Twin 2 DOES NOT SLEEP

[zaarin2003]

Hi there,

When our twin boys were little (they are now 11 months) we would rock them to sleep. A hand on the back to stroke or gently rock and they would soon be asleep. As time has gone by, whilst one baby will now self sooth if left, the other still requires stroking to sleep.

He's gotten desensitised to it to such an extent that it can take between 30 or even 90 mins for him to go to sleep like that. If left alone in his cot he screams the place down swem

...Seemingly endlessly. We've inadvertently left him for almost an hour having fallen asleep due to exhaustion and still he won't quieten.

Amazingly he'll be silent and breathing deeply when you hand is on his back and stroking him -almost immediately so- and he can be like that for ages, lulling you

...a false sense I security. Take you hand away and he'll kick off. It's incredible. Right this second I'm rocking/stroking him until he appears asleep, letting go, he screams, I carry on. For the last week he's been waking at 3am and its taken a couple of hours before we can remove our hand from his back.

I'm at my wits end!

Sorry about the broken messages. My big fingers keep hitting send!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Before any one says leave him to cry a) he has a sleeping twin and b) can you put up with screaming for two hours at 3am?

He has got into a sleep habit too late for you to change it easily. What's his room like? Does he have anything else that would comfort him. My twins slept together then had cots side by side which helped. I also put one to bed later as he kept waking up if he went too early. Just like me

Hi Zaarin - Have you tried posting on or reading through the sleep section ? I am sure someone on there has been in the same situation and will be able to help.

My twins go through phases of early waking usually after they have been ill. I looked at a sleep website called The Sleep Store - cant add a link because my laptop wont let me right click but we found a suggestion on there I am pretty sure that it was on there anyway but may of been another site that worked for us.

It sounds a bit mad.......basically you wake your baby before the time they would usually wake up to try and break the habbit. We do it when we go up to bed wake them gently offer a drink then settle them back down. We keep the lights off so they dont wake properly my twins share a room too so we have to be quiet so as not to wake the other 1.

We only tried it out of desperation because we were so tired from early wake up calls from 1 twin spending hours settling him then the other 1 waking up - you know how it is.
It is only for the brave and desperate because there is always the worry that they will not go back to sleep.

We also get them in to bed with us if they wake early which is ok occasionally but both dt's are bed hogs so ideal long term.

Hello - DT2 (13 months) needs feeding and holding to sleep most of the time so I can't offer any sound advice but I can offer some sympathy....

Like you, I have decided not to go down the CIO/CC route (for various reasons). I have found the No-Cry Sleep Solution book really useful. It has a section on ways to break the feed to sleep cycle which could probably be used for the rock/stroke to sleep cycle. I haven't fully implemented it as am too tired and its too easy for me to feed to sleep (most of the time it takes 10 minutes). I like the book as she presents a variety of possible solutions so you can pick and choose what you think might work best for your baby, rather than one prescriptive sleep training method.

I have also found co-sleeping very helpful when DT2 is very disturbed and won't go back to sleep in his cot - he seems to be more comfortable in bed with us (or with me in the spare room if DH needs to get some undisturbed sleep).

I hope you find something that works for all of you....