Could the nightwakings be because of too much sleep during the day?

So, i've posted a few topics to try to understand how to get my 4 mo old boys to sleep better at night. They go to bed no problem between 7 and 8pm. They wake to eat around either 11pm or midnight. And then after that, they wake often. If it's too early to eat, i have to pacify them back to sleep. It's frustrating. Now, we are interviewing nannies - and one of them was over today, taking care of the boys with my husband. She said that maybe they have broken sleep at night because they are getting too much sleep during the day. Is that possible? I read that good sleep during the day = good sleep at night. How much should a 4 mo-old nap during the day? Any thoughts?

 

I know that they say that good sleep during the day = good sleep during the night... however I really don't think that applies to my boys. If they sleep too much during the day, they don't sleep through the night like they normally do.

I just like to think of it as ... if I took way too many naps / too long of naps during the day, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night either.

 

For my girls, the better I got them to nap during the day the longer they slept at night. I finally started having longer stretches at night when I learned to swaddle them even during the day, increasing their naps.

At 4 months old we were moving toward a 3 nap schedule. They took a 1 hour nap, a 2 hour nap and then another 1 hour nap, for a total of 4 hours. Maybe you could try moving the bed time up, have you noticed a time in the evening when they fall asleep on their own? For my girls it was 5:30 pm. Even if I tried to keep them up, they naturally fell asleep between 5:30 and 6. When I started following their lead I wound up having girls who slept 12 hours, from 5:30 p - 5:30 a. I wasn't thrilled about getting up every morning at 5:30 but it was nice to relax in the evenings.

 

NO at that age you're right more sleep during the day = more sleep at night. They're babies and I honestly believe that the paci is part of the problem (though we use them too lol) They go to sleep sucking and wake up and can't put it back in their mouths on their own and need mom or dad to do it for them!

 

I'm so grateful you started this thread. I am having problems getting my 4-month-old b/g twins on any sort of schedule. They are all over the place with feedings and sleeping.

They sleep whenever they want throughout the day, wherever they are. If one cries, they wake the other one up.

At night, they fall asleep in our living room and if they don't wake up between 9-11 p.m. to eat, then we wake them by midnight to feed them and put them in their cribs. My daughter likes the pacifier and can sooth herself with it if she wakes up during the night, although I have to go in often and put it back in her mouth. She can sleep for 10-12 hours without eating with her pacifier. My son, however, wakes up screaming after four hours and is impossible to get back to sleep, andhis screams wake up his twin sister too. He doesn't care for the pacifier. As a result, I have to feed him around 4 a.m.-ish and it's draining to get up at that hour -- I have to be up with my older daughter around 6:30 to get her ready for school, so it's difficult to go back to sleep and have to get up again.

I'm desperate for a schedule. Since they both have different sleep patterns how do I synchronize them? They want to eat sometimes every 3 hours during the day, but if they nap it could be as long as 5 hours before a bottle -- should I be waking them up to eat during the day? How much sleep should they be getting? How much formula? I feel a little lost with what to do; I never felt this way with my singleton.

 

I think it is possible to get too much sleep during the day but only if they sleep long stretches that mimic night time sleep. If they are on a consistent three hour schedule during the day, they won't get into super deep sleep like they do at night. They will get enough to be rested but not enough to take the place of night time sleep. The best thing I did with all of my babies was to keep every day the same. We got up at the same time every morning, feed every three hours at the same times every day, and went to bed at the same time every night. Naps were the last 90 min of every three hour cycle. We stayed on this routine until they were consistently sleeping through the night then went to a four hour schedule. Consistency is key.

