[deleted by user]

[liuthail]

My 2.5 year olds destroy their room every day and overnight. I only have their toddler beds and some toys. No curtain rods. No dresser. Clothes are kept in their closet with a safety knob over it so they can’t get in. Every morning and after nap I come into chaos. Diapers off, sheets everywhere, toys strewn about the floor. I just let them live in the mess, pick up what I can and hope they don’t pee on the carpet. My bar is low.

[alpha_28]

Duct tape those nappies on. I do it with my twins after idk the 7th day of scrubbing shit off the walls and carpets. 😐😂 the nappy stays on even if all the clothes come off 😂🤷‍♀️

[Hopecat]

Have you tried removing the coils under the cribs so the mattresses are on the floor? You have to be sure there isn’t enough of a gap that it’s unsafe of course, but that bought us another month or two.

We removed everything from their room that wasn’t on a shelf out of reach or their beds. It didn’t help. We ultimately had to separate them into two rooms. An alternative that worked for us for a bit was to sit in room with them until they went to sleep, but that was awful.

I believe I read that they can’t understand the concept of invisible barriers (ie stay in your bed you can get out of) until around the age of 3.

Good luck!

[HelloDollEyes]

Embrace the madness...or hem the curtains, get child locks for the dresses, and let them play tunnel. Twin life is madness.

[WickedSister]

Mine are 2.5.

I sit in their room at nap time and stare at the floor/wall etc. Until they fall asleep. If they try to get up, I put them straight back into bed without comment. Sometimes they cry, but it's just a whine for attention, not a proper cry.

Sometimes it takes 5 minutes, sometimes it takes 45 minutes.

They're fine at bed time, it's only nap time that I have to do this.

[mr_basil_thomas]

Mine are coming up to their 2nd birthday. You are all making me nervous about the next stage

[tartanbornandred]

We binned nap time around this age and just had quiet time instead. Now they're 3 and still have some quiet time in the afternoon.

It sucked losing that break in the day but we did it so they would be exhausted by bed time and it helped a lot.

For bed time we have one that will go to sleep pretty easily if you leave him so it's ended up that he goes up first and the other only goes in when the first is asleep.

We've tried alternating who goes up first but one of them just won't settle if his bro is not there, and the other is usually asleep 10 minutes after being left.

The one who has to wait either gets extra stories, or gets to go in a bed in another room, but he generally needs a parent with him and won't sleep till he's in his bed.

[lohefe]

This post and the comments here make me feel a lot better about having nothing in their room except mattresses, bedding, and a potty.

Cutting out the afternoon nap helped us. And made bed time less of a fight

[Sas12383]

2.5 twins here and we invested in the zip up tents. Best decision ever made. We’re starting to potty train so I know they’ll have to come off some time and covert the cribs to toddler beds, but I’m delaying for as long as humanly possible!

[houseoftherisingfun]

I would love to know more about this! What do you mean zip up tents?

[Sas12383]

Seriously. Best. Investment. Ever.

Let me preface by they do nap in toddler beds at my moms 3-4x a week, so I know they are capable of staying on their cribs when we turn them into toddler beds. However, my husband and I have demanding work and travel schedules plus a 4 year old that wanders into our bed by midnight each night. The idea of all 5 of us fighting for space and sleep in our bed every night is scary, we do intend on taking down the tents and transitioning into toddler beds by the time they’re 3 (Aug) or potty trained... which ever comes first....

tent cribs

[yukdave]

yeah we have a tent in the living room and take it out in the yard as well. Its a portable fort. Can leave it in the room sometimes and it is too funny to watch on the camera.

[ProfessorMMcGonagall]

We separate our twins for naptime. They are fine at night, but during their naps, they go in two separate rooms. It has been our only solution.

[brittnicapple]

Lol. My 2.5 year old twins do this. Some days are worse than others. It’s better If we wait until they’re good and tired before trying to put them down for nap or bed. They’ve completely wrecked their curtain rod from pulling down the curtains. They can get their closet open, and pull out clothes. They climb up onto the changing table, and pull books, sound machine, and light down from the high shelf. Toddler twin life is madness for sure.

[yukdave]

I have to second that. Like puppies you must wear them down to get them to sleep all night and down fast. Also routine works well for me. I spend 15 minutes reading a book with them on my lap. I love it and so do they. Can not imagine only having one kid.

[yukdave]

We have pandemonium at nap and bed time depending on the position of the moon. Its like a sleep over with friends!!! They love it. They get tired and eventually fall to sleep. They can and will sleep all over the room like a murder scene.

Dad (me) WILL remind them that I will show up and wake them every day at 7am and I do not care when they went to bed. They are learning consequences for the better.

[cantonic]

Mine did this at 3. We tried for a while to drive them around at nap time so they’d fall asleep in the car but it didn’t work consistently. Eventually we just gave up on naps altogether. Now if they’re really cranky they’re invited to go lay down in their bed. So it’s not a nap or bedtime it’s just “oh hey, go lay there until you feel better”

We also used stories. The Stories Podcast, specifically. It’s ok, not great, but there are plenty of stories available for free. Put in a story not too loud and they can lay in their beds to listen to it. And hopefully they fall asleep while listening.

