Twin sleeping

[TwinMummaX]

Hi, i am a first time mum to 8 week dcda twins. Currently they have their last feed at around 8/9pm (6oz ff ) they then sleep until around 1/2am feed again another 6oz change and are back down until around 5/6am i have no idea if this is a good/bad routine but it works for us at the moment. They are now too big to share a next to me (hitting out and disturbing each other) so are currently in the bigger cot in our room, they sleep at either end of the cot and are swaddled as this seems to settle them. But what i am finding is in the day they wake up at exactly the same time within seconds of each other like clock work (every 3hr/4hrs) but during the night 1 always wakes before the other and we wake the other twin to feed so they stay in sync, i dont know if im doing the right thing or not i worry so much.. and i am also wondering when they may start sleeping through the night. I know all babies are different but just wanted a general opinion. Thanks for reading 🙂

Aw congratulations sounds like you’re doing a fab job!

I don’t have twins ( my sister is expecting twins at the end of the year which is why your post peaked my interest) but my 11 month old just started sleeping through last week…so a while haha. But she is breast fed. My elder was 9m and again ebf. Most bottle fed babies I know sleep through after the 4 month sleep regression is over!

good luck, and enjoy!

@Catsonskis thank you! I hope everything goes well with your sister 🙂
Doesnt sound like i have too long to wait for them to sleep through then 🤣🤣

I used to wake one when the first one woke, I had to keep them in sync! They were Orem so tiny and lasted in the cot in our room until almost six months, couldn't fit two in there.

My twins were never very in sync my boy twin always required more feeding and more settling than my girl twin (she was just a chilled baby) and because of that I never bothered much about keeping them in sync, in fact it suited me to have them only slightly different schedules so 30-45 minutes from each other. The upside of this is that it allowed me to hold, feed and burp one at a time, the downside however is that obviously it makes the process longer.

Your twins are still really little and I would say for now just to go with whatever is easiest for you. The nights do get easier in some respects as they get older and only need a feed and not a change and then you can dream feed etc but they also can get harder once teething starts.

As for sleeping through, I had my twins in with my until they were 10 months old, and the never slept through although they had good stretches of sleep. Just a couple of weeks after them being and settling into their own room in their cots they started to sleep through, I now think they perhaps they were being disturbed in our room and that might have prevented them sleeping through earlier. White noise machine is a massive help especially for not disturbing one twin if the other one does wake. I also have the Tommee Tippee dream maker, it’s a low level red light and pulses gently kind of like a heartbeat, it also does white noise but I prefer the white noise from the portable Ollie the Owl. We don’t use the white noise any more but the dream maker is still used every night.

Mine are 20 months now and have been regularly sleeping through for a year now. They go down at 6:30-7pm and wake at 7am, honestly in the early days like you I felt like this would never happen especially as I had a 4 year old at the time who was still yet to sleep through. I am dreading them growing out of their cots as I assume that’s totally when sleep is going to go right out the window.

Exact routine is not critical till you're past the 4 month sleep regression - all bets are off when you hit that in my experience!

Sleeping through is not likely to be soon Im afraid, but many find that night wakes get much shorter so are easier to handle. At 8 weeks I found feeding and resttling twins a nightmare. At 6 months they were actually waking more often, but only for about 2 minutes and I didn't need to get out of bed to resettle them unless they needed a nappy change, so often in th morning I couldn't have told you how often they had woken and I didn't feel tired like in the early weeks.

I also fed my twins at the same time through the night and in the day and would wake the other after feeding the first. I found this worked best for us. We gradually managed to move the middle of the night feed later and later. So that by 4 months it was about 4/5am. Then by 6 months a dream feed at 10.30pm and then morning feed 5/6am (then up for the day). My girls are now 14 months and they are able to sleep 10-11 hours they often disturb. We often co sleep.from around 4am-5am to get a full night's sleep. My girls have always slept separately as never settled in the same cot (think it was due to being separated in special care). So slept in individual moses baskets till 5-6 months then individual next to me and now in small cots.