Newborn twins sleeping in own room?

[Evie2014]

I'm 22 weeks pregnant with twin girls (yay!) and we're starting to look at the logistics of when they will be born.

I've been reading about SIDS risks, and it seems that the reason it's recommended for a newborn to sleep in the same room as its parents is because the presence of another person in the room helps them to regulate their breathing.

So am I right in thinking that by that logic it's okay to put them in their own room together as newborns? They'll be in the same cot (safely, according to the guidelines) so presumably will regulate each other's breathing.

I'm trying to be practical, as the thought of me and DH sharing a room with two newborn babies might be a recipe for nobody getting any sleep ever! Plus when they wake in the middle of the night one of us will have to get up and go to their room to feed them anyway (to avoid bothering the other sleepers).

We're happy to invest in monitors etc. and will probably be up most of the night in shifts anyway.

I'd be very grateful for thoughts on this. Thank you in advance.

[Evie2014]

Again, thank you all for your time and effort. Some of your posts have really lifted my spirits. We will wait and see, and make our decisions for us as a family when we know what the situation is. I think there will be some decisions that will simply have to be made based on practicality. I love the wonderful descriptions of twins. I started this thread very anxious and am much more calm and relaxed about the future now. Thanks all.

[harrassedswlondonmum]

Evie I agree with a lot of what you said in your long post yesterday afternoon. I really think we live in a world of too much information, not all of it helpful.

My twins are 10 now. My eldest child is 17, and was born before anyone had ever heard of Gina Ford, and before I had ever heard of Internet forums like mumsnet. The SIDS advice I was aware of back then was to do with sleeping on back not front, having feet to the foot of the cot, not having the baby in bed with you etc. There was certainly no advice about sleeping in the same room to regulate breathing that I was aware of back in 1996/7. Back then, baby monitors were for hearing your child cry if you were downstairs and they were upstairs, not for monitoring their every breath.

I never actually read any parenting books at all and totally went with my instinct, and I am really glad that I didn't have the information overload that has come from the Internet age.

To answer your question, my newborn twins were in our room for about 8 to 9 weeks, sharing a cot. This was mostly because I didn't want my older two woken repeatedly in the night, and it was more convenient. I bottle fed exclusively from day one, again I don't regret this for minute nor do I have a twinge of guilt about it. It worked for us. When one twin woke, we would wake the other and dh and I would feed one each. We then moved them out after they started to sleep through - one night I had a heavy cold and took myself to the spare room, and that night they didn't wake at all - or if they did they made insufficient fuss to wake dh. Once in their own room they rarely woke in the night again. I couldn't believe my luck!

The thing with twins is that your experience will really depend on whether they are premature, etc. Mine were both 7 pounders at 38 weeks, so we didn't have to deal with any of the issues that a lot of twin parents face.

My main advice would be to go with your instincts and do what works for you. I got all my babies into a good routine early on and funnily enough the pattern we fell into naturally with all four was what others have told me is a Gina Ford type routine - a lot is really common sense.

And don't feel guilty about anything! Good luck!

[Booboostoo]

I think you should relax and wait and see what happens. I don't have twins but I think that when they arrive you will find your own way of doing things and overthinking it now won't help.

As for your other arguments you are making a couple of logical mistakes:

• not all information is on a par. The risk of listeriosis (especially in a warm country) from soft cheeses is not the same as the risk of catching the gay from stress. One is a well documented, scientific fact that gives you a statistical risk from an activity you can fairly easily avoid, the other one is rubbish. Just because some rubbish is spouted about pregnancy does not mean that everything that is said about pregnancy is wrong.
  

• just because we don't know all the causes of MC does not mean that we cannot identify some of the causes of MC.
  

• just because we cannot identify the cause of a particular MC does not mean that there are causes of MCs in general.
  

• the SIDS reasoning you set out is fallacious. A practice may go towards mitigating a risk without guarranteeing the risk will be avoided. An adult breathing in the same room as a young baby reduces the risk of SIDS it does not eliminate it. This means that it is perfectly possible, statistically, for babies to die of SIDS while adults are present in the room. Equally not all infants will run the risk of SIDS (it is in fact quite rare) so it is also perfectly possible, statistically, for babies not to die of SIDS sleeping alone. The whole point of risk minimisation though is to chose the option that has the least likelihood of resulting in a negative outcome.

[Cheerymum]

Totally. Damn iPhone!

[Cheerymum]

Total ley with you BTW on the scaremongering business about every aspect of pregnancy. Does my head in. Sounds like you have a good sense of proportion which will stand you in good stead with twins.

[Evie2014]

Excellent posts- thank you.
Really helpful bishop- will definitely check out your blog.

