15 month old twins bedtime - help!

[GreenShades]

Hi,

I have 15 month old twins and when they turned 14 months they came down to one nap during the day.

Since this one nap, bedtime has become a struggle. I cant really figure out a bedtime time. I follow the huckleberry website which states if they wake around 2:30pm from nap to get them ready for bed at 7:30pm. By the time the twins are in their cots it is around 7:45pm and thats where they can take upto 50 minutes to fall asleep! Its becoming exhausting.

Im always comparing to their daytime nap as they fall asleep in under 10 minutes! The nap usually lasts around 2hr 30 mins.

At bedtime, they start standing up in their cots, reaching their arms out to be picked up, fidgeting constantly, crying, whiney. I usually just shh and pat them to sleep.

So where am I going wrong? What can I change at bedtime? Or does nap need to be shortened?

Thank you for reading.

I would say that it is too late, I'd move bedtime earlier, 6.15 for 6.30 bed
For my children they would be overtired going to bed at 7.45

Two and a half hours seems like a long nap, mine only had 2 at the most when it was one nap.
Do what your kids need, not what a website/book tells you.

I would shorten the nap. Everyone said our son napped for a long time but he was woken after 2 hours to make sure he slept in the evening.

My 15m old DD dropped to 1 nap recently too. She sleeps for up to 2hrs (very rarely more) between 12-2pm ish although the time does vary depending on what we are doing.
We start her bath between 6-6:15pm and she is in her cot between 6:30pm and 7pm. However she is an early waker- between 5-6am but that doesn't seem to change no matter what time we put her down.
So I would think bedtime is too late. We used to follow huckleberry religiously when DD was smaller but we don't find it as accurate now she is bigger.

Exactly this.

@Ducksurprise when they were on 2 naps they were asleep by 7pm. So when I would try to put them down on this one nap for bedtime it would take upto 2 hours for them to settle. This is why I started putting them to bed late.

@DustyLee123 I cut the nap at 2.5, they could happily sleep longer 😄

@Cuwins thank you.

Well today I will try a 2hr nap, and try it on the weekend too. Hopefully this helps.

Thank you for your replies.

I think you will find they need to go to bed earlier than when they were on 2 naps. Might be wrong but that's my instinct

I have twins who not long turned 2

I agree bedtime sounds a bit late. My twins at that age would go up to bed around 630-700 - I followed a sort of 45 minute wind down window for the most difficult twin - he needed complete darkness and no noise and it started around a similar age as he is easily over stimulated

I'd shorten the nap to no longer then 2 hours max but gradually start reducing that over the next 6 months or so

My rule has been that nap time can flex depending on what's going on but they must be awake no less than 4 hours before bedtime otherwise bedtime is a nightmare

Hi OP, I have twins and when they were that age their routine was quite strict!
7am up and breakfast
12.00 lunch
1-3 nap
5.00 dinner
7pm bed - I think they had a bath / wind down from 6 ish
So never more than 2 hour nap.
see if the above works for you.
my DS would reliably sleep the full 12 hours. My DD would wake through the night and sleep with us until she was 7, but that’s another story 😂

@febrezeme yes I find they need at least 5.5 hours wake window before bed.

@Snoopsnoggysnog maybe I am going wrong with the wind down at bedtime. I have never done bath at bedtime as mostly solo so find it easier to just keep them in the dark.

The other problem is when I put them in their cots they stand up to each other and laugh and babble and I feel that wont help in winding down 🙈 If I try to hold them they just fight me and want to roam around the room instead.

It is tough with two OP.
Mine were in separate rooms at that age. One cot in our room and one in their room. Because they would disturb each other.

also for bath time have you got one of those twin seat things? Lifesaver if you’re on your own, and generally fun for them as they can play and sit facing each other.

We had this, I don’t know if you can still get them

I'm a single parent with an older child too - I bath 3 times a week and it's fine

You struggle to get the twin bath seats the previous poster showed but you just get the 360 degree ones that stick in and out - you can get them loads of places

Hi everyone,

I thought I would just update as its been a week and I have cut down day nap to 2 hours.

Still the girls are being difficult at bedtime. They are taking around 30 to 40 mins to fall asleep after being put in their cots.

I take them up at around 6:50pm, after a change and bottle I put them in thier cots. It can take anywhere from 30 to 40 mins for them to fall asleep. I only shh and pat no picking up or holding.

