sleeping through the night

[heatherlynn22]

my boys are 7 months old. since they were about 4-5 months old they QUIT sleeping through the night!!! they go to bed between 8-9pm. and they are TIRED. lol i wear their little buts out during the day. we play and play and play! well...they sleep good from about 9-10 (by time they actually fall asleep) till 2 am. then they're up once or twice an hour from 2-8. then at 8 they're up for the day. they rarely nap. sometimes i can get them to sleep if bounce them in their bouncy seats and put in ratatouille or cars (they can be the little couch potatoes at times).

anyone have suggestions for helping them sleep better or at least longer then till 2am? momma is exhausted and needs some sleep!!!!

[pookie1121]

Hey HeatherLynn,

Welcome to the multiples group!  I see you are from the Pittsburgh area.  That is where I lived before I moved to Germany. :)

My 20 mo old daughter had/has a completely different sleep schedule....and thank goodness a pretty regular one :)  But it really changes sometimes, especially when she is teething.  Sometimes she is a great sleeper and sometimes she wakes up screaming as if a tooth is shooting through in that moment.  

Could it be that your boys are over-tired and that maybe you have to try to put them in bed earlier??  I know that when my daughter is toooo tired, then she has a much much harder time to fall asleep and sleeps worse through the night.

Or maybe make sure that they eat a bedtime cereal or something to help them feel fuller?  That also helped when my daughter was smaller...

[tbeards]

Hi HeatherLynn!

Yes, I agree with pookie about trying to get them to sleep earlier. Also, do you go into their room right away when they wake up? Sometimes leaving them by themselves will make them go back to sleep on their own. When mommy or SO go into the room sometimes they think it is play time. We have a bed time ritual in our house that includes a bath at night, then "spa" time (basically just rub baby lotion on my dd's legs and have classical music on) and within about 15 minutes she is out like a light. When she does wake up, we wait about 5-10 minutes and if she is still up, we get her and bring her to bed with us (I know it's a no no but she does ok with waking up in her own crib so far) to get her to sleep again and then we transfer her back to her crib. Some babies are just not that great of sleepers and don't require as much sleep as others. We are lucky, our dd goes to bed at 6:30 or 7:00 and doesn't wake up until about 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. (I am a morning person now! LOL).

[kindergal]

My twins have been sleeping through the night since 2.5 months....but we have to put them to bed after 11:00....it is so weird, if we put them to bed before that, they wake up VERY early.  If they go to bed after 11:00, they sometimes sleep until 9:00!!!  We are getting ready to start cereal and such so we will see if that makes a difference and maybe they can go down earlier....

[heatherlynn22]

we do have a night time routine. they eat dinner between 4:30 - 5:30 pm, then it's bath time. they play in the water and with their toys. then they get lotioned and ready for bed. they come downstairs with me and greg for a bit, watch a movie and then bed time.  i'll have to try the cereal thing with them. i'm hoping it will work.

[stillgoing]

its so hard to think clearly when sleep deprived.. but i totally agree with the putting to bed early.. although there is no normal or average or right way, there are only different things to try, which all take energy for the tired mum..
i am so strict when it comes to bed time, and as a single mum i was from the very beginning..sleeptime is a saviour in this house.. from the very beginning my boys were up early, there was NOTHING i could do about it..so i just decided they would finish the day early so id get some time out.. i found that the more sleep they had, the more they wanted it.. at 7mths i had them in bed asleep around 6-30... 7pm. i tried to put them down later thinking theyd wake up later but it didnt work for us,i tried for weeks.. i am a big believer in daytime naps,good solid rest during the day helped them to learn the routine of the day.they were still having 2 sleeps a day at 7mths, each sleep for between 1-2hrs..whenever they woke up i always resettled them... if they woke up at night (usually around 2-3am) i would just bring whoever it was into bed with me so we all got some sleep.. i know people say 'dont do it because it causes bad habbits'  but there was absolutely no problem with mine,eventually they just stopped waking up.. i figure theyre still babies and they might be hot,cold,have a tooth coming through,a sore belly or might just want mum to cuddle them, who knows?? either way i never thought i was harming them by bringing them in with me..but by going in and out of their room all through morning, i was doing more harm to myself.. for me i figured out in the end it was almost always teething..
sleep for mums is just as important as it is for babies..
maybe im just one of the lucky ones,or a strict routine worked for us, but at 2yrs old mine still sleep for 3hrs a day and 12hrs at night..
i wish you luck and hope you sleep peacfully real soon x

[heatherlynn22]

mine do take the naps during the days to. i've gotten them into a routine with that as well. lunch at 11 nap at 11:30. with the nap i just let them sleep till the wake up.i figure if they're sleeping, they're tired. when they wake up they're not tired anymore. eli usually  naps for 2-2 1/2 hours brett 1 1/2 - 2 hours. eli seems to be getting better at sleeping through the night. he only woke up once last night. but brett....he's just not sleeping at night. i'm thinking about cutting his nap down but he gets so tired in the middle of the day. last night he woke up at 1am didn't fall back to sleep till 2. woke up at 4 didn't fall back to sleep till almost 5. then they both were up at 7. needless to say i'm absolutely exhausted. i had to drag myself out of bed this morning. all i have to say is thank god for coffee.

[Brown Eyed Gurl]

my twins have been sleeping through the night since they were about 4 months

[Kat_624]

Hi there.  Has this improved for you at all?  I so feel your pain and frustration...it's been a while, but I was there too.  I know it's not easy to do, but my best advice is to just hang in there and wait it out.  My kids did not sleep well until they were about 12 months, and I tried everything!!  In the end, I found that they did better with more sleep.  At 7 months, mine were still taking 3 naps a day (although only like 20-30 min at a pop--which drove me crazy!)  I can remember feeling so frustrated at times, because I knew they were tired, but I couldn't get them to settle.
Believe me though...there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Mine started to turn the corner at around 10 months. At that point, they were doing a lot of crawling and pulling up on stuff, and I think all that activity made them more tired, so they started to crash out at night.  Maybe that will be a turning point for you as well.  Hang in there!

[heatherlynn22]

they are starting to sleep better. they do still have the nights of waking up every 3-4 hours...like last night. but i ended up putting them to bed really early (i figured they'd just take a nap because they were tired....not sleep till 2 then start waking up). they've been sleeping from 8-9 pm till 8 am and are still taking two 2 hour naps every day. sometimes it's only 1 hour. i have noticed that the longer they have "tummy" time (they roll around the living room really. they won't stay in one spot) they are more tired. so we do tummy time before lunch...nap afterward and then tummy time after bath right before bed and they seem to be sleeping a lot better. which i'm happy about. i'm actually getting some sleep now.