[Mandy21]

I think everyone is different but twins are different. You can have the best laid plans and it all goes out the window when they actually arrive.

Depends whether you're going to breast feed them, whether you get the hang of tandem feeding if you do, whether they're good feeders, whether they're premature, etc etc.

FWIW, my twins were premature and whereas I think I probably would have been more balanced if they'd been term, as it turned out, I followed medical advice to the letter and kept them in with us for 9 months. They had separate moses baskets which we put in 1 cotbed to start with, then they went either end of a cot bed and then in separate cotbeds. I breastfed for a year, oretty much on demand in the early days and it was definitely a 2 man job in the early days. I couldnt tandem feed so 1 would wake, I'd start feeding twin 1, H would change nappy of twin 2, we'd then swap, he'd change & settle twin 1 whilst I fed twin 2.

I think (and this is just my perception without looking at the data) is that the SIDS risk isn't as great during day time naps or in the early evening. We didnt establish a routine of putting them upstairs for naps / early evening until 4 or 5 months.

Good luck - and i agree twins are awesome

[stinkingbishop]

Like others have said, I think you should get a rough plan in your head, but be prepared to change it all depending what the twins turn out to be like. And I'm very much of the 'nurseries have existed for yonks and that way the baby/parent doesn't disturb each other' school. I do wonder whether multiple parents are a bit more laissez faire in general, just because we can't afford to be perfectionist about everything. For what it's worth...

For the first few weeks mine slept in the same moses basket (ah!!!) downstairs for daytime naps, and then beside our bed at night, so I could reach over and check they were ok/DP could help me with moving them about for tandem BF while I was still suffering from the CS. He then bogged off on work after a fortnight, and purely because of the nights I got a maternity lady so they'd sleep on her floor and she'd bring them to me for feeding.

We were hellbent on establishing a feeding/sleeping routine though, so very soon started them off in their own separate baskets in with me/nurse, and then by 6 weeks, in their baskets in the cot in the nursery during the day and then tried them tentatively in the cot together in the nursery at night and it worked (swaddled though so they wouldn't clonk each other, the swaddle-me ones on Amazon are v easy). This was all on a clockwork 4 hourly feeding pattern.

Within 8 weeks (I think) we dropped the 2am feed and they were sleeping through ie down at 6, woken at 10pm for a feed, then through to 6/7am. Bliss. Can't remember when they went into separate cots - was just really a matter of size/them being a bit too interested in each other. Was heartbreaking when we made the transition as they just looked so cute snuggling!

Also very much of the feed/change/burp/sleep at the same time. I think I would have even more grey hairs had I been catering to their individual whims!

I (occasionally!) write a twin blog which has lots of detail about what we did/didn't do. You can learn from our mistakes as much as anything else! They were born March 2012 so the posts soon after will talk about the routine.

Good luck missus. Twins rock. And PLEASE call them Nancy and Flora because I wasn't allowed!!!

likepeasinapod.com/

[andadietcoke]

pukka that made me cry a bit. I'm still utterly overwhelmed at 5.5 months.

We had a cot in the lounge and a cot in our room and they both slept in their own Sleepyheads that we moved upstairs and downstairs. However... I did all the night feeds. DH didn't wake up. And I found it hard to ff two babies simultaneously on half a bed, so from about 8 weeks they slept either side of me on a bed, in their Sleepyheads. This made it a lot easier to settle them in the night, but it meant that until I came to bed, they slept alone. I bought Respisense monitors but in all the upheaval we never used them.

We stayed this way until a couple of weeks ago when we put them in their own cots in their own room. The night wake ups are now longer and I find it harder to go back to sleep because by the time they wake me up and I've stumbled next door they're a lot less sleepy than when I could just roll over and put a dummy in. One twin sleeps really well, but her sister, well, doesn't. I've seriously considered finding a way to sleep in their room, and we've bought a cuddle sofa; I definitely couldn't have done what I'm doing now every 90 minutes when they were little (fed every three hours, took 90 minutes to feed them both and get them back down).

[Hexbugsmakemeitch]

Sorry don't have much time.

When they were small our DTs didn't go to bed at 7pm. They would only sleep in the same room as us (didn't like quiet)so they slept in carry cots down stairs until we went up then in the same room as us.

I ebf mine but even when they only needed
Nappy changes I couldn't sleep if they were crying - it didn't matter if they were in a different room and my DH was with them - most babies are erm loud and you are programmed to respond.

If practicality is your driving force - have them on the same room IMO.

[EvilTwins]

You will need to wait til your babies arrive and see what works for you.

