Many Thanks, No Sleep

I would like to thank Boulder for hosting my shower, Libby for sending the Amazon certificate, and everybody for offering help and support, or just keeping us in your thoughts.  It's appreciated more than I can fully express right now, especially with the awesome stupid-making powers of my current exhausted state.

Luckily, I started writing the girls' birth story before they stopped sleeping, and will post it on Monday.

Their Pediatrician assures us that they will sleep when they need to, but we have grown skeptical of this claim.  The new theory is that the Buttmansion girls do not sleep, they merely lie in wait.

Comments

[Tam]

It takes a while for the shock to wear off, and longer for the exhaustion to fade - even longer before you start feeling human again - and that's without the huge, immense, splendid effort you had to put in just getting those girls to term. Anyone would be reeling. (And while the bedrest cost you financially, I bet that two lengthy stays in the NICU would've cost far more...)

But oh! You have two daughters! I can't wait to read the story of how they arrived.

[daysgoby]

My daughter was like that. We'd step on the creaky stair - she'd wake up. Someone would flush the toilet - she'd be up and ready to wail. I caught my husband practically smothering himself in a pillow (he'd sneezed) and we bought a little fan for her room.

It worked - with the added bonus of making her baby monitor sound like Darth Vader.

Oh, and you haven't said - what does your cat think of the interlopers?

[Maren]

Oh, how I hope it gets easier for you. And ear plugs. I hope you have ear plugs ;)

[jenn]

I'm so looking forward to the birth story! How did Millbarge's specialist appointment go?

Keep on keepin' on. It does get easier...you actually get to sleep again at some point!

[colicmommy]

Don't let them stay awake for more than 1 to 1.5 hours. After they've been awake about an hour, swaddle them up and rock them or bounce them gently in a dark room, preferably one with white noise running. They should conk out eventually. Then lay them down in their carseats. Upon awakening, feed. Then awake for another 1-1.5 hours. Then swaddle, rock/bounce to sleep, lay down in carseat for another nap. Naps may be short, only 20-45 minutes. Just keep 'a going. Endless cycles of eat-awake-soothe-nap. During the night, skip the awake part. Go straight from feed to swaddle/soothe, even if the soothing takes a long time. Keep the lights off. Make no eye contact. Only make eye contact during the day (it revs up baby's nervous system). They'll figure out day and night after a week or so of that.

It gets better, eventually.

Cribs are too big. Babies hate being flat on their backs. Swaddling helps. Carseat helps. White noise helps.

It's really hard. It will get better, it will get better....

[Nic]

Even as tired as I can only imagine you must be you still crack me up. I was going to write some insight based on my sister having twins but then I realized that as all babies/situations/families are so diverse I would sound like an ass. So just best wishes and prayers for it getting easier- in whatever way that is for y'all.

[akeeyu]

Colicmommy, the funny thing is that we already do all that (except for the carseat part, because of that recent study that swears that sleeping in carseats equals tragic death, OMG), and they just won't sleep. It's not that we're 'letting them stay awake' or taking them to all night raves, it's just that short of using tranq darts, I'm not sure how else to convince them that all the cool kids like REM.

When we asked their Pediatrician about it, it went kind of like this:

"They won't sleep. We swaddle! We rock! We do all that Happiest Baby On The Block stuff, and they just don't care! What else can we do? I mean, you can lead the tiny little horse to the tiny little water, but you can't make it take tiny little drinks. How do we make them sleeeeep?"

"Well...you can't. But they'll sleep when they need to."

[Sheila]

Hope you don't have any tranq darts, they sound very tempting. So sorry about the not-sleeping, and hope this will improve soon. Maybe it's one of those developmental transitions they are going through, as described at "Ask Moxie", where there is a sleep regression at certain ages/stages. (Her blog has a lot of helpful advice and whatever-works common sense for parents.) I hope so, because that means it's a temporary thing. I hope this week will go more smoothly for all of you sleep hostages at the Buttmansion.
Best wishes,

[Ashley]

Eek. Newborns who don't sleep? 2 of them? At once? Oh my.

Sending REM vibes your way - for all parties involved.

Only thing I can think of - have you tried white noise? My baby boy wouldn't sleep without it. Haven't read above comments, just a thought.

[Jenn]

Are you at the point yet where you want to punch the next person that even thinks about saying "Sleep when they sleep?" I'm guessing you bypassed that a week ago at least.

It will not always be this way. Hang in there.

[Cathy]

Ours slept (and by "slept" I mean "occasionally dozed in between fits and feeds") in their swings/bouncers for the first month or so. We tried the cribs for about a week. We decided that they were more likely to die at the hands of sleep deprived parents accidentally dropping them during a feed than they were sleeping in other devices.

Also, if you can swing it, take shifts. One person takes care of both babies, while the other adult goes into the bedroom, turns on a lot of white noise, and gets a 5 hour stretch of sleep, and then trade. It was the only way we got any sleep.

[Holly B.]

Tranq darts are great. For the parents. Just use them one at a time, trading off. ;o)

Seriously, taking sleep in shifts work. We did that with our singleton boy: one night my turn, another night daddy's. Kept us out of jail (for murder) and divorce court (for everything else).

Good luck.

[Suz]

I remember those days...we slept in shifts. My husband actually had paternity leave, so he would take the babies from 3am to 3pm. I would take them from 3pm to 3am. I went to sleep at 3am and slept about 'til 10am. He slept early. When he went back to work (after two weeks), we just moved the shifts back an hour to go 4 to 4.

Our babies didn't sleep for the longest time, but we did :-).

[Vivien]

Can't offer any advice - only love and best wishes. Lots of both.

[Alison]

Mine didn't sleep either (and I just have the one). And I read the happiest baby on the block, followed colicmommy's advice, etc. The only thing that worked for us was popping her in a sling and walking, walking, walking. It was so exhausting, I can still feel my quads trembling. But by the time she was about 8 weeks... she had worked it out. Not that she's what I'd call a champion sleeper now (8 months) but she does actually do some of it! Good luck, you'll get through this. Can't wait for the birth story.