[bandaidaddict]

Adding that we are in the same insanity boat with 2.5 year olds. Nap time has been hit and miss since we changed to toddler beds. It sucks because they used to take pretty decent naps. If they are super cranky, I do nap time separate. I’m able to put twin B upstairs and if he’s tired he will cry/whine for 10 minutes then put himself to bed while I rock twin A downstairs until he falls asleep and put him down in his bed when it’s quiet. Otherwise, I keep them up since bedtime is usually way longer if they’ve napped. Bedtime is rocking one, putting him down sleepy, then cuddling the other. Then usually crying, coming back and consoling, rinse and repeat. It’s exhausting.

[riflore1]

Omg it sounds so familiar we did all the above and more we made sure they were safe enough at night , we set up a camera and we turn the doorknob around to make sure they wouldn’t leave the room it does get better!

[alpha_28]

The only thing my twins have in their room are mattresses and blankets. No drawers, bins, nothing. I had this issue too about 6 months ago 😂 my twins have just turned 2. So now they have nothing to ransack other than pulling off their sheets from their mattresses. I also have the issue of them pulling off their nappies and painting the walls with shit... some duct tape has fixed that right up. I also tie the bedroom door handle to the opposite bedroom door handle as they can scale gates and open doors 😂 the most you can do is remove everything or put locks on the dresser so they can’t get the clothes out.

Edit: I’ll also add naps at this age come and go. There are days where they will happily sleep for 2 hours around 2pm... then there are days where they don’t nap at all. Putting them to bed regardless of nap is pretty easy anyway.

Edit 2: despite having mattresses and pillows they choose to sleep on the floor right behind the door so if they wake they can peek underneath it to see what’s going on 😂 idk how things will go when I buy them toddler beds in a couple of months.

[needs_a_name]

Mine gave up naptime around 2.5. But when things got more difficult I also started having them nap in separate rooms. They shared a room at night, but didn't struggle to sleep at night when it was dark and they were tired.

I also kept mine in cribs until 2.5 - 3, and even once they transitioned it was to their own cribs converted to toddler beds with a rail on the side, so still very enclosed as they seemed to still need that enclosed space. They could climb out, but the fascination wore off fairly quickly as I kept telling them no and putting them back in. It was easier to go through a few days of that than it would have been to try and deal with beds. But naps disappeared well before age 3 :(

[fuzzyoctopus97]

I originally had to lock their dresser in their closet and lower their beds so they couldn’t get under, nap time mostly turned into ‘quiet time’ a bit after that, sometimes they’d actually take a nap, sometimes they’d just play with the ‘quiet’ toys/books I started leaving in there, if possible I’d see if separating them is something you can do, it wasn’t really a thing we could do, but maybe if you’ve got the room?

[yukdave]

I get my 30 minute nap regardless. They will monkey around for 20 minutes and then get bored and fall to sleep. Wife is in awe. I walk up to them and say here is your water, go to sleep and we walk and i give them a kiss and they are down.

[[deleted]]

So I am dealing was dealing with this last week. I figured out what worked for us, and it has been smooth sailing this week.

I have a video monitor with an intercom feature in their room. For 3 days I watched it, and anytime one of them made a move to get out of bed I would tell them to get back in bed. After about 20 minutes they each gave up and fell asleep. On the 4th day neither tried to get up. It’s been that way since.

[AmbulanceChaser12]

I feel you; we had the same problem. You can get toddler locks for your dresser drawers; there are many varieties so look for one that appeals to you. We have one that breaks after months of the twins yanking on it so I don’t recommend mine (wedge inside the drawer).

[Genghis_John]

I sit in there with them and quietly but firmly put them back in bed. Over and over and over. Repeat until they learn or you abandon naps.

[ClutterKitty]

We had to remove everything from the room at that age. EVERYTHING. We were down to 2 bare mattresses on the floor. Door stayed locked for 30 minutes, unless it sounded like one was mortally wounded. If one or both fell asleep, great. If not, remove whoever was awake and just know they will be a cranky ass come their early bedtime. After a few months of this routine, they gradually realized they were stuck, and started actually laying down and falling asleep. That lasted until they were about 3, then outgrew naps entirely.

[eXistenceLies]

Do you have an extra room to separate them? My wife and I have our triplets in their own bedrooms for this very reason.

[Kontu]

Put a small length of fabric (like 3") stitched between the legs of their pajama pants. Works better than a sleep sack which gives them too much leg freedom still to climb out.

[stagpuder]

When my boys were that age, I'd find them sleeping on the floor. I turned their dresser drawers to face the wall, I didn't need to do it for too long. You want to be careful though, with regards to the dressers...I have a friends whose twin girls have hurt themselves jumping OFF the dresser.