Twins Waking up for 3 Hours in the Middle of the Night.

Give them each a soft natural falvored yogurt around a half hour before bedtime. This allows the yogurt to digest and it will fill their bellies for the night as well if they are teething, the live bacteria in the yogurt will help minimize the pain that comes with cutting teeth. I have done this with all three of my kids and I swear by it. Also, if they are teething, try giving them a bottle with a special "teething" nipple. It is rounder on the bottom then the top and has little lumps. As the child sucks on the nipple, the little lumps soothes the gums and gives the child comfort.

Well, it is a phase, but people fall into two distinct camps about what to do. I am in the camp of checking on them, checking diapers, offering a bottle*** and then tucking them in and going back to bed. They may cry for a little while, but if you keep going in there to constantly play, hold or comfort them, they think you'll do that every night so why not stay up? Letting a child or children cry it out is NOT easy! Some also feel that you should just let them cry for however long it takes. I've never been able to do that -I won't go for longer than 10 minutes before going in just to reassure them I'm still there. I've been lucky -that's worked with both of mine, but I know some people who have had to let them cry for 20 or 25 minutes -hard!

***Not sure if your twins are 7 1/2 months or 4 1/2 months. If they're only 4 1/2 months, this isn't that abnormal. My second got up once or twice a night for feedings until he was about 6 1/2 months.

At that age the world is just wide open for them to explore and it might get harder to get them to sleep. When they wake up, try not to make a big deal out of it, keep lights at a minimum and keep putting them in bed until they get the idea. However, if they are not getting enough rest during the day, they might be overtired and not that easy to put down to bed and stay asleep.Most pediatricians suggest the cry it out method, but I was never really able to do it at that age. My son has gone through several of these sleeping strikes, and it takes a lot of patience but it will go away. Good luck!

Babies are funny like that, sometimes they like to switch things up. You indicated that they stopped their evening naps and now go to bed at 8pm, do you think this is the cause. Maybe the evening nap allowed them to sleep more at night, so you may want to introduce this back to them. As far as teehing goes, I was lucky that when my son was teething he NEVER had any side effects like fever, crying, etc, so I can't tell you what that's like. But I do remember his sleep habits changing every once an a while and I would have to make adjustments. If you don't want to do the evening nap, try keeping them up later and see if that works. I hope this helps. Good luck!

HI, I am the mother of ten who are all adults now. Know that all children are different. The best thing I can tell you is to 1. give them a nice warm bath before bed,2. a warm meal (cereal with warm milk),3. a little rub down with low tones while talking or singing to them, and 4. a clean comfortable bed. That should do the trick. Enjoy sleeping alnight yourself.

Hi F.. First thing i would say is start using motrin for teething, it works much better than tylenol and is safe after babies are 6 months and older. My dd is 19 months now and she has gone through so many sleep patterns, and i blame most of it on teething. She has never been sick and is always smiling and happy in the morning, but can have some rough nites. I use teething tablets all the time too. Sometimes those and motrin still don't do the trick. We can have weeks or months of blissful nites sleep and then bam, we are teething again. I have learned, and still learning that....this too shall pass. Once she was old enough and i was confident there was nothing seriously wrong, i let her cry it out some. Recently she has been cutting her k9's. I give her a few minutes first, then give her motrin, a bottle (for comfort and to help digest the med), and rock her long enough to know the motrin should kick in, give her some love and turn her bedtime cd back on and leave. She usually crys a little bit but i know i have done all i can do. I have been lucky, it usually doesn't take long before she is back asleep. Good luck : )
PS. I noticed recently that when i would give her motrin at bedtime she would wake up about 3 hours after she fell asleep very unhappy. Nothing i would do worked to get her back down until it was time for me to give her motrin again. So i stopped giving it at bedtime so if she did wake later it wouldn't take hours to get her back down.