So my last post was about sleep issues. For the last couple of days all 3 kids have had tough nights. I hadn't been able to figure out why. A couple of people mentioned that I should look at wether or not 2 naps are needed. I put the question out to my twins group and am hopeful that I will get some good answers and ideas. It's been nice to have this group to ask questions to. The reason I am wondering this along with the comments from my last post is because yesterday the twins had 1 long nap in the morning and then only about 2 minutes in the car in the afternoon. Last night we were back to normal. The twins went to bed at 8 and Michael went to bed at around 8:30 and all slept through the night til 6 and 6:30 this morning. I know all kids are different, but it is nice to have all 3 ids on the same schedule, which is something I have attempted at least with the twins. This has definitely helped me to keep my sanity with having 3 kids so close in age.
I hate transitions!
Amy
Hi Amy, I hope I'm being helpful. I wanted to let you know what we did at our house since our kids, like yours, were really close in age ... but far enough apart to present some unique challenges.
ReplyDeleteWhen I made the transition to one long nap, I started it on a day when they all slept until at least 6am. I planned to stay at home and I kept everyone busy until about 11am, fed them, changed them, then down for a nap ... everyone was tired and slept for a solid 3 hours. Then we started bedtime at 7:30.
Today we are no longer taking naps and everyone is in bed at 7:30 and up in the morning 6:30-7am.
I hope you get a bunch of good info from your twins group. Hopefully, there is someone in the group who has a similar situation to yours.
Hope you have a good day.
Oh my goodness, girlfriend, you've got yourself Irish triplets!!! I read this post and yesterday's post and I totally remember those days of driving in the car and my kids falling asleep and wondering if I should just drive around town for an hour or go home and try to transfer them to their cribs. It usually backfired on me too.
ReplyDeleteWhen my 2nd set of twins came along, my 1st set of twins were 2 and the main thing was getting them all on the same schedule so I could at least have 1-2 hours of quiet time for myself. If you are still doing 2 naps a day and they're giving you a hard time at bedtime, have you considered combining the two naps? At some point, you want to get away from the long morning nap and you wanna end up with one 2-3 hour nap late morning/early afternoon.
When I was transitioning mine from 2 naps to 1 nap, I had to push the morning nap back and move the afternoon nap up. So I'd give them lunch at 11:00 and then put them down for a nap around 11:30 which lasted until 1:30. Then as I noticed they could make it through the morning longer without being too cranky, I continued to push that nap back until 1:00. And letting them sleep no later than 3:00 so I could still get them to bed by 7:00-7:30.
The other thing is if they're waking up at 6:00-6:30 and going to bed at 8:00-8:30 pm, you could consider putting them to bed a little earlier. The reason they may be giving you hard time going down at night is because they're over-tired and can't wind down easily. I know, it sounds crazy, rigth? They're tired but they can't sleep. Their little bodies are just overloaded sometimes.
Hope you find something that works so you can get back to enjoying a full night's sleep! Thanks for stopping by my blog...we twin moms have to stick together!
Helene-We started putting them to bed later because with bedtime at 6:30pm they were waking at like 5am. With the advice of their doc, putting them to bed later meant that they slept til 6 or 6:30 am. I think going to 1 nap for all 3 is going to be so good! Hopefully it will help all around!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you've received some good advice from people who've been in your boat. Having 3 so close in age, but still developmentally worlds apart must be so tricky, and I can only imagine how tough it must be to try to keep them all on the same schedule. I really hope you find a solution that will work for all of you. Good luck!
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