Q: What exactly is "putting them to bed"?

[annastasia]

Hello fellow parents of multiples.

Seems like a dumb question but I can’t seem to figure it out. My mo/di girls are 8 weeks old and we’ve lately been struggling to find a schedule that gives anybody (specially mom) more than 4 hours of sleep. I’ve scoured through this subreddit and something that comes up quite frequently is this idea of “putting them to bed at X hour”. What exactly does this mean?

Any help is appreciated.

We're currently on 3-4 hour feeding schedules, but this is around the clock for us, so I don't even understand this concept of "skipping a midnight feed".

 

[angie28]

@annastasia This blog has a ton of awesome resources:

https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/newborn-baby-sleep-survival-guide/

Basically though you're still in the 4th trimester and the "anything it takes to get sleep" phase. Somewhere down the road you'll start to see longer stretches. At around 4 months we followed her bedtime sleep training guide (basically just teaching them to fall asleep at bedtime on their own with no supports like nursing/pacifiers) and at 7 months ours only wake up once or sometimes not at all.

Good luck!

 

[annastasia]

@angie28 Thank you so much for the link and the encouragement. Fingers crossed.

 

[katrina2017]

@annastasia I think the only schedule that will allow mom to sleep is if they take a bottle and someone else is able to do a feed for her. I don't think a solo breast-feeding mom gets to sleep . For us, we have a two story (edit: said this and didn't expand - naps were in the living room downstairs during the day) and they have their own room so putting them to bed was: they are in their cribs with the sound machine on, it's dark outside, and we're going to go lay down and pretend we will get any sleep. That was bed time. And at that age it was after the 8 pm feed. Soon you will notice that you are constantly waking them for the midnight feed and your doctor will say they are a good size and you'll just let them sleep and see what happens. That's when you get a stretch longer than 4 hours! It will happen!

 

[annastasia]

@katrina2017 Honestly I (dad) can't complain as I routinely get about 5 hours of sleep, but poor mum can't manage between feeding, pumping, and what not.

Soon you will notice that you are constantly waking them for the midnight feed and your doctor will say they are a good size and you'll just let them sleep and see what happens.

Eagerly anticipate this day, but as of today there will be times when one of them goes 5 hours without eating but one of my girls is a big big eater and when she wakes up from hunger - all of Switzerland wakes up- which means the other twin is jolted up and feeding her won't console her. Mix in that either parent will usually be up alone at that hour and you have full meltdown mode pretty quick.

But I still eagerly anticipate the day.

 

[youu]

@annastasia I always plug a book that worked for us called "12 hours sleep by 12 weeks" or something similar. If I remember correctly, at around 8 weeks is when they start upping the bedtime quantities of milk/formula with the hopes that the little ones will not get hungry through the night.

8 weeks is rough, but hopefully you're on the way up. You'll see in a couple weeks that they'll make it 6 hours at night, then 8. One morning, not too far away, both of you will wake up and ask the other if they got up at all during the night.

Bedtimes start kicking in at 5-7 months.

 

[ricksterrick]

@youu I also found "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" pretty useful. One of the most important pieces of advice I learned from that one is that infants don't do well being awake for more than 90 minutes at a time. After 90 minutes, they get tired and the more tired they get, the harder it is to get them to sleep!

And oh man, I remember the first time I slept through the night and woke up at 6am in pure terror that something happened to the babies. But I found them sleeping soundly in their cribs. hahah! It's definitely bitter sweet when that moment comes.

 

[annastasia]

@youu

You'll see in a couple weeks that they'll make it 6 hours at night, then 8. One morning, not too far away, both of you will wake up and ask the other if they got up at all during the night.

I cannot wait imagine this actually happening.

If I remember correctly, at around 8 weeks is when they start upping the bedtime quantities of milk/formula with the hopes that the little ones will not get hungry through the night.

Can someone vouch for whether this is true. I think it is, but some of the books I've read claim that upping their milk qty has no correlation to the length/type of sleep they get. But I'd like to disagree.

 

[angie28]

@annastasia I didn't find that to be true (and especially not at 8 weeks) but I was nursing so I couldn't do all that much to really up the amount they got at a particular time. What I did find is that they got more efficient at nursing around 8-10 weeks so the time we were up with them started to get a lot shorter and nights went from being up every hour out of 3 to instead being up for like a half an hour every 4 which was much more sustainable.

 

[ruthofzion]

@annastasia I'm at almost 6 months with my twins. One is still getting up at midnight and 3 am. Then sleeps until 7-8am.

He has discovered he likes sleeping on his stomach and now at least he's not fighting going to sleep after eating.

