Sleeping & Day Naps

A lot of you have been asking me when Blake and Ivy started sleeping through the night and wanted to know how we got them there. I thought it would be good to do a separate post all about their sleeping. This including their sleep in both the day and night, dummy runs, settling them to sleep, where they nap etc. I am going to try my best to start from the beginning as a lot of people who ask me about their sleeping have newborn twins so I will try and briefly go through their sleep habits from the start to now.

My previous post about routine touched on sleep slightly but not in much detail. As I mentioned in that post we started getting into a decent routine with feeding around 4 weeks. Blake and Ivy were in NICU for 12 days and I feel this helped us start a routine. Being in incubators initially they weren’t held like most newborns probably are. They were also tube fed so again didn’t have the comfort of a bottle and I only breastfed them for some skin to skin initially as appose to that being their main source of milk. Those 2 weeks the nurses already had them in a routine as to how long the gap would be for each of their feeds and then once they were moved into the family room with myself and James we fed them every 2 hours in the day and night and soon moved to 3 hourly feeds. I remember maybe at about a week old Blake had a few hours where he cried but other than that they were pretty good at night. Obviously when babies are weeks old all they really do is sleep or eat. Well Blake and Ivy were like this anyway. They were asleep majority of the day and night.

Once we got discharged I wanted to continue what we were doing in the hospital and at this point they were being fed between 3 and half and 4 hours. We were not able to leave them any longer than 4 hours for a feed until their due date. They were 6 weeks premature. This meant waking them every 4 hours even if they were asleep in the night. I think this may be the first big difference to other people. I guess I don’t actually know any different than having premature babies and whether others leave their baby longer and if they are asleep not to ever wake them. I have only ever known to wake them for a feed or wake them from a nap to keep them on the same schedule. Again I’m sure this is different with one baby.

By 4 weeks I had both Blake and Ivy on 7,11,3,7 feeds. We would do the dream feed at 11pm and then a 3am feed. This continued until their due date where they were 6 weeks. At this age they were still quite sleepy in the day. At 6 weeks old they were technically newborns so something to bare in mind when comparing to a full term baby.

From 4 weeks I bathed them every night to help them learn their bath/bed routine. I think the lead up to putting them down to sleep is really important. Winding down time helps them settle to sleep. This was the first thing we put in place in regards to any routine. From 6pm we would take them up to their room with the lights dim and have some tummy time and I used their disco light which they loved to stare at. This time was quiet and calm. We would bath them at 630 and then give them their bottle at 7pm. This was all done in a dark room. When they finished this bottle and had burped well I would prop Blake and Ivy up over my shoulder to let their milk digest slightly and then I would put them down. Sometimes they would be asleep and other times they would be awake. I have never rocked either of them to sleep. I knew from very early on that I didn’t want to start doing this as I couldn’t do this with 2 babies on my own. I think having twins made me slightly more regimented with what I felt I needed to do to make my life easier. It may sound harsh but actually it was never needed. Whether it’s luck or because they never knew it was an option they have always self soothed from the beginning. They slept in the Chicco next to me together and I had this on a slant which I think was really helpful. I suggest to anyone with a newborn to sleep them on a slight incline. I also purchased wedges you can prop under a sleepyhead or Moses basket for the day time. I would put them down in the chicco and put Ewan the dreamsheep (white noise) on and also give them their dummy and they settled off to sleep on their own. If they were ever unsettled I would shush them, stroke their nose, rub their belly, put Ewan on again or give them their dummy. Picking them up was not something I ever needed to do. Of course if either of them seemed extremely upset I would pick them up but it never seemed necessary. We also put them in grosnugs from the grocomany which made a massive difference to their sleep compared to just being in a blanket. They loved being swaddled. A lot of babies don’t like it but they were a lot better at night being swaddled and it kept them asleep for longer and they never startled and woke themselves up.

