Dear Debbie,

I am expecting twins in May and I am very fortunate to have my husband stay home for 2 weeks and my mother coming to visit. Do I really need a doula to help me?

Casey

Hi Casey,

First of all...congratulations!

As a mother of twins myself, I can understand first hand how difficult it is to have 2 babies at the same time. It is great that you are going to have your husbands and mothers help when the babies come home. After all, this is what postpartum support is about. Making sure that mom and dad have someone supporting, helping and guiding them. With twins it makes it a bit more difficult because there are 2 babies. Sometimes, they can be completely off schedule from each other and sometimes you may have both babies cranky and upset at the same time so to have 2 pairs of hands at the beginning is crucial. You may also find that although the 3 of you are doing great in the day time, that overnights seem to be a challenge. This would be  agreat way to let the doula help. While grandma and dad get some sleep, your night doula can help you nurse so that it cuts the time that you are awake in half or if you are offering a bottle, the doula will gladly feed and soothe babie swhile you get some rest yourself. The doula will also teach you all the tricks and tips you need to learn with twins such as handling both babies at the same time, nursing at the same time and even how to soothe them when they are both fussy.  So to answer your question, it is very different for every family. The main concern is that you have the support. Some families feel that grandma and dad supporting may be enough where other families feel that they may quickly get exhausted and need the extra support. The goal of the doula is to work herself out of a job so she wants to come in on a short term basis, get your family established with a great routine and teach you tools that will help you care for your babies with more confidence. 

I hope this helped.

Debbie

Hi Tracy,

At some point you will notice some changes in your babys sleep patterns. A few things may happen: They may stuggle to fall asleep at nap or bed time, they make wake up early from their nap or morning time or they just may sleep more restlessly. The transition from 3 naps to 2 naps usually happens somewhere between 8 and 12 months. The transition from 2 naps to 1 naps may happen between 12-18 months. If you start to notice that your baby consistantly struggles with falling asleep or making it through their nap or bedtime and they are within this age range, they probably need to be on the next schedule. This is not something that will just happen once. It is something that will happen every day or most days for a week.

If you feel that your baby does definatley need to reduce the amount of naps, the best way to do this is to start by reducing the length of the nap you are eliminating. Reduce it by half an hour each day so that it is completely gone by the 3rd or 4th day.
Good luck!
Debbie

Hi Debbie,

I have a question:

-          How do you decide that your baby is ready to make a change from 3 naps to 2 naps or 2 naps to 1 nap?  I know that skipping one of the naps once doesn’t seem like enough . . . Do most babies start to do this more and more often leading up to the time that they are ready?

-          Once you have decided that they are ready, do you just move straight to the new schedule or is there some type on transition schedule to ease them into it? 

Thanks for your time,
Tracy

Hi LIsa,

Its always best to try and stay as close to the routine as possible. However, sometimes that is not possible. If you know that baby won't have a proper opportunity to nap, you can always let him sleep a bit longer the previous sleep. For example, if you know he may miss his afternoon nap, offer his morning nap a bit later and let him sleep a bit longer. If regardless of what you have tried, he still missed some of his sleep for the day, offer him a small catnap or put him to bed a tiny bit earlier and as soon as you can get him back on track with his routine and schedule.

Debbie


Hi Debbie,
 
The nap and bedtime scheduling with our baby is going great. My main issue is that sometimes we'll have a bunch of social outings to go to at once, which really disrupt our baby's routine. Last week, for example, we had 3 family functions to attend all close together. Most weeks are "normal" and Luca's routine stays very consistent with no interruptions. But how should we deal when these types of interruptions happen, as they inevitably will? (Especially when they happen all at once!!) Our baby usually needs a good solid week to return to napping like normal, after these types of things happen, and I'm wondering if there is any way to lessen the pain!  On the days that we do have events, we try to travel during his afternoon nap, but this doesn't help things as he never sleeps in the car during that time. He stays awake, and then by the time we reach our destination, he's still awake, and then we're at the event and he's getting stimulated by family members and new environment, and despite our best efforts, he doesn't sleep until we are in the car on the way home. This makes for one over-stimulated, exhausted, cranky baby. Would it make sense to let his morning nap go longer on those days? I always stick to the schedule as much as I can, but would it be ok to stray a bit more to make sure that he does get enough sleep? What's better to do- try to not mess too much with the schedule, even though that means way less sleep, OR alter the schedule even more on those days in order to get as much sleep as possible, when we have the opportunity! Let me know what would be the best thing to do! Thanks! Lisa