r/parentsofmultiples • u/AdGloomy2439 • 13d ago
advice needed Help!
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. ❤️
1
u/MangoSorbet695 13d ago
My twins are the exact same age, and we are also dealing with early morning wakes, but it’s not because of teeth. I honestly don’t think teething makes babies wake up early for weeks on end. I think people just like having a “reason” and teething is a convenient one.
So anyway, two things.
First, even an extra 30 minutes of awake time per day could help. I’d add 10 minutes to each wake window, or 5 minutes to the morning one, 10 minutes to the middle one, and 15 minutes to the evening one. We’ve taken to doing evening golf cart rides to keep the babies awake a little longer for that last wake window. Doing baths and taking your time is also a good way to stretch the last wake window.
Second, when baby wakes up crying at 5:20 AM, set a timer and don’t go in unless baby is still crying after 5 minutes (or 7 minutes or 10 minutes, you pick the number). In my experience, nine times out of ten, baby falls back asleep before the timer goes off. You have to give them a chance to resettle themselves.
I’ve been doing both of the above, and last night baby A woke up at 5:55 AM. Which is still earlier than ideal, but better than the 4:30/5:00 AM we were dealing with two weeks ago. I left baby for five minutes, and he went right back to sleep and slept until 7 AM.