 

My boys were always on a different schedule. Except for 1 thing. Bedtime was set. 6.30-7, no matter what. So I let them create their own sleeping schedule during the day, but made sure, that the 3rd nap ended by 5. Yes, I woke them up if they wanted to nap beyond 5-ish (depending how much they slept during the day). Call me cruel, but it worked for me.
Oliver slept 12-13 hours by 4 months of age at night, and took 3 shorter naps during the day.
Edmund only slept 10-11 hours at night, but took 2 long naps during the day.
As I said, I let them sleep how they wanted during the day. BUT! I made sure that feedings were always at the same time or in close proximity for the boys. And I never let them go 5 hours without food during the day. That is for the night time.
When I put them to bed at night, we go into their bedroom, that's where they get their bottles. We are quit (my husband and I) and we feed them, burp them, rock them a little and that's how we put them to bed.
No matter how much they slept during the day at this age, they still slept the same amount of hours at night. And I think it's normal at this age.

 

Thanks for all your input. My boys aren't on an exact schedule per say... but the more time goes on - the closer and closer to an exact schedule they get.

Kellie_M - in order to begin to get my boys on a schedule, I started to do one thing that would be the same every day. We started giving a bath at night. At first it was hard to get the bath in every night because their schedules were so different every day. But the more I tried to get that bath in, the more I was able to. Now I'm able to give a bath every night when I get home from work around 6pm. They have started to want to go to bed every night between 7pm and 8pm. It wasn't that I forced them... it has just worked out this way over time. They were originally waking at different times every morning to be awake for the day... now it is starting to be around 5:30-6am every morning. Nap times still vary, and lengths of naps vary too... but I think those will begin to get some consistency soon too.

So, maybe I just need to give it more time (as I think this is always my conclusion for all my "issues" thus far) - and a more consistence schedule will take place with naps. Then, maybe the night wakings will decrease. But, i think I'll take Gigantor's advice - and maybe no more very long naps (longer than 2 hrs.) Sleeping more than 2 hrs should be saved for night-time.

 

If they are napping longer than 2 hrs during the day I definitely agree with waking them! They may have their days/nights a little confused because of the longer naps during the day.

I think at that age we had 90 min cycles. 90 mins awake, 90 mins asleep (roughly, most of the time they only slept 45-60 mins). So they would get up for the day around 10am and eat, back to sleep by 11:30, awake around 1:00 to eat, back to sleep by 2:30, awake around 4 to eat, sleep by 5:30, eat at 7, snooze at 7:30-8, eat at 9:30-10, down for the night at 10-10:30. Mine were sleeping about 12 hrs by then.

I can't remember the times for sure...I know towards the evening their naps got shorter and their eating times closer together.

 

So, maybe I just need to give it more time (as I think this is always my conclusion for all my "issues" thus far) -

This is so true! That is one advantage to having the twins as child #2 and #3. With my first child, I tried to overanalyze everything and figure out what made one night's sleep or nap work or not work when really it was just a waste of time because even if I thought I had figured it out, it would change a few weeks later! This go around, I just look at each phase as simply that... a phase that will pass (good or bad).

Our babies are the same age as yours and we just went through a phase where they started waking every 3 hours at night again (with a 7:00 - 8:00 bedtime) after they were sleeping 7-12 hour stretches before that. This week, they are back to just one night waking around 2-4 am. We didn't change anything... the babies did. So, I hope that your night waking phase passes soon. It is exhausting! Especially going to work the next day.

One last thought... if the night wakings start to get more frequent (like every 1-2 hours) then it may sound more like your babies are having sleep problems and you may need to resort to some sleep training (whatever kind works for you). Sleep training worked miracles for my first child that got to the point of waking every hour by age 6 months. After just one or 2 nights, he went from waking CONSTANTLY through the night to sleeping consistent 11 hour nights.

Good luck to you!!

 

I am going to start sleep training in a sense. I think they are too young to CIO - even Ferber method. So, I am going to put them in their cribs at night - drowsy but awake. If they start crying, i'll pick them up and rock to sleep. Even though I'll be picking them up - i'll have them going in their cribs as part of their sleep routine.

Do you have any other sleep training suggestions for this age?