Getting some sleep!

[Diamondsareagirls]

I need some advice on getting some sleep! I have got 4 week old b/g twins and I am really struggling to cope with the lack of sleep now that my husband has gone back to work. I am doing the night feeds for the twins and we have discussed me having a night in the spare room every now and then on the weekends so I can get some unbroken sleep. What do you do sleep wise with your DP/DH? Who does what with night time stuff?

[andadietcoke]

He has never helped me with night feeds, and he was driving me insane snoring when I was trying to get back to sleep, and sleeping through all the screaming. I didn't want to wake him because he had work. So we moved into the spare room after about a month until 6 months when they went into their own room. I slept on a double bed with one baby either side of me in a Sleepyhead. It worked really well because I woke up sooner and could feed them one after the other rather than both of them wailing at the same time and trying to tandem feed. If you're bf feeding them together might be easier, I don't know. They're still in their Sleepyheads at 8.5 months and it really helped the transition to cot too.

If it's more about you getting more sleep generally, we used to have people round in the evenings to help DH look after the babies while I slept. Do you have anyone that could do that for you?

[Bodeccia]

Hi diamonds

Congratulations on your new twins! My twins are 6 weeks old, and I probably have similar bags under my eyes as you. This is what we did: dh moved into the sitting room on a futon mattress and I have the double bed (with cot pushed up against it, one side take off). I have tried various combinations of sleeping with the twins: them in with me, one on either side, them swaddled on top of the duvet, now its them in a grow bag in their cot (I have LOADS of room - hurrah!).

I've stopped bfeeding them at night (fair play to you that you've kept on going) which has made night feeding much easier. But when I was bfeeding them, I would do them one at a time like the above poster. I got better sleep, dts got more sleep as they didn't wake up so much with me trying to tandem feed.

Imo, they key is having your own space to sleep. Good luck!

Btw, there's a facebook group of mnetters who had their babies in April. PM me if you want to join it, or search the threads, details are there. it would be good to have another twin mum, I'm the only one at the mo.

[neversleepagain]

Congratulations on your new babies

My twins are 19 months old and I remember clearly how difficult the first 3 months are.

I did the week day night feeds on my own and DH helped on a Friday and Saturday night. Ours fed every 3 hours from the time we brought them home from the NICU. I would go to sleep at 8pm (in the spare room) and he would feed them at 11pm and I would do the remainder of the night feeds. This meant I got a 6 hours of unbroken sleep which made the world of difference. I had to make sure DH new how to wind well or the babies wouldn't settle, he soon became a pro. When DH went to bed at around 12pm he would sleep in the spare room and I would move to the main bedroom with the babies.

Good luck :)

[MultipleMama]

I bf but DH always gets up with me either to cuddle while I feed, or settle one of twins when they've finished feeding. He also usually gets me a glass of water. And more often than not DH lets me sleep and just attaches the hungry twin to my boob and watches over them and resettles them when they're finished. DH starts work at 6am on a weekday but I'm usually up at 5-5.30ish when twin boys wake up.

I don't even know what a night's sleep looks like! :D

[9VFNNEM]

Hiya,
we had poor sleepers and rotation sleepers (we thought they could only sleep whilst the other cried at one point as they'd sleep in rotation), so here's what we did:

• babies in a downstairs room (so as not to wake our older one), DH took the first shift to midnight, waking me to bf them every 2.5 hours or so, then me taking over until daytime
• then, around 6 months, we moved the babies into their own bedroom, but took a similar shift approach, using earplugs and loft room for ensure some sleep for the one not on pat-and-cuddle duty (whilst I was bf I had to wake up to feed them).

We were agreed that it was easier to be at work than at home with three babies, so there were no arguments about sharing the night-time stuff!
We eventually moved to 'one night on, one night off', which carried on pretty much until they finally both started sleeping through at around 18 months.
Our older one was a doddle in comparison! Slept through (8hrs plus) from 3 months!