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Posted by Rachel
on 4/2/2009, 11:16 pm, in reply to "sleeping"
75.165.246.124
I really like the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. My twins are 5 months and sleeping very well, and I've used Weissbluth's principles with my other three children as well.
Some of his basic points are that newborns (4months and younger) should only be up for 2 hours or less. So are you putting your girls down after no more than 2 hours of awake time? Even at 5 months, there are still times when my babies go down after only being up an hour or 1.5 hours. He says, "Sleep begets sleep."
Another point is that you'll see a longer stretch of consolidated sleep at night before you'll see longer naps during the day. Day and night sleep are interrelated. Don't keep baby up during the day hoping that she will sleep longer at night.
He also says, "Never wake a sleeping baby." I try to let my babies sleep until they wake up as much as possible. I know some MOT wake up both babies to eat at the same time. I've chosen not to, and it's worked well for us. But I know twins are different than singletons (what he's mostly writing about), so if you're waking them to feed together, maybe try not doing that.
You've probably tried this, but sometimes we have put one baby on our bed in a different room (with pillows around her--they're not rolling yet). Usually they sleep in the same crib, but sometimes the separate room has allowed for longer naps.
And sometimes there are just periods when babies will take shorter naps. My boy (I have boy/girl twins) will often sleep for 50 minutes and think he's ready to get up. I try to help him go back to sleep, but if he won't, I just get him up and put him down again within 2 hours (often after just an hour or so). He will take longer naps for a few days and then do his 50 minute nap again. Weissbluth says that the brain development is a big part in how long babies sleep, so sometimes I just have to remind myself that this phase will pass....
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