Putting them down for a nap?

[taliporos]

Hi all, FTM of 7-wo b/g twins currently on survival mode!

Since the beginning of my pregnancy I’ve seen many posts here recommending to keep the babies on the same schedule (feedings, naps etc). So far we haven’t managed to pull that off due to the simple fact that we can’t figure out how to put them down for a nap at the same time. Right now we have them with stacked feedings because we need a lot of time (sometimes as much as 1h of rocking and swaying) to put them to sleep. We feed them every 3-4 h so there’s little room to do anything else in between - I’m also pumping every two hours to increase my supply so there’s a lot of juggling atm.

So please share with me your methods, tricks, advice, ANYTHING to put them down for a nap at the same time?

EDIT: it’s ok when my SO or someone else is here so we can each get one baby, but how to do it when by myself?

 

[katrina2017]

@taliporos My girls are 4 months old and I have nursed them to sleep and done contact naps for every nap

 

[misstea]

@katrina2017 My twins are 16 months and I still nurse them to sleep and contact nap every day

 

[jinetakosa]

@taliporos Do you have a swing? Bouncer? Anything you can use to help soothe one baby while you hold the other?

 

[taliporos]

@jinetakosa None of them like the bouncer, thus far both need some contact to be able to fall asleep

 

[nirajrana]

@taliporos For naps, they slept on the twin z for the first 10 weeks. By then they had a pretty good track record of going to sleep on their own in their bassinets.

I’m a single mom, so rocking them to sleep was literally impossible. I would swaddle both babies one by one and put them in a side by side bassinet. Offer pacifiers and then place a hand on their stomach and rock back and forth (this only worked while they were still in swaddles as they rock back and forth easily in the swaddles). Over time I rocked less and less and by 10 weeks, they just got swaddled (later transitioned to the Merlin sleep suits when the swaddles became dangerous bc of rolling) and would put themselves to sleep without any rocking/shushing or anything. Once they got good at that at night, switching to crib naps was a piece of cake.

 

[debbie351]

@nirajrana This is…. This is a really solid plan. Question: how the hell did your brain work with that much forethought during the initial weeks postpartum?

 

[nirajrana]

@debbie351 It didn’t

This is what came of just what I could do postpartum with two babies. They napped on the Twin Z bc they spent 90% of their daytime on it, so in the early days they would just drift off to sleep on it at random intervals.

The unofficial sleep training at night is again just what happens when you have only one person and two crying babies I was also desperate for sleep, so I would feed the babies then wrap them up and put them in the bassinets and go rinse the bottles and put them in the dishwasher and go to the bathroom. When I was done with that routine, if the babies were still crying, I would do the hand on the belly rock. But honestly, a lot of the time, they would be done fussing if you just have them that 3-5 mins to settle themselves.

And switching to the cribs just happened when the babies kept hitting the bassinet walls and getting upset. They switched to the crib so easily that I was like ok let’s do naps too so I can finally relax too.

But no, no magic forethought. This is just what worked out

 

[smchap]

@taliporos I feel you so hard on this! My twins are 2.5 months, 1 month adjusted and we are still working on naps since I’m alone with them during the week while my husband works.

I pump and feed them at the same time and then I try to get a good 30-45 minutes of wake time after they feed so they get tired enough to nap (this doesn’t always happen) Then I swaddle the more tired one and try to put them down to nap then do the other one. They dont nap very long so if one gets fussy I rock/cuddle and try to put down again.

Trying to get mine to nap takes up most of my day. My maternity leave ends in a month so really trying to get good nap habits started before they go to daycare.

 

[raymo]

@taliporos I’ve worked in lots of stressful situations in my life but nothing felt more difficult than putting two newborns down. We were obsessed with getting them on the same schedule, because we were told by professionals it might be most important thing for our mental health. I can say now, that it was hard but after a few months it was slightly easier, and after a year it was down right easy. And now they are two and a half they literally march to bed when it’s time to sleep.

Besides just being relentless with the feeding and sleeping schedule we did the following:
-Black out curtains. Make sure not even a little light shines through. I wish we had just bought blackout static cling sheets for the windows instead of buying expensive curtains and then taping them to the walls.
-Sound machine. We used an old iPad and hooked them up to two Bluetooth speakers placed near the babies cribs.
- The Snoo. We rented two snoos and this might have made thing 20% easier for us. They don’t work on all babies. But for us it worked like magic. It rocked them to sleep when they fuss or cry, and almost half the time it put them back to sleep. They were a couple hundred a month to rent. We rented for 6 months exactly. When it stoped working for them, the transition to a crib worked really well. So worth it.

Of course these things that worked for us might not work for you.

Good luck. Hopefully in a few years you’ll be sitting next to your sweet kids watching puffin rock and reading Reddit.

 

[matt97]

@taliporos At that age, they had jus transitioned to cribs versus the bassinet. I would just snuggle each one for a few minutes and then put them in their cribs. They would just shushes and a few pats and I’d turn on their sound machine and turn off the lights. If they fussed at all, I’d go back and forth with a few more runs/pats and give them their pacifiers. If they both refused to settle, I’d ask turns holding one and would put the other in their Fisher Price infant toddler rocker, and rock it with my foot.

 

[pawelsikorski]

@taliporos My boy/girl twins nap on separate rooms. One naps in the nursery & the other in a pack-n-play in our room. At night they sleep together though. Try a sound machine if you haven’t already. It’s a game changer!

 

[android3850]

@taliporos I’ll make it very simple: just put them down, read a story, and walk away. At first there will be screaming and crying, but eventually they’ll get into the routine and it’ll be bliss.

 

[tmp]

@taliporos We never rocked which sometimes I find sad but we put them down walk away and come back in a couple min if they’re still crying

 

[chris77]

@taliporos INFO: what happens if you just place them in their sleep space when it’s naptime?

 

[taliporos]

@chris77 They will fuss and eventually start crying. I’ve tried putting them down drowsy but awake and settling them down in the crib but it eventually leads to fussing/crying. We basically have to put them down when they are in deep sleep

 

[chris77]

@taliporos Ahhh okay got it! Have pacifiers helped at all with helping them soothe?

If both babies are kind of high needs in terms of help sleeping, it does make it much much harder to stay on the same schedule. The only thing I can think of is wearing both in a twin carrier to help, but it’s also possible that you might not be able to keep them on the same schedule until they learn to sleep more independently. I have heard the book Precious Little Sleep helps a lot with learning more independent sleep.

 

[shc73]

@chris77 I vividly remember leaning over two bassinets with swaddles babies in them putting my hand on them and shushing like crazy. But it worked!

 

[dcadman]

@taliporos This was extremely challenging period, my best shot was one in bouncer, one in carrier. Mixed results.

We couldn’t really get them on same schedule at this age, we just tried to get through the day

 

[frank3]

@taliporos I never managed to get ours down for naps 'at the same time' when I was alone, it took about 20 mins per baby to get them down and they only stayed asleep for half an hour on a good day, so they'd overlap by about 10 mins which was totally bloody useless lol.

We actually gave up on putting them down for naps entirely, 6 months now and things are pretty chill most of the time but I still have no idea how to officially 'put them down' for a nap, I just let them fall asleep wherever and whenever they want (usually during/after feeding and on walks).