FWIW, I started a bedtime routine very early on. I would take the twins upstairs and put them in their cots at about 7. Yes, this meant going up and down the stairs a few times, but it meant that DH and I got a bit of time together, and it suited us. I would go through in the night to feed them, but DH would do the morning feed (usually 5am-6am) to give me a few hours of unbroken sleep. I found, personally, that routine was a good way of doing it - otherwise I would have got overwhelmed and might never have left the house! Best point of support for me was our local twins group. They ran expecting twins evenings for individuals/couples to go to and chat and ask questions, then weekly play group style sessions which were an absolute life saver. Having twins is not the same as having singletons, so I found the support of shared experiences invaluable. If you google twins clubs in your area, you might be pleasantly surprised.

[Evie2014]

I don't know if that makes sense to me. If you keep your baby in a Moses basket in the living room in the evening what about the (many) baby sleep books that advise a proper bedtime routine, a calm, quiet, dark room, and a switch to "night" mode in order to encourage them to sleep through the night? How are you supposed to follow that advice if you keep them in a busy family room?

I'm getting all overwhelmed. I just wish I knew what advice to ignore and what to follow.

[SoonToBeSix]

Evie wasn't trying to scare people just answering your question and it's about regulating breathing with an adult.
And no most people don't put their baby to bed at 7pm on their own. Some do but the majority of people I know keep their baby in a Moses basket in the same room as them
If under six months.

[Evie2014]

Thanks again everyone- especially EvilTwins- I'm scared enough without scaremongering!

I'm going to be controversial here. (Probably not a good idea.) But throughout my pregnancy I've been struck by the amount of scaremongering that goes on with regard to so many aspects of pregnancy: everything from eating pate and cheese, to the odd glass of wine, coffee and electric blankets, through to the truly bonkers (stress will make my baby gay, will it, Sunday Times? Wearing makeup could harm my baby, could it, Royal College of Obstetricians?). I was very grateful for Emily Oster (Expecting Better) for taking on some of the most common warnings and using her analytical training to prove that there was only limited basis for many of the warnings women received while pregnant. The fact is that most of the time we don't know what causes the awful experience that is miscarriage, and our natural instinct is to find something to blame.(I've had a miscarriage, so know what it's like to look for answers and find none.) Or to find something the mother has done, and blame that. Hence the endless speculative articles and over-cautious advice.

From everything I've read, nobody knows what causes SIDS. So like miscarriage, there seem to be many, many things that the "experts" say you must or can't do, but no absolute proof of what causes it. Babies have (tragically) died of SIDS while in the same room as their parents, and while in separate rooms from their parents. And the difference in rates between the two situations is not enormous. If we could prove that very few babies died of SIDS while sleeping in their parents' rooms, and that the vast majority did while sleeping in separate rooms, that would be proof. That's not the case. So perhaps there's another cause.

From the website I was given upthread (and much other advice) it seems that it is unsafe to leave your baby alone at all while it is sleeping. Isn't this overly cautious? Doesn't every parent put his/her baby to bed at 7 pm and go to bed hours later? Does every parent have to go to bed beside the baby for every nap?

I hope that this won't cause too much outrage- and apologise in advance for upsetting anyone. But throughout my whole pregnancy I've been hearing the "but would you forgive yourself if anything happened?" line, and it drives me crazy, because it's just lazy. I've read huge amounts of data/research on what is and isn't recommended in pregnancy and I've been able to make up my mind based on facts. (The odd serving of liver pate, for example, is No Harm At All unless you're stuffing your face with it all the time and/or taking Vitamin A supplements. And don't get me STARTED on the coffee hysteria that's based on a flawed study...)

So I just want to know WHY is it dangerous to put my babies in a separate room? When by extension of this logic NO baby should EVER be left to sleep in a room without an adult in it? (and people do this all the time...) When by extension of this logic NO baby should EVER have died of SIDS while in a room where an adult WAS sleeping? (and this happens in at least 40 per cent of SIDS cases...)

It's all starting to sound depressingly like the finger-wagging pregnancy "advice". Medical community can't explain something so gives out up a load of rules which everyone has to follow- which still don't really go any way towards eliminating SIDS. (Apart from the "back to sleep" advice which does seem to have made SIDS rates drop significantly.)

I realise now that this has turned into a rant, and of course nobody here will be able to give me the answers. But I think I needed the rant. I'm still blaming the hormones...

[EvilTwins]

There is a difference between pointing out that it is a potential risk factor (a tiny one) and stating "no - it's dangerous"

The OP is after advice and is interested in different experiences. Your post was unfair IMO. OK to say what you did, of course and to express an opinion, but you need to understand that your way is not the only way.

[SoonToBeSix]

Well technically it is dangerous as the SIDS risk is real, just because the risks are small doesn't make it safe.
If you parachute out of an aeroplane chances are you will be fine but it is still a dangerous activity.

