Let me first say that I love my older boys more than anything (besides Grey and Sean). But they are waking up in the middle of the night and it's driving me slowly bonkers.
It's not every night but it easily averages to every other night. They somehow both wake up- sometimes one wakes up crying, sometimes not. They both hurry out of the beds, open and slam the door to their room, and hurry to our room. I often wake up and meet them on the way but other times they hop into bed to lay on top of Sean and I. If you let them stay for a little, they'll start talking- it's not like they want to sleep in our bed.
I lead them back to bed, explaining that it's still nighttime and they need to sleep more. They'll get in bed alright but I can't just leave them, they'll make a return trip to our room. I have to stay there until they're both asleep. Which, typically takes about an hour. An
hour. In the middle of the night.
So while Grey's doing a better and better job sleeping at night (two nights ago he slept 11 hours with one feeding in the middle!) I haven't seen the benefits of it because my toddlers keep waking me up. Plus, they still wake up super early in the morning. Yuck.
I'm desperate to fix the situation. Here's where I ask you to share your incredible wisdom and experience with me. I need more sleep and so do Liam and Dash. We're trying out having them not nap at all this week- they were taking ages to fall asleep for nap and for the night and bedtime got to be so late, plus the middle of the night wake ups and early wakings. But they've still been giving me their 3am wake-up calls. What should I do? What's worked for you? Help me, help me!
I am SO sorry! I wish had some magical wisdom to share, but I don't, just lots and lots of sympathy. Would it help to separate them at night somehow until they are doing better, in case it is one of them that typically gets up first? I have no idea...good luck!
ReplyDeleteI think separating them would help but then I have to eventually put them back together again (when Grey moves out of our room and into his own) so I feel like that's just delaying the inevitable. Things are just trickier with twins.
DeleteThe good news is: I think removing nap time is a great idea to help this (they are down to one nap, right?). I still instutitued "quiet time" where instead of napping, they had to stay in their room for a period of time (you decide what is appropriate, mine was 45 mins - 60) where they could lay down if they wanted, but otherwise, color or read books on their own. We did not do cars or trucks or planes& trains/movies/videogames, etc. during that time. It had to be something quiet, and in their room. I *think* this helped them get used to their room as a quiet/down time place. Quiet Time essentially let everyone "reboot". The bad news is: I'm no expert, MZ was HORRIBLE about getting up in the night from 18 monts to almost 3 years old : ( Maybe it's a boy thing! More good news: After that period - he slept like a CHAMP. More bad news: by then, most of my brain cells were fried : ) That said, after my issues were resolved I saw an EXCELLENT Super Nanny on this issue! Don't remember the details, maybe you could google : ) Good luck!
ReplyDeleteRemoving naps has definitely helped them go to sleep quickly. We sort of tried to have quiet time back when we started out the toddler beds, since they sometimes wouldn't fall asleep for naps, but they'd get up and start playing together and going a little nuts. It definitely didn't end up being quiet at all.
DeleteI looked up the Super Nanny thing and I'm guessing the solution was to quickly put the kid back in bed without talking or lingering and doing it over and over until they didn't leave bed again. Which is what Jenny suggested to me, too. We're trying that and we'll see if there's improvement!