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BR: what's wrong with sleeping?!?
OK seriously, what is so wrong with sleeping at night? Has it gone out of style or what? It's one of my favorite pastimes!
For the last two nights our boys have turned into demons between the hours of 9pm and 5am. If it's not one fussing or screaming then it's the other (usually when the first one is napping, so they take it in turns, with the occasional duet). I could handle one but holy crap - with both of them it's hell on earth. Last night Ben and I literally did not sleep until my mom volunteered to take the kids downstairs at about 5.15am and cover their next feeding session. Of course by then the little ratbags were worn out and decided to sleep peacefully...
I'm at a loss for what to do - we already do the Five S's, so if anyone has any other tips I'm open to suggestions!
Re: BR: what's wrong with sleeping?!?
What a cute little nickname for both of them!
It went out of style at our house and didn't come back into style until last week... that gives you hope right? By 9 months they'll be sleeping, yay!!
So you tried the 5 S, well that didn't work for us either, B didn't want any of that *hit! She didn't cry/scream, she just didn't sleep and I certainly couldn't just plop her down in the swing and doze peacefully while she was boycotting sleep, stinkpot!
I did find out that the swing was our savior. We would put her in it and sometimes even carry it into our room, she'd sleep peacefully and so would we... for 3 hours at a time
Better than nothing! Have you tried putting them together? In the same bassinet or crib? Sometimes with twins that's what we would do when I worked in the NICU, that would be the only way they would sleep. Sometimes we'd really burrito them (aka swaddle the dickens out of them) and put them as close together as we could with their faces towards eachother... sometimes it worked and well, like everything, sometimes it didn't.
It does get better. There is life at the end of the tunnel, I promise! It's hard to enjoy life at all on no sleep, I vividly remember being a zoombie day in and day out for months on end. Now days she at least smiles and giggles when she's awake so even on no sleep, it doesn't seem so bad...
Good luck, I wish you at least 3 hours of solid sleep tonight!
We eventually took their vibrating chair thingies into their room and put them in those.
They didn't really sleep but at least the fussing/crying stopped for a while.
You know, they're funny about being put together - they like each other (seem to enjoy watching each other, especially while tandem feeding), but it doesn't do anything as far as settling them down goes. They're just kind of like, "Oh. It's you. Again. So I'm gonna start screaming now - want to join me?"
I was just reading that! It's definitely true that they're WAY harder to settle after that 90 minutes...but what do you do if they just won't go to sleep before the 90 min limit? Like right now it's been 2 hours, and Dash is tightly swaddled and down for a nap...but he's still wide awake. Just doesn't want to sleep.
Married Bio
Thank you! William John is a name we had picked out for a long time, well before I even got pregnant. William has significance to us, and John is both Ben's middle name and his father's middle name.
For Dash, his middle name (Thomas) is my father's first name. Dashiell was just a name I liked (I'm a fan of Dashiell Hammett's detective noir books), and I suggested it to Ben thinking he'd shoot it down instantly. But surprisingly he liked it, and as we went through names we just kept coming back to it. Dash's name was very nearly Logan, which was our second favorite - but we couldn't figure out a short version of the name (Lo? Logie?) that we liked.
I spotted you on the babynames board one night asking about how to pronounce Dashiell! So... how do you and Ben pronounce it? Is it Duh-sheel, or Dash-ull?
And as far as the boys crying, I have to just say the cliche "every baby is different." Brooke had her days and nights mixed up so she REALLY had us for a roller coaster in the beginning. We basically ended up switching our sleep patterns to match hers until she got it right. (We heard that if you draw a chicken and put it upside down at the foot of the baby's crib/bassinet, their days and nights will be flipped, so we tried that as well!) We did a lot of rocking to music. My friend said that she would sit on an exercise ball holding her baby and gently bounce up and down. A lot of people swear by the swing or the baby bouncer. I've heard of people putting the babies in their carseat and putting the carseat on a clothes dryer/washing machine that's on. & on the bump, I've seen people post that they turn their vacuum on for the loud white noise.
