Bedtime routine for 1yo twins?

[1stMrsF]

My DTDs have just turned one, and in the last few weeks have gone from being able to soothe themselves to sleep at night and for naps to needing me to spend an hour or more fighting with them until they are so exhausted that they go to sleep, usually with me rocking or patting. This has coincided with them dropping all daytime feeds - they now only have a feed to go to bed and (still ) one in the early hours of the morning. I think this is part of the problem - feeding before naps would get them drowsy enough to sleep.

I'm beside myself - being able to just put them down to sleep has made life bearable up to now, and I don't know what to do! I think I one of the things I need to do is create a new routine for bedtime and naptime, but I need some ideas of how to do this with 2. I'm also looking ahead to making that routine work without the bedtime bf in the next few months.

Can you help me please?

Hi, sorry to hear that sleep times are tough at the moment. Our routine before nap time is: turn on the lullaby cd, nappy change, read three books, close blinds, turn off cd, turn on white noise (my two are very light sleepers) and then into cot and I leave. For bedtime it is the same except for them having milk and then brushing their teeth after the nappy change (they have a bath in the morning). Unless they are ill, they usually settle themselves to sleep without a problem though DD can take about 15-20min sometimes. From reading your post, I also wondered how much day time sleep yours are getting? Mine have always fought nap time if they weren't tired enough and I needed to keep them up longer before the nap or cut the nap length down a little. I might be completely wrong about this with yours though, as it could just be them missing the milk. I hope things improve soon.

Mine are 15 months and our routine is:

Nap time, down with blackout blind down and curtains drawn. They usually go to sleep quite quickly, but the nap time has been getting shorter as they get older.

Bed time, bath every other day (they get very dry skin otherwise), teeth brushed, PJs and nappy on, in sleeping bag, a short story, then down with a little nightlight lullaby thing on. Again they normally go down quite well, though Twin 1 is a bit of a one for having a little scream before he will actually go to sleep.

Good luck with it.

Clearly you put yours down at the same time - this isn't something I've tried: because they've been fed separately I always put them down separately too. Consequently, I am afraid that one will wake the one already asleep so I'm forever picking them up. Perhaps I might try down together.

They are sleeping a longer sleep in the morning (usually 1.5 hours but sometimes as long as 2.5 and sometimes only 45mins) and then a shorter one in the afternoon. This is often while we are in the car or pushchair so might be only 30mins.

I certainly think that the problem is sometimes that they are not tired enough as sometimes they nap on the way home in the car and are still sleeping at 5pm - too late! Yesterday I made sure they had their nap before 3 and then made bathtime very low key - soft voices, quiet stories and songs, and it was much better. However, just spent 20 mins with DT2 screaming until she feel asleep exhausted for nap this afternoon.

Hi 1st - no advice but sorry you're doing it tough with the girls at the moment. I symathise as Lara has lost the ability (during the night!) to get herself back to sleep. Hope you get some wise advice on here soon and that things improve.