I put the 2 1/2yr old down at 8, my wife takes the twins into their bedrooms from 8-9 (tries) and feeds them and puts them down. You're to early. I was on night shift for 6 weeks. She went back to work and it was a battle. I was often sleeping from 6pm to 8pm around that time.

 

[annastasia]

@ruthofzion

my wife takes the twins into their bedrooms from 8-9 (tries) and feeds them and puts them down.

Where do they stay before that time?

 

[ruthofzion]

@annastasia Front room

 

[christtard]

@annastasia Hey there! I have 11w old mono di girls and at this stage of the game there really isn't a "put to bed" yet. Ours eat every 3-4 hours as well and usually sleep in between, so they're always put to bed! When they get older (rough estimate 5-6 months, not including adjustment) then you can try and take one of the midnight feeding out so they can sleep longer. Then you can have more of a bedtime routine for them (bath, pjs, story time, bed).

I cannot wait to nix their 4am feeding. That day will be glorious. Lol

 

[annastasia]

@christtard

Ours eat every 3-4 hours as well and usually sleep in between, so they're always put to bed!

Yeah, that's the basis of my original question. I was wondering if we were doing something really weird, or if everybody else's twins were good about this mythical bedtime.

 

[christtard]

@annastasia One day we'll be able to experience that mythical bedtime everyone talks about! Too bad we can't just fast forward to it

 

[annastasia]

@christtard Tangent: But I've had some tough self assessment/introspective moments to myself, where I've realized that I actually need to cherish this madness. Sure, being a zombie is terrible to deal with, but at the heart of it they're super simple and need you more than ever.

Either way, many hard hugs your way.

 

[christtard]

@annastasia What I do love about this phase is the cuddle sleepy time. My babies will never be this small and cuddly again so it is important to cherish it!

 

[emma456]

@annastasia Our doctor told us that babies can't sleep through the night until they weigh a certain amount, around 10 pounds. For us it was right at 11.

 

[annastasia]

@emma456 Interesting, but any scientific reasoning for that? Seems a bit "trivial?" But out of both, the twin that clears 10 lbs does sleep better for us, so maybe there's some truth to that.

 

[ricksterrick]

@annastasia First of all, what is their "adjusted age"? For example, if they were born two weeks early, their adjusted age would be 6 weeks. This is important for twins because usually they are born early and when it comes to feeding schedules and sleeping through the night, their little brains don't care when they were actually born because they won't develop any faster.

At 8 weeks (adjusted), their brains should start producing melatonin, a hormone critical for being able to regulate sleep. It's a magical milestone in which sleeping through the night is now a possibility.

So it sounds like you're getting closer to that! This is a great time to start thinking about how you're going to approach putting them to bed and establishing a good sleep schedule. Are they sleeping in their cribs or in the same room as mom and dad? Do you want them to sleep in their own rooms and when? You might be different, but it was important for us to transition them to their cribs earlier (because it gets more difficult as they get older). My hubby and I started bed time routines at 8 weeks and it took a few weeks for them to really start sleeping through the night, but eventually it gets easier and easier.

I highly recommend you start a bed time routine at a certain time at night. We did everything by a 3 or 4 hour schedule, so we picked a time that was the beginning of one of their cycles (7pm). At 7, every night like clockwork, we gave them a bath, a bottle, clean diaper, and jammies. Then we would hold and do a little bed time song or read a book, and then put them down in their cribs.

They would still wake up every 4 hours to eat. I would wake up at 11pm, 3am, and 6am to feed them. Then I would wake up automatically at 11pm, but they would still be sleeping, so I would just let them stay asleep. Eventually the 11pm feeding got totally phased out and then the 3am feeding, and they did this on their own. Now (they are 15 months) they sleep for 12 hours straight.

We decided to go with a modified "cry it out", where we started by putting them down and after three minutes of crying, we would go in and sooth them, and then leave again. Then we would wait 5 minutes, and the next time after that was 10 minutes. Usually they would fall asleep by the third visit, but if they kept crying, we checked in every ten minutes.

It's important to listen to what kind of cry they make during this time. When they actually needed something, like a diaper or if they were still hungry, that's a very different cry from "I don't like this place!" Eventually they learned to self sooth (suck their thumbs) and that's especially helpful for when they would wake up in the middle of the night. They usually just cried for a second and then popped their thumb in their mouth and fell asleep before I could even get up and walk down the hall to check on them.

Some other things I would suggest is a white noise machine (we use a box fan) and black out curtains. They will get to an age where one of their developmental milestones will keep them up if they see any lights or hear any sounds.

Sometimes it feels like something is just not working and you should give up, but eventually it clicks. Good luck! This is the hardest part of having twins (in my opinion) and you're almost out there!