It really just comes down to what soothes your baby. What makes it difficult is that there are TWO babies that are completely different-- they most likely want to be soothed differently.
Hope you find some help soon!
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Aha Lisa...you my friend are experiencing the 2.5/3 week growth spurt times TWO! Hang in there mama...it will pass...I remember with Libby that it lasted about 4 days...she would cluster feed from midnight until 6 am. 45 minutes nursing and 15 minutes dozing and then start up all over again! I had to just ride it out and then sleep during the day when my mom or J could take over baby duty for a couple of hours. I swear, I never knew how 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep could feel so refreshing.
Since your little guys take bottles and your mom is there to help perhaps come up with an overnight strategy that allows you and Ben to get some sleep. Maybe rotate on 2 or 4 hour shifts? This too shall pass and they'll settle back down....only to have another growth spurt around 6 weeks!
The 5 S works for us, but I won't lie it works better for J than for me. For me, even if she lets me swaddle her she wants to nurse rather than be rocked and shushed. If she's really ramped up with get the hair dryer going (for the noise, we don't blow it on her or anything). You can see a look in her eye the instant it works...it's so weird. She calms down and then is able to nurse or be rocked to sleep. Of course, I knew NONE of these tricks when she was 2-3 weeks old...I just rode the wave and slept when I could, which was maybe 4 hours in 1-2 hour spurts when J or my mom would watch her in the day.
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You guys are doing great
It is supposed to get better with time however I can't tell you that bc I'm not there yet plus I'm not having two. Just try to enjoy it. Easier said than done right?
I am sorry Lisa & all of the new mamas out there strugglin' with boycotting sleep babies! All I know is I am "watching" all of these threads & storing them away for when I have a babe of my own who thinks sleep went out of style!
hope it gets better soon & I am sure it will!
This is not good! Maybe they'll be like Millie Vanilli when they get older and sing together
An idea for the future, haha
Oh my god!!! Now that Lori says this I'm remembering Elyse's 3 week growth spurt ::shuddering:: I just layed with her in the spare bed and fed her every two hours. And I when I say I layed with her - that's all I did - there was no sleeping involved
Hang in there!
Married Bio
Married Bio
my friend swore by the yoga ball, bouncing her baby up and down to the sound of the kitchen exhaust fan on! she said it would instantly calm him down
i am sorry you're going thru this but agree it's probably their 3 wk growth spurt, just a little early....and yes every baby is different so i hope you find what works for them. hang in there!
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Dash-eel.
Technically it should be Da-sheel, but because we shorten it to Dash it's easier to explain how to pronounce it if we actually use "dash" as part of it (and Dash-eel has become a fairly accepted pronunciation of it in the USA anyway, even if it's not the proper French way of saying it). I had forgotten about that post...I remember now I asked because I wanted to see how often we'd need to correct people. 
so I too swear by the exercise ball and shushing close to their ears.... I stumbled across the exercise ball because I was sooo tired from watching him and he wouldn't stop! So I did swaddled him, and got on the yoga ball because I was tired. Once I started bouncing, he would calm down and go to sleep. I remembered my sister later coming to me and telling me I was a miracle worker.... Hehe I was just lazy!
we also had her firstborn on a schedule like what Julie posted.... We had him taking naps every 90-120 minutes and he would sleep for a good 2-3 hours.
during that time, my sister would sleep and I would clean her house...
And I know you didn't ask, but when changing a boy diaper, I slowly pulle the diaper down a little and then cover his thingy with a diaper wipe. Then I continue to change him as normal. That way, if he sprays, he won't spray you or his face! Hehehe
hawaii 10.2008 plan ;P married bio ???
Ratbags, lol.
I think Little J just went through a growth spurt like it seems your boys did. He wanted to nurse every hour (or if I was lucky, hour and a half) and wouldn't nap for longer than 10 minutes. It was probably the toughest 2 days we've had since he's been home. Thank goodness that it seems to be over for the most part. He's back to eating every 2 hours or so and is taking longer naps again.
Hope your boys are having a better day today!
I am so trying this exercise ball thing - it seems so highly recommended!