We would then do the 11pm dreamfeed and then from 7 weeks we left them to wake themselves as to when the next feed would be. This is where I had to wake the other baby if one woke for a feed as I needed them on the same schedule and didn’t want to have to wake up twice. Eventually this stopped as every baby is different and it wasn’t necessary to always wake the other once the middle of the night feed was ready to be dropped.

It was also this point where I started to

Implement day naps slightly. I tried to introduce more play time after a feed to tire them out so they slept better once I did put them down. The reason I started this was because I found that they were very awake at times I wanted them to sleep. For example I knew that eventually they would have a morning nap, afternoon nap and then later afternoon power nap. As they were becoming more awake I would find that Ivy was wide awake after her 3pm bottle and then was overtired after her 7pm bottle so wouldn’t go to sleep. Before this they used to fall asleep almost immediately after their 7pm bottle.

I soon realised as they were getting older and changing, their sleeping routine needed to change too. I was allowing them to sleep for too long after their 7am and 11am feeds so needed to change things up. It seems silly and not necessary to wake a baby at 7 weeks to get them into a better sleeping routine but I only knew it needed changing when they stopped settling with ease after their 7pm bottle and for me this was the most important time for them to be tired.

They were still sleeping for about 3 hours at a time in the morning so I knew this needed to stop. After their 7am bottle I tried my best to keep them occupied for an hour and would put them down at 9am and let them nap for 2 hours. I did the same after their 11am bottle and tried to keep them awake till 1 and then they would have another 2 hour nap. After their 3pm bottle I used to take them for a little walk to get them to have a little nap at around 4.30 but made sure they were awake by 530.

Day naps do manipulate how babies sleep at night and I do remember day naps started to rule my life a bit. It’s very hard to get your head around what you need to do in the day and then also try and get them to sleep at night and doing this with 2 babies who in fact are very different. I was under no illusion that Blake and Ivy were going to be sleeping through by 12 weeks. To be honest during this period of time I had major issues with Ivy and her milk so this consumed me quite a bit. Blake also became a very unhappy baby during his day naps and seemed to be in pain a lot. I think also you hear so many different opinions about sleeping and what you should be doing or not doing. ‘If they sleep too much in the morning they will wake up early after their night sleep’ ‘if they don’t nap enough they won’t sleep through the night’ ‘if they nap too much they won’t sleep through the night’

It all seems like a bit of a guessing game which it is for mums in general with everyday things!

By about 9/10 weeks the 3am feed became a 5am feed and then it was our mission to try and push that 5am to 7am. We decided to try dropping the middle of the night feed before dropping the 11pm dreamfeed.

Blake and Ivy’s day naps were in their sleepyheads downstairs in my lounge and by 13 weeks we moved them upstairs into their room. When they were downstairs the lights were on, there was noise around them and they would sleep pretty well. Then night time was dark and quiet. By 13 weeks when I moved them they weren’t settling well or sleeping long periods anymore so I felt they needed the same sleep environment as the night. We have the grocomany black out blind which makes their room completely dark! This helped a lot in the day and we also started putting them in their groswaddles in the day too. At first I believed you needed to have a different type of environment in the day and night for naps so they could differentiate between the two. But I soon realised that if they slept better swaddled then I was going to swaddle them for their day naps as well which made a big difference. They were in their own cots with the sleepyheads for their day naps but still in the chicco together at night in our room.

From 13 weeks we started to give the middle of the night feeds whenever they woke rather than waking the other baby so they fed at the same time. I would do one baby and then my husband would do the other. Ivy tended to wake later than Blake. Ivy wasn’t very good with her milk so although she would sometimes wake at 6 I would still give her a little feed rather than trying to hold her off until the 7am feed as she needed as much milk as possible due to being quite small. Ivy’s milk was changed at this time too and very slowly she improved so hoped this would also help her increase her amounts and then eventually sleep better.

They do say that babies sleep through better once they hit a certain weight so having small prem babies, I never had high expectations for them sleeping through early on.

