Sleep Solutions for Twins
Gina Cody
Sleep solutions, particularly for toddlers, is a complicated issue for many parents of twins. Toddlers over the age of one will usually sleep between ten and twelve hours a night and take naps at various intervals during the day. However, in their second year, toddlers will attempt to resist napping in lieu of continuing with their play activities even though they're only fighting their body's urge to rest.
Theoretically, it would be advantageous to have each of the twins nap at the same time for the same length of time each day. In practice, it's not likely to happen. Each twin will develop his or her pattern of sleep and play and if they should happen to develop similarly timed patterns – that's great.
While cribs offer restrictions for babies, they also become more hazardous as children become older. Cribs provide only a temporary sleeping arrangement and infants should be placed in separate cribs by the age of three months. After three months, multiples in a single crib present a hazard to each other. By the time twins transition into toddlers, they should be out of cribs and sleeping in beds. Toddlers will attempt to climb out of a crib and run the risk of experiencing a dangerous and painful fall. Safety aids, such as pillows and bumper pads, that were great at protecting infants from harm will only aid in climbing attempts for toddlers and increase the odds of falling or otherwise being injured.
Without the restrictions of a crib, toddlers have greater access to the room or environment in which they are supposed to be sleeping. They are often times enticed by toys and other things in the room. They may attempt to use naptime as a time to become adventurous rather than nap. Parents are encouraged to remove anything from the room that could create a hazard. Even the most cautious toddlers become disoriented when they attempt to engage in play in an effort to avoid or fight sleep.
Parents need to establish a routine or pattern before bedtime or nap times and try to follow through with that pattern each day if possible. Consistency allows a child to signal sleep time as it approaches. This is in contrast to interrupting the child's play when it is most convenient for the parent. The routine should include some change in the environment, such as a dimming of lights or turning off the television.
Parents should not establish a habit of lying down with the children in order to get them to go to sleep. The goal is to have them fall asleep on their own such that a parent's presence is not necessary in order for the child to fall asleep. If a parent cuddles with one twin, the other twin may feel slighted. If on the other hand, a parent cuddles with both twins prior to sleep, the twins will never learn to sleep independently in separate beds or in separate rooms. In the same manner that children should not be reliant upon the presence of their parents, children should not be allowed to become reliant upon bottles, drinks or food in order to fall asleep.
References:
http://multiples.about.com/od/twintoddlers/a/twintoddler.htm
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/exploring-sleep-solutions-for-twins.html
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