My twin babies won't sleep longer than 2 hours at a time. When will they sleep for longer stretches?

[wildagape]

I have 5 month old twin boys that don't sleep longer than 2 hours at a time. They've always been like this. They were pretty good sizes when they were born (6lbs 6oz and 6lbs 2oz) and needed no time in the NICU. Everyone has told me that they'll slowly start to sleep for longer stretches but when will this happen? I'm losing my mind! I'm so envious of mum's who have babies that sleep for 4 hours straight or even have babies that sleep through the night.

It might be a good idea to employ help for a few days if you can manage it financially. My DS didn't sleep longer than 2 hours in a stretch until a few weeks before he started school. With hindsight, I really should have hired someone to look after him for a few hours here and there so I could get some sleep. It took me about ten years to recover unforunately.

My neighbour across the road who had twins also had terribly difficult health problems after all the sleep deprivation.

It's well worth doing what you can to get yourself some space, if you possibly can.

My twins slept lots better when they changed from breast to bottle around 8 weeks.

How are they feeding?

They are breastfed. During the night, my husband will bottle feed one boy my expressed breastmilk while I breastfeed the other one. They have formula sometimes but I'd say it's about 80% breastmilk.

I know I'm not meant to say this, but might it be worth giving them one more feed of formula even in in the day time with a visiting carer, so you can get some unbroken sleep?

I never gave my DS formula, which is just as well because he turned out to be intolerant to both dairy and vitamin supplements. However, I did totally break myself with sleep deprivation.

I'm really sorry that I don't know the answer but really just wanted to send sympathy. I remember how hard it is and I only had one.

Do you have a twins club near you or a leche league? They might have advice.

I had twins and it was so hard. They had a milk allergy so I couldn’t do mixed feeding because I was doing “so well” bf I didn’t get a prescription to try the non dairy formula.

Honestly the lack of sleep utterly broke me. They took turns to sleep till about two. It took me years to recover. I’d agree with pp to hire someone during the day just to catch up on sleep if you can.

My daughter was like this. The 8 month “regression” helped and she started to sleep better then. By 10 months she was sleeping through occasionally, and reliably by 12 months.

Do you have all the usual stuff? Dark room, white noise machine etc?