We moved them into their room at night just before they were 14 weeks. I found this quite sad but knew it was time. Although they weren’t sleeping through I found it hard to get back to sleep after a feed as Blake’s breathing was so loud and it kept me up.

The first few weeks moving them into their room involved a lot of dummy runs. Both Blake and Ivy had a dummy.

Our next change we made was to see what would happen if we didn’t offer the 11pm dreamfeed. We attempted this 3 nights in a row which I always do with anything new to see if it’s a coincidence but that it didn’t go well on any occasions. On all 3 nights Blake woke 10 minutes before 11pm and he has never done that before which is typical so we put that idea on pause and continued the dreamfeed and tried to delay that middle of the night feed to 430/5 by giving the dummy instead. By 15 weeks Blake dropped that night feed. It used to be hard to hold off him with the dummy so eventually we had to feed him but by this point the dummy was enough and he would fall back to sleep with ease. We were giving him 7oz at 11pm (we increased this at this point) and then he woke 2/3 times and gave him the dummy and then he slept till 7am for his morning bottle. Once this happened two nights in a row we then decided he was no longer needing that feed and didn’t offer it anymore. Within a week he wasn’t even waking for the dummy and was sleeping through from the dreamfeed to 6/7am. A week after this at 17 weeks we decided to not wake Blake again for dreamfeed. We offered 8oz at 7pm, he woke at 2am gave him the dummy and then he went to 430 gave the dummy and woke at 7am. Form this point we were just going to offer Blake a dummy as his consumption of milk was still larger than Ivy’s with her having 2 night feeds so we knew he was getting enough and clearly slept without it. Ivy was a different kettle of fish. We were still giving her the dreamfeed but then she was waking at 430 and used to settle back to sleep with the dummy but now wasn’t settling and we were doing about 20 dummy runs and nothing would settle her. The issue we were having was she wasn’t keen on milk. She wasn’t taking as much as Blake in the day and wouldn’t take more at 7pm to push her through. Not only that but she was taking as little at 2oz at 11pm. We decided to attempt the no dreamfeed again. It seemed silly that we were disturbing her sleep to try and get milk down her when she was taking next to nothing and then offering her none at 4am when she wasn’t settling. The first attempt at this was good. She first woke at 2am so we fed her and then she went through to 6.30am. She took about 5/6oz at 2am instead of 2oz at 11 so this definitely worked better so this is what we continued to do.

By 18 weeks Ivy’s 2am feed became 4am which pushed her through to 7am. As that feed got closer to 7 I lowered the amount so she would still take her 7am bottle along with Blake so their days were still the same.

With ivy improving with her milk consumption in the day I tried to up her 7pm bottle to 7oz and from this she pushed through with no night feeds. This also meant she took a lot more at 7am. She was being weighed by a paediatrician as she was on new prescription milk and he said her weight was good and feeds at night were no longer a must. It was only by this point where I was happy to not give a feed at night. In fact not offering her those night feeds made her take more milk in the day so she didn’t actually drop her consumption too much.

So by 19 weeks they were both on 4 bottles - 7, 11, 3, 7 and a few dummy runs were being done. At this point day naps had also improved. I did find however for a number of weeks the morning naps were proving to be impossible. I would put both Blake and Ivy down and they screamed and it tooks ages to settle them. I soon realised I was putting them down too late and they were overtired. Never put a baby down for a nap overtired because it doesn’t end well. I put them down at 8 instead of 830 and they started going to sleep with ease. I would put them in their cot and then leave the room and they settled on their own. The earlier nap was a game changer and this then coincided with their lunchtime nap needing to be earlier. So that started around 12/1215 for 2 hours and then they had an afternoon power nap around 415/430 for 45 minutes. By 19 weeks I also removed the sleepyheads out their cots and used the sausage pillow part under their sheet so they still felt cosy. This made no difference to their sleeping and still slept well.

