Sleep Story – Identical Twins

Ok, so having already experienced the lack of sleep with the previous set of twins you could say we were prepared for the worst.  You can imagine the surprise we got to find that our newborn baby girls spent most of their time sleeping.

The girls were 5 weeks premature and spent 10 days in the Special Care Baby Unit during which time the Neonatal nurses spent their time keeping them in a routine largely for their nourishment not because the nurses were concerned about their own sleep deprivation.  There were always two nurses to feed and the shift would change!

When we brought the girls home we found them sleeping soundly and only waking to feed every 3 to 4 hours.  This happened both during the day and the night.  We kept peeking in their Moses baskets which were situated in the living room during the day and were carried upstairs during the night.  We were waiting for the next feed for something to do!  Don’t get me wrong the nights were still hard and very little sleep achieved but there was a pattern to it and we could clearly see a way forward to the night feeding stopping.

Life was being kind to us and it seemed that we had twins who were going to stick to a routine and be sound sleepers. This pattern continued until the week arrived when they should have been born and then they literally woke up!  It was as if they had finished doing what they should have been doing in the womb and were now ready to play newborn babies opposed to being premature babies.

They remained fairly settled but they started to feed a little more often.  During the day, we went through all the normal practices of increasing the ounces, offering top ups should they drain the bottle but the time between feeds was definitely decreasing.  We were using dummies so would try and soothe and keep them going to a 3 hourly feeding schedule so as they would take a good feed and satisfy themselves but we were soon feeding on demand.

It also became apparent that they were suffering from a condition called Reflux.  The symptoms were regurgitating their milk, which was causing them a certain amount of discomfort.  This may have been why their feeding routine had been disrupted.  It also made them particularly fidgety sleepers.  Whilst they were sleeping they would be making grumbling and groaning throaty sounds and this was likely caused by the burning sensation of the regurgitating milk.

Our soundly sleeping babies had turned into fidgety unsettled babies most likely due to the Reflux.  To help manage the Reflux the babies were prescribed with Infant Gaviscon to be given with every feed.  We placed cushions on the stands beneath the baskets to create a tilting effect.  Apparently if the baby is elevated slightly this provides a certain amount of relief from the symptoms of Reflux and thus a better sleep.

We also purchased some baby sleeping bags.  These proved to be an excellent buy.  The girls really seemed to like them.  So, despite the fact that the girls had been premature, had been in SCBU and now had reflux they were still better sleepers than the first batch!

Admittedly, there were times where my husband and I would fall asleep sitting upright with a baby asleep on our chests.  Twin 2 was definitely more prone to this and because she was particularly small it was bearable.   She was comfortable and not so full of the grumbles and groans, this meant we got a little more rest.

Our Moses Baskets lasted longer with the girls because they were so much smaller and for the first five months we managed quite well with this situation.  However, our next hurdle came when the Moses Baskets were no longer suitable.  At the time we didn’t have the space to accommodate two cots in our room and we weren’t happy to move them to a room of their own just yet as it was on the floor below so we opted for wooden cribs as a temporary measure.

The girls hated the cribs.  They were side by side, they could see one another through the bars and we had erected the cot mobiles but still they were unsettled.   I often fed them each propped up on a pillow on my bed all ready dressed in their sleeping bags and would let them fall asleep before transferring them into their wooden cribs.  Due to their fidgety sleep they kept banging their hands or heads on the bars and this would disturb them.  We tried crib bumpers but this never solved the problem either.

The cribs came down and a full sized cot went up with the intention of sleeping them both in the one to see how they would settle.  We thought they may take some comfort from one another.  We had one cot upstairs and one downstairs for daytime naps.  They didn’t like this either.  In my opinion, the mattresses were not comfy enough for them.  They had been used to being in their Moses baskets elevated with the cushions and had felt a lot more snug and secure.

We still had to elevate the big mattress in the cot to help manage the reflux and we could never get it right.  As a test we lay them on top of pillows in the cot and they seemed to settle happily, they also settled happily on top of our bed so we became convinced it was all about comfort! We were obviously not happy with them sleeping on top of a pillow because of the risk of cot death so we decided to ditch the cot and go back to the method used for the first set of twins – yes the mattress on the floor!

By this time, my husband was spending a lot of time away with work so I spent many a night managing the four children alone.   We had outgrown our house and were looking for a bigger one so we had to find a solution to cope for the transitional period.   We purchased a new single mattress and a new double mattress and arranged them on the floor and covered them with the necessary bedding and pillows.  We left our bedroom in the loft conversion and used it as a room for catching up on sleep.

I spent my time on the second level of our house sharing a room with the babies with the older children in their bedroom next door. I took the double mattress whilst the girls slept on top of the comfortable duvet covered single mattress which we raised with pillows to still manage the reflux.  As they slept in their sleeping bags they were perfectly safe alongside one another.  Once again it had afforded me a better night’s sleep.  When the girls were fidgety I could reach over and give them a dummy and they would settle back down.  This meant I wasn’t up and down to them all night.

By now we had reached around 9 months old and we were about to move into our bigger house with the space we so desperately needed.

We set up their bedroom with the mattresses but I returned to my bedroom and my husband although he still wasn’t there very much due to work commitments.  Our bedrooms were all now on one level which was a far better arrangement than we had at our previous house.  The girls went to bed at around 7pm every night and would sleep soundly until about midnight when the fidgets set in.

Sometimes they wouldn’t settle back down but having the mattresses on the floor meant that we had a choice.  We could either get up and down to them, leave them crying so long as they weren’t disturbing the rest of the household or just get into bed with them and get a fairly decent nights sleep.  Trust me a household of 4 children is a busy place during the day.

Even though the night feeding had basically stopped there were times when nothing seemed to settle them except a bottle or beaker of milk.

Suffice to say the first year with any baby is going to be a challenging one and certainly for the first six months when you are likely to be keeping a routine which includes night feeding you are going to suffer from lack of sleep.  With twins it’s going to be even harder so I reiterate, read the suggestions on how to teach your baby to sleep and listen to other mother’s experiences then do whatever works for you and your family.