Hello, I wonder if anyone is in the same situation as me. Not looking for advice as such (I’ve given up on solutions), more ‘strength in numbers’ and reassurance that other people are experiencing the same and it’s not just that me and husband are terrible at parenting!!!
My twins have never been good sleepers. In the early days I posted here quite a bit and this time last year we got a sleep consultant in which helped address some issues but things still weren’t perfect. Then, when they hit 18months they blessedly both started sleeping through seemingly of their own accord. We had a couple of months of getting full nights out of them 4/5 nights a week and the difference in our quality of life was amazing.
Cut to 2 months later, after a run of illnesses and a short holiday which took us slightly out of routine, and we’re back at square one - actually it feels worse because we’ve experienced how good it could be! Here are some night scenarios we commonly have (note, they both have always gone down fine at 7/7.30pm, the issues only start anytime post 10pm).
My boy wakes and is just WIDE awake for around 2 hours before we can get him back to sleep. He’ll be fidgety and restless but apparently not in any pain as calpol does nothing to help settle him. We just have to wait for him to get sleepy again.
My boy will wake and sometimes his noise wakes my girl. She will be inconsolable, won’t want to be held, or put down, either option sends her crazy and she’ll be crawling around the floor wailing. We’ve had nights where the only thing I can do to calm her down is put GiggleBiz on the iPad. It will be 3am we’re all in our bed watching TV just to get them to stop crying so we can try and get them back to sleep!! We’ve also had times when we’ve had to rock them in the pram indoors trying to get them back to sleep!
My boy will wake, we sweep him out of the bedroom before he wakes his sister, get him to sleep in our bed, return him to cot... few hours later, repeat.
Sometimes they both wake at 4.30am, we can’t get them back down and so at 5.30am just resign ourself to starting our day. So we’re all shattered and moody all day.
We don’t have the “luxury” of trying controlled crying with them as they share a room, we don’t have the space to separate them and the thought of forcing one of them to sit through the other being controlled cried all night feels neither practical or fair. The fact that we did have some months when they both slept through makes me think they CAN do it. But why have they stopped?
We were naive to the point of stupidity about when they would start sleeping through and thought it would happen naturally at about 6months. Nearly 2 years in, we’re still not there. Is this common?? Do we have to accept that we won’t get our sleep back for years now? For anyone whose children also didn’t sleep at this age, when did it change and why/how?
Thank you for any reassurance that we’re not alone in this never-ending sleep deprived hell 😫