I feel by 19/20 weeks things just fell into place and seemed really good with both naps and sleeping at night. Blake was completely sleeping through and not making a sound between 7-7 and ivy a few dummy runs from about 5am. Both napping well in the day although Ivy’s late afternoon nap wasn’t great at times. Sadly this all changed a few weeks later.

Around 21 weeks we had a heat wave and this through them slightly. Blake started waking again and so did Ivy. After a few nights of doing the dummy for Blake we felt it was time to see if he could just settle himself. After leaving him to cry (painful but worth it) he started falling back to sleep on his own.

Ivy wouldn’t settle and we were giving the dummy constantly, but the minute it fell out she would cry again. We felt it was time to get rid of the dummy.

The dummy at times was my best friend one minute and enemy the next. If I had to do this all over again I would still offer a dummy. Especially when feeding 2 babies and needing to keep one happy whilst they wait it was a life saver for me. But the minute I saw it causing issues I knew it was time to get rid. I wasn’t prepared to go cold turkey though. I couldn’t face not giving it when I was out if she was crying. I was worried that this wouldn’t be successful but I decided to only offer Ivy her dummy in the car seat if she napped out. I no longer wanted her associating the cot with the dummy. I didn’t feel the need to take Blake’s away as we weren’t doing a dummy run for him but I thought if he can fall asleep without it that’s a bonus but if he gets upset I’ll give it to him.

At this point we started giving Blake and Ivy the Aden and Anais comfort blankets with the silk edging hoping this would be something they used instead of the dummy.

The first night without the dummy Ivy fell asleep on her bottle which was good and then when she woke we left her to cry for a while and then I went into her and tried to settle her without the dummy. I gave her the blanket by her face and guided her thumb in her mouth which she started to suck and fell asleep. The second night I did the same thing. She woke up around 5 and I helped her fall back to sleep guiding her thumb in her mouth which worked but then she woke again 20minutes later and I watched her on the monitor soothe herself back to sleep with her thumb! Result!!! Some people may think it’s odd to want your baby to suck their thumb but for me it was perfect. It was a way of them soothing themselves and they couldn’t lose it like a dummy!! Funnily enough although I never helped him Blake happened to find his thumb the week I was guided Ivy’s into her mouth. So he ended up dropping his dummy on his own at the same time I took Ivy’s away. Maybe a twin thing!!! By the end of the week Ivy started sleeping through which was amazing!!!

Sadly this didn’t last long. By 24 weeks Ivy had what I can only assume was a sleep regression. She would wake up anytime from 430/5 and not go back to sleep. Not only this but she then also wouldn’t go down for her morning nap or it would be as short as 30minutes instead of her hour and half. This became really difficult because she was also no longer interested in sucking her thumb. I felt like it became a vicious cycle because she was waking up really early and then she wouldn’t go down for her morning nap because she started the day so overtired. With twins this is where I struggled. If I had just one baby I could switch it up completely to try and get over that cycle of being overtired by giving her a bottle at a different time and getting her down easier. However as I need her on the same schedule as Blake and he was waking and feeding at 7 I had to do this with Ivy.

Now that Ivy wasn’t having the dummy and also no longer wanted her thumb it became impossible to settle her back to sleep. The only thing that got her back to sleep was a bottle and at first I didn’t want to feed her because I knew she didn’t need it and I felt I was going backwards. However it got to a point where it made more sense for me to feed her back to sleep and get her into a habit of waking up later and then I could drop the bottle eventually as it’s been done before. So that was the plan. We went back to feeding Ivy but it had to be after 430/5am because one night she woke at 3 so I fed her and she went straight back to sleep. But she then woke at 5 still and wouldn’t settle so I realised I need to be feeding her nearer 5am for her to go to sleep and wake at a similar time to Blake around 7.

At this point their day naps were similar times and still having 3 naps a day. 8am about an hour and a half/2 hours then lunchtime nap 12-230ish and then a 45min nap around 4. With Blake regardless of his napping, he slept through 7-7 but Ivy I felt her naps did make a difference to her sleeping at night.

