Twins and night waking

[rcsmom]

So my twins are 22 months and I think I am going crazy from sleep deprivation I have not gotten more than 3 hours of sleep at a time for over two years and most nights it is closer to 1 or 2 hours at a time. I'm exhausted, irritable and have gained like 20lbs that I can't shake and I'm pretty sure is just from lack of sleep.
So a couple of things first- I do 90% of the night time parenting. My husband works construction and with heavy equipment and deals with sleep deprivation way worse than I do. He also has to be up at 4-5am most mornings. He is always willing to help out but I try to let him sleep as much as possible. We are in the middle of remodeling our house. Going on three years now but that is what happens when you do all the work yourselves as money permits so the babies are in our room and I really have no option to move them out right now. We can't fit two cribs in our room so they are on crib mattresses on our floor. We do have blackout curtains and white noise. They are still nursing. They were only about 3.5 weeks early, didn't spend any time in the NICU, no or very slight delays.
So we have a pretty good bed time routine. Starting at about 8pm change into pajamas, nurse, brush teeth and then my husband and I each put one in a baby carrier. They are usually asleep within like 15 minutes. We transfer them to the crib mattresses on the floor sometimes without nursing to settle and sometimes with. We are all usually in bed by 9pm. My boy twin then wakes up around 11pm ish and I bring him in bed with us, nurse him and he falls right back asleep. I have tried getting up and laying down to nurse him on the crib mattress. I can get him back to sleep but he is usually awake again in about 10-30 minutes. Girl twin usually sleeps on the crib mattress till about 1pm and then comes in bed with us. From this point on it is basically nurse one baby, roll over, try to get comfortable, next baby wakes up, nurse that baby, try to fall back asleep, both babies wake up, nurse both babies, one baby falls asleep, other baby rolls around on my head for a half hour and eventually falls back asleep. Try to get up around 6am because by that time my back or hips or knees are killing me from laying in weird positions either nursing or trying not to wake up a baby. If I am really lucky I can sneak out from between them and they stay asleep till 6:30 or 7 am. Otherwise they are up for the day at 6am. Other nights like last night the first part of the night was the same but when little girl woke up she wouldn't fall back asleep. Rolled on my head, talked to herself, kicked the covers, snoozed a little from about 1:30 till 4 am when my husband got up. I try to get up to get her so he can get ready for work and little boy wakes up. So now both babies are awake by 5am I try to get little girl back to sleep. I get her back to sleep twice but both times she wakes right back up when I lay her down. Finally got her back to sleep at 7am. Got little boy back to sleep once and he woke right back up. Currently still working on getting him back to sleep again. This second situation happens at least once a week where someone is up before 5am.
They nap well. They take a 2-2.5 hour nap from about noon to 2-3pm. They probably honestly could still do two naps if I laid them down at around 9- 10 am for the first one but that makes the second nap somewhere around 4pm and then we can't get them to sleep by 9pm which needs to happen since I need my husband's help to get them to sleep and he has to be up so early. They get plenty of big motor play and now that the weather is getting nicer, time outside.
I coslept with all my other boys and it was so much easier than with two. They almost never were actually awake in the middle of the night like these guys. I feel like I have read a ton of books but implementing stuff with two toddlers just seems so overwhelming. There has got to be some solution I can't think of right now so please help me out with some outside eyes on the situation!

[Aerynne]

That sounds super hard! I don’t have twins, but since most people here don’t have twins, I assume you are okay with advice from non twin moms. 22 months is old enough to night wean. I would teach them the difference between light outside and dark outside by remarking on it when you can. Make sure they eat and drink well right before bed. Then teach them that we only nurse when it is light outside. This is the part that is hard with twins, though, because they will cry when they can’t nurse. Offer a drink of water but that is it when they wake up. It is not CIO because you are there to comfort them. Ideally your husband would take a week off work or you could have a relative come. Or you start on a 3 day weekend so you at least have a head start and your husband or relative sleeps in a different room with one baby and you have the other and they have some tough nights learning thatthey don’t nurse at night anymore (but still getting snuggles to help with their sadness). They figure it out andthey sleep much better after that. I have done that with my kids, but the twin thing throws a wrench in it, but that is probably how I’d do it. You could do it alone but it would be hard because they would wake each other up.

[rcsmom]

Originally Posted by Aerynne

That sounds super hard! I don’t have twins, but since most people here don’t have twins, I assume you are okay with advice from non twin moms. 22 months is old enough to night wean. I would teach them the difference between light outside and dark outside by remarking on it when you can. Make sure they eat and drink well right before bed. Then teach them that we only nurse when it is light outside. This is the part that is hard with twins, though, because they will cry when they can’t nurse. Offer a drink of water but that is it when they wake up. It is not CIO because you are there to comfort them. Ideally your husband would take a week off work or you could have a relative come. Or you start on a 3 day weekend so you at least have a head start and your husband or relative sleeps in a different room with one baby and you have the other and they have some tough nights learning thatthey don’t nurse at night anymore (but still getting snuggles to help with their sadness). They figure it out andthey sleep much better after that. I have done that with my kids, but the twin thing throws a wrench in it, but that is probably how I’d do it. You could do it alone but it would be hard because they would wake each other up.

Yeah that is why I haven't tried to night wean them yet- they start screaming and waking each other up. I am also hesitant because I'm not sure that night weaning will stop the night waking. I have never night weaned this young. All my others were closer to three and much more able to understand what I was doing. I do have another place my husband could sleep for a couple of nights though since all three of my other boys insist on sleeping it one set of twin bunk beds

[knitlove]

I don't have any good advice (hug) early bird slept like that and I rember how crazy it made me feel.

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[rcsmom]

Also I was just thinking at what point do you think I should be concerned this might be a symptom of a physical problem versus just a normal toddler sleep pattern? I am wondering just because I feel like all my boys were sleeping longer stretches at this point which is one reason it wasn't as much of an issue. I am pretty sure my little boy has never ever slept longer than 3 hours at a stretch in his whole life and most of the time his sleep stretches are closer to two hours at a time.

[ECingMama]

Praying for wisdom for you

That sounds really tough

[Katigre]

I would night wean them (or at least get it down to just one nursing session at night). I know there are strategies to do this (I nightweaned all of my kids at that age, and I had to do it solo b/c of DH's work schedule, we were cosleeping. But I never had twins so I might try doing just one twin at a time).

---------- Post added at 10:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:13 AM ----------

https://breastfeedingtwinsandtriplet...toddler-twins/

The list of replacement comforting to sleep options is basically what I did. Also, what happens if you talk to them about it during the day beforehand so they're prepared and know what to expect? That made a huge difference with my toddlers 18 mos+ for a lot of things. (I call it 'previewing' and basically I just explain what's coming later that day, what I will do, what they will do, etc... so they have time to adjust to the idea and don't feel surprised)

[Pragmatist]

I agree with the others that it is time to night wean. They may not be happy about it but they do not physically need to eat at night anymore. I honestly don't remember at what age I night weaned mine, but I know I continued to nurse long after we night weaned. You need sleep.

[deena]

Is your bed big enough? If it is too small than that might be a big contributor to why co-sleeping is not letting you get enough sleep. I find that more than one baby requires more than one adult sized mattress squeezed together side by side. Perhaps consider ditching the two crib mattresses and replacing it with an adult sized one. (the bigger the better!)