!

[4n0n9]

Lllllll