# Getting enough sleep while Attachment Parenting twins- HOW?



## matumama (Apr 21, 2011)

My twins are almost 10 months, and I just do not get enough sleep. Some nights are better than others, but never do I get enough. They sleep on a king-size mattress on the floor and I spend most of the night down there with them. On the best nights, I nurse them both 2 or 3 times after I go to bed and mostly sleep through it. That means at best I wake up four times. On the worst nights, while teething or stuffy noses or something else is going on, one baby or another will be awake fussing for an hour or more, and he wakes up his brother, and they both wake up me, Daddy the 10-year-old and the 11-year-old, and we are all miserable the next day. Medium nights, the usual, have me nursing constantly, one then the other, then one again then the other again. Bouncing on an exercise ball generally helps them settle down, but it sure wakes me up...unless I am so exhausted that I start falling asleep on the ball, which doesn't feel very safe. Do I just have to have patience and wait in my sleep-deprived state for them to grow out of the wanting to nuse all night stage? That feels very sad to me. I feel like I will have partially missed their babyhoods by then.

Also, there are nights, usually one or two a week, when neither my husband nor my daughter are here to help me put them to sleep (I nurse one while they bounce the other, after our bedtime routine) and I have to put one in a pack-and-play while I put the other to sleep. Neither of them likes being the waiting brother, and both scream and wail in a terrible way. Every time. And the screaming makes putting the other guy to sleep take even longer, even though I use the "Simply Noise" website brown noise feature turned up all the way. (I don't know where I'd be without that website, they would never nap. I used to be able to sometimes put them to sleep at the same time by nursing both on the big nursing pillow or by patting their backs while singing, but that hasn't worked in a long time. They do fall asleep in the car or stroller sometimes, but not reliably, and they always wake up soon after I stop, and I have never been able to get both into the house asleep. Do you have any ideas for getting two babies to sleep at the same time? Or what I can do to keep the horrible gasping teary crying from happening somehow?


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## Peggy O'Mara (Nov 19, 2001)

You need more help, darling. You need to find someone to be there when your husband or daughter can't be, if there is no way they can change their situations. And, your babies are old enough, that you could take a nap during the day and someone else in the household could be with them. Or, you could nap when one or both of them do. There is no way you can control them or their sleep at this age and yet, you have to get more sleep and create a situation where they are less anxious. Please talk with your family candidly and ask them to help you solve this dilemma. Ask friends and family to help. Don't be proud. You are doing an amazing job and I admire you for your determination to do what is best for your twins. But, it's a big job and you need more help. I wish you the very best in reaching out and getting it.


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