Sleep Training

[alison]

Awwwww!

Tulips, mine only took the binky while we were sleep training. She hated it when she was wide awake.

[GreyhoundsRUs]

DD only uses a paci when sleeping in the car (her choice, not mine). I'm in the "try anything once" camp! I know any subsequent kiddos will be different.

[ladymoreta]

Yes, to the paci! That's a lifesaver when you're working on getting them to drop feedings at night! I always try it first. If DD is truly hungry, she spits it across the crib and cries like I've offended her! If she's not hungry, she happily sucks herself back to sleep. Don't worry too much about breaking the habit. It went fairly smoothly at 1 year old with DS using the Pantley method. Other friends of mine keep using it only for bedtime until their kids are old enough to understand trading it for a special toy or the pacifier fairy.

Besides that, without more info from the OP, I'd say work on letting them fall asleep alone in their crib. The Baby Whisperer pick up/put down method is awesome. Once that works, move on to only patting and shushing, with no pick up. Then work on having them fall asleep with you next to the crib, but with little or no touching. Then across the room, then just outside the door. If that all goes smoothly, great! I have a few other tricks up my sleeve, if there are specific hang-ups, but that's the gist of no-cry sleep training. (The term is misleading - they will cry. It's just crying with you present, calming them, and partially meeting their wants, which gradually become less and less.)

If you're interested in no-cry training, it can take longer. A couple weeks to a month for one kid, assuming no teething, earaches, colds, etc. (Just put training on hold for those.) CIO can work as quickly as 3 nights to a week. Same rules go for CIO - don't try it when they're teething or sick, or when you're traveling soon after.

[BonBon]

I know any subsequent kiddos will be different.

^^If there are any parenting rules to be engraved in stone, this is it.

I think there is a spectrum of CIO, too. We did it with all of our kids, in the sense of when they were a few months old, I let them fuss a bit before I would get up to feed them in the night. Often, they would fall back asleep. (YES!!!) One thing I did that was extremely helpful and worked with 3 of the 4 kids was write down how much they ate and what times, every day. (I pumped and bottlefed BM) The number of oz they eat in a day is pretty consistent so I started putting daytime feedings a little closer together in the hopes of spreading out the nighttime feedings. It worked really well.

[masked_rose86]

Sorry I am just now replying!! Been a busy day as my dad is in town helping me while DH is at a conference out of state.

I have tried giving pacis since they were little and they really never too them. Now they just chew on them and make a face before spitting them out. Frustrating....but I know not all infants take them.

The girls get really fussy when they get tired, I really don't get a sleep cue other than that. I can even be holding them and they lose it. Setting them down drowsy but awake is impossible too. I have really tried and part of the enormous challenge is I am dealing with 2 at once.

Really our day is eat, play for 15-30 min, cry/fuss/meltdown, and then sleep. They also eat every 2 hours so naps aren't long unless they fall asleep on my lap while/after nursing. They might sleep for an hour that way.

I just feel like they really cry/fuss a lot.....it is so frustrating. I am glad they have some awake/happy time at least, as that wasn't always the case.

Anyways.....I am surviving and can continue if needed for their good but it really is exhausting right now. Such is life and this too shall pass. I do think once they are trained or can self soothe, a lot of things will be easier.

[Lala]

Have you read Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth? I know I always mention this book, but it helped me so much. I can not say enough good things about it. I did CIO at 3 months with my daughter (most books seem to recommend 4 to 6 months), but nothing else was working and she was exhausted. I could never get her to go to bed earlier than like 4am. Now at almost 8 months, she goes to bed at 7, and usually sleeps 11 or 12 hours (sometimes she wakes up once in the night). I think that CIO is only one part of sleep training though, as I also did a lot of work on creating a proper sleep/ nap schedule for her, which is always evolving as she gets older. I also have her on a pretty rigid routine, which helps as well. Do whatever you are comfortable with and whatever you think is the best for you and your family.

[alison]

Posting on the fly--try cutting down the play time to 5 min and put them down before they're visibly tired/cranky?

The glooooorious thing about my dd (mom brag) is that she is 9 times out of 10 an independent fall-asleeper. CIO doesn't work for every baby, but for mine, it worked really easily.

[ladymoreta]

Anyways.....I am surviving and can continue if needed for their good but it really is exhausting right now. Such is life and this too shall pass. I do think once they are trained or can self soothe, a lot of things will be easier.

I totally understand. You can look up some of my posts from my son's first year and a half and see how desperate I was, but I just kept telling myself "I'm strong; he's not. I can keep doing this until he gets it!" But it really makes them and you happier, and you're a better mom when you're all getting adequate sleep.

I am a huge fan of the Baby Sleep Site, and here's a great article for how you're feeling: http://www.babysleepsite.com/sleep-t...ess-checklist/

Please don't feel guilty if you choose to go the CIO route. It works great for some kids, and chances are you know already whether it will work for your babies. If you think it won't, or it will be too harsh for their personalities at this age, then here are some no-cry tips. They come from a lot of different sources, but I'll second the Healthy Sleep Habits recommendation. It's a great resource for when to schedule and when to drop naps. He strongly recommends CIO, but that didn't work for my son. Even still, the information on sleep was very helpful.

From your description, it sounds like maybe they're napping a little too often. Can you start stretching their awake time by taking them for a walk just before they start melting down? I would aim for three naps a day, with the first two being 1.5-2 hours and the last one being about 45 min-1 hour. They won't start out doing this well, and I don't have advice for twins. But if they wake up before an hour for the first or second nap, do whatever it takes to get them back to sleep. They'll eventually get used to the length. Aim for at least two hours of awake time before bedtime at night, preferably closer to three, but they might be a little young for that still.

Develop a rigid bedtime routine, and make sure it's at least 15 minutes long. I do bath, lotion/lullabies, pajamas, nursing, sleep. Do this in the exact same way at the exact same time every night. (After they "get" it, you can vary it up if needed for traveling or plans outside the house, but at first you want a strong trigger that this bedtime is different, and that longer sleep is expected when it's over.) When they wake up at night, don't turn on any lights, don't make eye contact, don't change diapers unless they're poopy, and don't talk to them. Mommy is fun in the daytime; nighttime is for sleep.

I'll write more later about the drowsy but awake. I just wanted to slap people who told me to do that with my first, so I definitely have some things you could try.

ETA - I just saw Alison's post, and that's another good strategy. Rather than trying to stretch their awake time, starting naptime before they start showing fussiness is a great way to make sure they don't get overtired.