Desperate

It’s 2:47AM where I live and I am finding myself feeling so desperate and so alone. Alone even with my two beautiful girls staring back at me. I have twin girls 8 mos old and a 20month old little boy.

I have been desperately trying to sleep train my girls for over a month and have been completely unsuccessful. Every time I think that I have cracked it and am making some progress I end up back at square one.

Everyone in my house is usually ready for bed by 7:30/8. We have tried keeping them up later than that but they get pretty cranky and so we usually cave. We put cereal in their bottles at night but they still wake up hungry every 1-2 hours. I have tried white noise playing all night. We bought two mini cribs bc we thought maybe they were keeping each other up. I have no idea what to do and am desperate for ideas.

My other issue is that everyone in my house in some way or another has been sick since Thanksgiving. Just when I thought we were finally reaching a light at the end of the tunnel my daughter woke up tonight with diarrhea which is the most recent stomach virus to hit our household.... I just don’t know what to do and feel like a complete failure bc I can’t seem to keep my kids healthy.

Please help.

 

I'm sorry I'm just now seeing this post. How are things now?
First of all, you are not a failure. It's the season for illnesses. It is what it is right now. You are tired and it's normal to feel this way.
What type of sleep training have you tried? What I did (and your girls are plenty old enough for this) is to continue with the before bed feeding, and early bedtime. Also, it's okay to add one late night feeding if you can. Other than that each night give them (to start with) 5 minutes of crying before you go in to sooth them. The next time wait 10, then 15 and so on. It's a mild version of 'cry it out'. For me, I never made it past 10 minutes-they learned to put themselves back to sleep pretty quickly. It's tough to listen to them cry but in the long run its better for everyone.
Does your partner help at all? If so, depending on your schedules-when we were so tired we did sleep shifts. I'd go to bed at 9 and my husband would have baby duty until 1am, he'd have the baby monitor and handle any wake ups, then at 1am he'd give me the monitor and I'd deal with anything else until morning. This way we were both getting at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. It made a HUGE difference.
Don't be so hard on yourself, you are doing the best you can.
*hugs*

 

I just saw this as well. How are you? How are the babies? You are not a failure. Like Lesley said, this is the season of illnesses. Your twins could be on the verge of a growth spurt or a milestone which might impact their sleep as well.
I agree with Lesley's version of mild cry it out. I would also do sleep shifts with your partner if possible (when my twins were babies, my husband worked the midnight shift, so on his nights off, he took the babies so I could sleep and when he worked, he would take them for the first feeding at 7:30 am, so I could sleep in a little). Check in with us when you can!