I find that they seem to get frustrated at some point and start crying maybe because they are finding it difficult to fall asleep. They fidget so much in the cot and one of them loves to constantly stand up. I am starting to get frustrated and have told DH that he will have to put them to sleep as I cant do it.

Ever since one nap started which has been around 6 weeks now this bedtime troubles have started. Before this they would fall asleep within 10-15 minutes.

Put them to bed half 6ish. They're probably over tired

@IWasFunBeforeMum Should I still be looking out for when they rub their eyes and red eyebrows as an indicator?

Once they are asleep they wake maybe once or twice at night around 11ish and then somehwere during the night I dont really look at the time.

If they were overtired, wouldn't they find it hard to stay asleep?

Are they upset when it’s taking them 30 mins to get to sleep? I think mine used to take a similar time sometimes but I left them to babble etc because eventually they’d go to sleep after 30-45 mins or whatever..
I wouldn’t intervene so much unless they’re v upset.

@Pammela no they dont seem upset. One likes to constantly roll around but if i dont pat then she will eventually just stand up and lean against cot rails.

The other twin she likes to from the minute she is placed in cot to stand up and a few times I have to lie her back down, this annoys her and then she gets upset crying.

I feel i need to constantly lie them down as it will deter them from going to sleep. I dont know if this is right?

If I dont intervene I feel they may just constantly babble to each other all evening!

Should I maybe try to just sit there and let them fall asleep on their own?

Sending solidarity OP-were having difficult bedtimes at the moment with my almost one year old-standing up in his cot and generally messing about! If he's quite happy babbling away we just leave him, and he eventually (on a good day) decides to lie down and go to sleep (if I go in and lay him down he just gets back up). I think it's part of how he winds down himself. If he's upset we go in to settle periodically x I would leave them to it if they're happy and only go in if they're upset x

I find it SO difficult judging the time for bedtime!!! We had exactly the same with my daughter of trying all different bedtimes and nap combinations for around a year and I'm dreading the idea of doing it again! X

@needsomefuninthesun thank you, I find it hard to pinpoint this bedtime time. 😐

Comapred to the day nap they are asleep in less than 10 minutes but bedtime is just getting too much for me to deal with.

Another person suggested that too, maybe I will just leave them to put themselves to sleep as i know they can self settle and just check on them instead.

@GreenShades it's bizarre isn't it. My baby is the same. Straight down at nap time. I wondered whether he knows nap time is just nap time and he's happy to have a mini sleep but doesn't like the idea of going to bed for the full night or something!!!! X

@Pammela @needsomefuninthesun I think Ive had a breakthrough! So I didnt feel comfortable just leaving the girls to fall asleep on their own, the thought of it made me sad as Ive watched them from day one fall asleep.

Anyways, today day nap I did all the usual things and then when they were in their cots I decided to shh and pat, one of girls decided to laugh and it was like proper belly laughs I dont know why! My other girl was getting cosy with her blanket but because her sister kept laughing she decided to join it but it felt so foŕced so I ended up laughing too. I felt this wasn't helping at all and the thought of day naps becoming a problem too I just decided to take your advice and leave the room as they were happy. I turned on the monitor and within 2 minutes they were asleep.

At bedtime I wasnt sure if i should stay or not. I decided to stay for a while but again one of my girls that loves to always stand up kept standing up and I kept putting her back down. So they seemed happy and I decided to leave the room. When I turned on the monitor she was lying down and did not get up again! My other girl she cried for less than 30 seconds and then all was quiet.

They were asleep by 20 minutes mark! I was so shocked 😲 thank you all for your advice, I may take this approch from now on and hopefully this works out.

Maybe I was the problem, my presence in the room and lately I have found that they need little assistance to fall asleep sometimes even removing my hand off themselves.

That's great @GreenShades!!!!! I think sometimes they need to 'mess about' as part of their winding down and we might inadvertently disrupt it by trying to soothe them etc! Xx

That's fabulous!
I remember someone saying to me that they decided to do sleep training, dreading it and then never had to do it at all as when they left baby to settle themselves they just went straight to sleep.
Turns out there attempts to help baby settle were actually keeping them awake!

@Cuwins I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday evening that I've not needed to do sleep training! They are my first born so even though bedtime was getting exhausting the thought of sleep training was a big no as I didnt want to hear them cry!