How do you co sleep safely with twins?
And when it comes to helping twins or multiples co sleep soundly, there's no best practice when it comes to positioning. Though most twins sleep side-by-side for the first month, you should feel free to let your twins shift to head-to-head, feet-to-feet, or side-by-side diagonal without concern.
This means that each twin won't obstruct the other's breathing. Have your babies sleeping in the same room as you until they are at least six months old, particularly if they were premature or born with a low birth weight.
Regarding #1 (co-bedding), the conservative/mainstream school of thought in the western world is that it's best to separate the twins “early on” since they'll need their own sleeping space eventually. The attachment parenting contingent refutes this, saying twins can sleep together indefinitely and are happier for it.
Experts say it's important to separate twins at naptime for the same reasons that it's important to have them sleep in separate cribs.
One crib is fine in the beginning.
"Newborn twins can certainly remain in the same crib initially," Walker says. "If they sleep better when they know the other is close by, crib-sharing can last up until they move into their childhood beds."
The longest interval between the birth of twins is 90 days, in the case of Molly and Benjamin West, dizygotic (fraternal) twins born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA to parents Lesa and David West (all USA) on 1 January and 30 March 1996.
Even if you start your twins together in school, they tend to be separated as they get older (around age 8). The transition from home life to school might be easier with both together but they likely can't be together forever.
Measures included actigraphy, sleep diaries, and standardized instruments for fatigue, sleep quality, and depression. According to the results, by the time the twins reached full-term, mothers were sleeping an average of 5.4 hours in a 24-hour period, with over 70 percent reporting less than six hours of sleep.
The reality is that although a good night's sleep is coming, it is safe to assume that your twins will be waking each other up during the night. And it's not just twins. Often two children of different ages who share a room will wake each other as they get used to sharing a room.
Try some baby-soothing tactics
Try singing or reading to them, giving them a little massage, doing a funny dance to entertain them or even taking them outside for some fresh air. Just remember that what works for one baby may not work for the other, so you may have to try something totally different for each infant.
Do twins take longer to sleep through the night?
You'll even see one twin's sleep patterns differ from the other twin. Some twins will start sleeping through the night as early as 8-10 weeks. Typically you can start seeing longer sleep stretches around 12 weeks. Many twins wait until 4-6 months.
Your first year of raising twins will be tough. Expect less sleep, as your world will revolve around feeding your twins, burping them, changing them and putting them to sleep, all while constantly washing two sets of everything from clothes to feeding bottles. Financial costs are also higher with twins.
Not all twins experience separation anxiety but maternal and fraternal twins are at a greater risk of experiencing such anxiety. Twin separation anxiety is not only contextualized as separation between twins. It can also be viewed as separation between a parent and a twin.
Whilst Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is extremely rare, the rate is two- to four-times higher in twins, compared to singleton babies. This is likely to be because many more twins are born premature and/or at a low birth weight; factors which are associated with increased SIDS risk in all babies.
You Can Only Control the Things Within Your Control
“Having twins is not twice as hard—it's exponentially more difficult,” says Natalie Diaz, author of What To Do When You're Having Two and CEO of Twiniversity, a global support network for parents of twins.
However, for a given pregnancy, only the mother's genetics matter. Fraternal twins happen when two eggs are simultaneously fertilized instead of just one. A father's genes can't make a woman release two eggs.
You may like to sleep your twins in their own Moses baskets or cots from birth, or you may decide to co-bed them in the early weeks and months. Co-bedding means siblings share the same sleep surface during any sleep period, for example by being in the same cot together.
There is not an official age when boy/girl twins should stop sharing a room. Therefore, you should ask your twins what they think. Talk to them about what they would like to do. If they are happy in the same room, and you as parents don't have any issues with that, twins sharing a room is a perfectly fine arrangement.
Sleep training twins isn't very different from that of single babies, as long as your little ones are healthy. For full-term infants, the sweet spot to start sleep training is between 4 and 6 months, as this is when babies are old enough to self-soothe and fall asleep independently.
While 40 weeks is the full gestation period of the average pregnancy, most twin pregnancies are delivered at approximately 36 weeks (range 32-38 weeks depending on the type of twin pregnancy).
What are identical twins called?
Sometimes a fertilised egg splits within a few days of conception to produce genetically identical twins. Because these twins come from one zygote, they're also known as monozygotic.
It's also possible to have twins that were conceived at different times in a process called superfetation. In exceedingly rare cases, a woman might release two eggs during ovulation, but not at the same time. In such cases, twins may actually be born on different days.
Twin laws are symmetry operations that define the orientation between twin crystal segments. These are as characteristic of the mineral as are its crystal face angles. For example, crystals of staurolite show twinning at angles of almost precisely 90 degrees or 30 degrees.
Babies and toddlers have the same schedule, the same needs, and realistically the same interests. Keeping them together and on the same routine helps life run smoothly. This makes alone time all the more important for twins. They can play and just focus on themselves, no one bothering them.
They found that twins at first birth were linked to higher divorce rates at 13.7% compared to 12.7% for singletons. The link was statistically higher among moms attending college at 14.4% with twins vs. 10.5% with single births.