[EvilTwins]

SoonToBeSix - I think you're very unfair to state "no - it's dangerous" - that's divisive and scaremongering. It's clearly not "dangerous" is it? Oddly enough, plenty of babies are fine, twins or singletons, sleeping in a room without an adult.

[SoonToBeSix]

No , it's dangerous yes they regulate their breathing but they need to copy you not each other. And it's about you instinctively responding even when asleep if they are in the same room. I am
Putting my twins in one cot in our room so would take up no more room than a single baby , could you not do the same?

[neversleepagain]

I kept my twins in with us until 7 months. Unfortunately, babies don't always feed quietly then go to sleep. Some fuss for ages and need help settling back to sleep, whether that is a cuddle, dummy or simply patting their back. This continues for a few months. I often found myself getting in and out of bed to settle babies, one night (a particularly frustrating night) I counted 19 times of getting up in a couple of hours to soothe the fussy madams. It helps having them nearby to do this, walking to another room so often would have driven me mad.

Newborns are very noisy when they sleep, at least mine were and it takes some getting used to. You do get used to it though and I cried when we moved them to their own room

Don't worry about it now, it will be hard but you will survive. We all do

Things that helped us...
Swaddling
White noise
Keeping them upright after a feed
Elevating the head of the cot
Dummies
A comforter that smells of you (I would put it down my top when feeding them)
Accepting that sleep is a thing of the past :)

[pukkapine]

Don't be terrified! Everyone will be keen to tell you the hell that is twins... but listen closely, it normally comes from non-twin mums. Twins are utterly awesome. Of course there will be times that are tough, as there are with singletons, or any parenting combo... but there's something that's pure magic being a mum of twins. You frequently feel like superwoman just doing your every day thing. And you get to witness something that very few people do. And you always have the get-out-clause for any decision that 'unless you're a multiple mum you just can't comment'. My DT's are now 4, my singleton 7, and the twin thing still makes me feel superhuman and still daily I am in awe of them and their relationship. Twins are ace. And you've just been blessed with something not many will get to experience. Enjoy

[Cheerymum]

It's an amazing ride - mum to a 3 year old and twin girls who are nearly 5m old.
Re the sleeping in your room thing - I believe as others have said, they don't regulate each other's breathing. It needs to be an adult.
I am still exclusively BF mine - was lucky it all worked easily and for me, now it's established, it's much easier having it on tap with no faffing around sterilising etc. The downside is it's always me up at night. Our solution is that DH goes to the spare room if he is knackered. He can snore there if he wants. He gets up pretty early and brings me coffee and berrocca! The babies will stay in with us to about 8 months I think - I want them sleeping through if poss, cos at the mo if they are hungry at night I just pull whichever one into bed and snooze whilst feeding lying down so it's not that disruptive (with appropriate co sleeping precautions to minimise the risk of this) - though they are mostly in their cots now. In the early weeks they were tiny enough to share a Moses basket and I sat up with a twin BF cushion for all feeds (and always tandem fed to avoid wasting time that could be spent asleep) because I was too exhausted and didn't think it was safe to snooze and BF, but they are much more robust now.
And even if the nights are crappy at times, a pair of gummy smiles in the mornings are heartstoppingly gorgeous. You lucky thing. Xx

[ceeveebee]

How big is the room they will be in? Is there room for a single bed/sofa bed?
We had our DTs in our room for about 4 weeks but then put them in own room but I slept in there with them in a single bed most nights, DH did at weekends. Whoever was on duty tandem fed them with bottles of EBF at night (used bf cushions to help).

[EvilTwins]

Don't be terrified! Twins rock. Are they your first? If so, wait til you have friends who have a 12 month old singleton, and are exhausted by the fact that they can't be without company for two minutes... Twins, by that age, entertain each other.

Mine are 7 now and they are just glorious!

[Evie2014]

Lots of helpful advice here- thank you ladies! Still terrified but I think it's just hormones today- I am pretty calm and relaxed about the whole thing normally!

[pukkapine]

I also did the 'wake the other' thing with mine... so if one woke for a feed I fed the other. Worked for us as it meant half the number of slightly longer wakings rather than lots of wakings but I know twin mums who completely fed on demand... horses for courses, do what suits you!

And for daytime naps we had a cot in our dining room for the first 6 months but they were seriously sleepy bubbas... and slept through anything and slept most of the day for those first 6 months. Thank goodness! They would sleep through their older brother poking pictures and presents through to them and making a racket around them with his friends... but I had health problems meaning the stairs were a problem for me so it was easier that way than putting them upstairs to begin with.