For the next few weeks it was a bit of a battle with Ivy’s sleeping. Waiting to see what time she would wake and then trying to hold her off until the early hours of the morning before feeding her. It didn’t help that both Blake and Ivy had bad coughs. This meant that Blake’s cough would wake Ivy up and her own cough would wake her too. Blake never woke from her coughing or crying thankfully.

Coming up to 6 months we started weaning

Blake and Ivy. We were going away soon and I wanted to delay the weaning as they weren’t showing any signs of being interested in food but I thought maybe some food would help Ivy’s sleeping. I did start seeing a bit of an

Improvement in Ivy’s sleeping at night. I think it was a coincidence as they weren’t yet having enough food for an impact to be made.

We really wanted to try and get her to self soothe (some people may not agree with but it eventually worked for us). When ivy woke up crying instead of trying to soothe her as this never worked we muted the monitor and put an alarm on for 20minutes. Most of the time after this alarm went off she would be asleep so we then put the monitor back on loud. Other times she will still sobbing a bit but we would put an alarm on for a further 10minutes and pretty much wait for her to tire herself out. After a few nights of doing this she started getting better and quicker at falling back to sleep. We continued doing this and if she would go longer periods of time and get really really upset I would feed her back to sleep. At this point Ivy started turning onto her tummy so at times when she woke I had to turn her back onto her back as she got upset and could roll back herself.

So just after 6 months (27 weeks) we went on holiday and we were in the same room as Blake and Ivy. Blake slept perfectly however Ivy did not. This was a bit of a nightmare because I felt just before holiday we were finally getting somewhere. However this all went out the window because there was no way we could leave her to cry longer then 5 minutes when the cot was next to us. There were even some nights we had to feed her twice because it was literally the only way to settle her back to sleep. We also learnt very quickly never to share a room with Blake and Ivy again on holiday.

When we got back I was actually worried to have to start all over again. Surprisingly she was so good. She woke up a few times but settled back on her own but on occasions I had to turn her. She started comfortably sleeping on her side and front. I think this was one of the main changes. She was settling better on her front. She was also starting to love food. I don’t know if the amount she was having could have really made a difference with the sleeping but her sleeping was improving.

By 29 weeks ivy was sleeping through again. This was also regardless of her day naps.

Just before 7 months Ivy dropped her late afternoon nap as it became very difficult to get her to fall asleep and after a few days of her not having it she was happy all the way up until her 7pm bottle. Blake dropped this nap shortly after. Once they were only having those 2 naps I brought bath time earlier to about 6/615 and bottle at 630pm. We still do this in a dark room usually on our bed and then once they have finished their bottle we put them in their grobags and carry them to their cot whether they are awake or not. If they are asleep they stay asleep and if not then they fall asleep happily in their cot on their own.

Generally from this point onwards they sleep through the night. With the exception of some teething or colds/coughs causing a few interruptions.

I had major struggles with Ivy in the nights and both of them with their naps. Looking back having to go out every day for their lunchtime nap for about 4 months was intense but it made my day more manageable.

I still go out for their lunch nap if it works for me with plans and other times they sleep at home. Sometimes this means their nap isn’t as long but I’ve always made sure I don’t revolve my days around where they need to sleep. I think babies can get used to anything if they have to. So never will I have to go home for a nap. Some days they don’t nap and I think they will be awful and miserable and those are the days they are happy and other times they nap so well and still miserable. Sometimes there is just no telling what they will be like and how they will sleep.

Sometimes I think we can drive ourselves mad timing when they have gone down and worrying that they’ve woken too early but remember every day is different and try not to dwell too much on it all. I think sometimes the key is to be relaxed. I still have a stress at times if they haven’t gone down at the right time for a nap.

I hope this post was helpful in some way. I know it’s been a long one but wanted to try and get in as much as I could from birth to now.

Any more questions feel free to message me :) xx