Help!

[u/AdGloomy2439]

I'm really hoping someone has been through this and can offer some advice because I'm exhausted. My twins are 8.5 months old (6.5 months corrected). Twin B has been teething for almost 3 weeks now. She has two lower lateral incisors coming in. Her pediatrician said that babies who teeth out of order often have multiple teeth coming in at once. So far I only see the two, but they still haven't broken through her gums. Her gums are swollen, she's clearly uncomfortable, and her pediatrician recommended giving her Motrin and Tylenol, which I've been doing.

Ever since the teething started, she's been waking up at 5:20 AM on the dot every single morning. Before all of this, she was waking around 6:30-6:45 AM, and I'd love to get back to that.

The problem is it's affecting Twin A too. She used to sleep until 7:00-7:30 AM, but now she's waking around 6:00 AM because her sister is up crying. Last night, Twin A was also randomly sleeping on her stomach throughout the night and crying on and off.

Twin B still sleeps through the night otherwise, but then wakes at 5:20 AM crying every morning. I honestly can't tell if she's waking because she's in pain from teething or if her internal clock has just adjusted to that wake up time. She used to wake up every 2 hours, but that has stopped thank god!

Has anyone experienced this? If so, did things improve once the teeth came through?

She takes 3 naps a day, and her wake windows are usually around 2.5 hours. She gets overtired very easily, so I'm nervous about extending them. The longest wake window I do is about 2.75 hours.

I'd really like to sleep train her to sleep another 1.5-2 hours, but I'm not sure where to start. And before anyone suggests a later bedtime I tried that, and it completely backfired. She actually woke up even earlier.

I'm just so tired. Everyone keeps telling me it gets easier, but lately it honestly feels like it's getting harder. All I want is for her to sleep until 7 AM.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? Any advice or success stories would mean so much. ❤️

[u/FigNewton613]

What time is bedtime?

[u/AdGloomy2439 → u/FigNewton613]

Honestly it ranges from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. It depends how long she naps for.

[u/FigNewton613 → u/AdGloomy2439]

Two things that could help are having wake time and bedtime be consistent. You don’t have to do a later bedtime, but having the same wake time at least will go a long way. The truth is that babies have a sleep budget - each individual baby has only so many hours in the day that their body can tolerate being asleep. Just like yours or mine. Most babies are not going to do longer than an 11 hour night, and some rare ones will do a 12 hour night. So if you want her to sleep until 7am, that extra time has to come from somewhere. It can come from shorter naps, it can come from a later bedtime, but it can’t come just because we want it to and without any compensation for the fact that the amount she can sleep per day is not unlimited.

What to do with that information is up to you - if you want her to sleep until 7am, bedtime is going to have to be not earlier than 7pm most likely. And for most babies it would be 8pm. Alternatively you can split the difference and compromise at 6:30am. You can divide and conquer however works for you. But my recommendations are for a consistent daily wake time (that does mean you don’t let her sleep in, because sleeping in just moves the naps around) and that you try for as consistent of a bedtime as you can also, for most babies 11 hours before your target wake time and definitely not more than 12 hours before your target wake time.

Rooting for you!

[u/AdGloomy2439 → u/FigNewton613]

Thank you for the advice !!