9 weeks old twins only sleep well in the evening...how do we move this back to nightime?

[JuliaGulia]

Hi,

I am the proud mother of 9 week old b/g twins. Regretfully they have been formula fed since 6 weeks as I've had various infections but I feel better for at least managing the first few weeks.

We've recently taken the brave step of putting the twins upstairs in the nursery during the evening after their 7pm feed. They sleep really well and we're pleased to have some adult time whilst we eat etc. When we go to bed we bring their moses baskets into our bedroom. They currently wake around 1-2am for a feed and then early morning around 6pm.

However in between 2am and 6am they're both really restless, noisey and keep needing their dummies to soothe them. It's almost as if they've had enough sleep already and their just 'lying in' after their mid night feed.

We've tried the dream feed at 11pm to try and see them through the night but they still woke around 3pm for a feed so it just felt like we were waking them to feed unnecessarily. During the day we try and follow an Eat Activity Sleep You (Easy) routine which means they have 3 x 60-90 mins sleep during the day.

I'm not really sure if/how we can move their quality sleep to the nightime. When babies eventually go without their nightime feed, is it because the amount of milk has been reduced and therefore not worth waking for or because the baby has started to sleep longer is from 7pm - 4/5/6am?

Having our evening back is still a novelty as before last week we hadn't eaten a meal together since their birth. Am I going to have to sacrifice this to get their quality sleep during the nightime? And how would I go about moving their schedule?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
JuliaGulia

Hi Julia,

Sorry, I know nothing about moving sleep as my DS is only 11 weeks and I just go with the flow (luckily he is a very easy going baby). But I thought I would reply to bump it for you.

Congratulations on your babies as well!

they are still learning the difference between night and day, yes they might sleep better if you kept them downstairs in the evening but they could also be like both mine who just howled and howled because they were so tired and over-stimulated. be there but boring at night and they will adjust.

Congratulations on surviving with twins so far (I take my hat off to anyone who can stay alive with more than one baby!)

I would try putting them to bed earlier. And I wonder whether they might need another daytime nap, perhaps? Babies that age can only happily stay awake between 1 and 2 hours at a time before getting overtired. (That 1-2 hours includes feeding & winding down ready to sleep again.) Don't be tempted to reduce their daytime sleep or you may find that the nights get worse. It sounds a bit mad to improve their sleep by giving them more sleep, but it's helped my DS (15 weeks) so far. There are some handy hints here (and the site is well worth a general look through, IMO).

And being very boring at night definitely helps - no eye contact, no talking, as little light as you can possibly manage with. They'll get the hang of it eventually.

I don't think babies stop waking up at night because of less milk available. Theories I've read include less need for night-time nutrition, increased ability to self-settle when awakening between sleep cycles, and maturing brains.