Hello,

My triplets are 6 months and they sleep great at night. 10-12 hours but naptime is not really working. They are definitely tired and we try naps around 3 times a day but they last sometimes less than 30 mins. They sleep in the same room and although they don't wake eachother at night they seem to wake eachother during the day. Does anyone have any tips on scheduling the naps and how to respond when they start crying after only a short time? Or ANY other tips ??
Thanks!!

Jen Comerci
Mom to Giovanni, Carina and Giacomo born 7/22/11 at 37 weeks

I like the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child from Marc Weissbluth. It helped us be prepared for any changes in sleep behavior and so far we've fared pretty well and have not had serious problems. There's a lot of tips in there so I really recommend it.

That said, we have experienced the same nap issue as you and I have to say we never found a great solution. Our kids (now 1 year) took three naps until recently and their naps often were quite short, like 30 minutes and once in a while if I was lucky an hour. We put them down about every two hours and while I would have liked to extend their time awake they just got too tired so we lived with the short naps for a while. They did not seem overtired usually but it was hard for me to get anything done with those short naps. We have them all in the same room and there have been a couple days when I put the crying baby (who was really tired but did not want to go to sleep - it's usually the same one) out into the pack-and-play to go to sleep there. Otherwise we just keep them in the same room. Most of the time that's fine but on a few occasions everyone woke up and did not want to nap anymore.

You might also try to have them nap in swings. Ours really loved their swings and it calms them down and they love the vibration mode. They liked being rocked real hard in the swings so sometimes that helped put them back to sleep.

This week I have switched them to two naps a day and so far their naps have been much longer, about 1 to 1.5 hours. But that is too early for yours, unfortunately.

Well, I hope that helps at least a little. Good luck!

Best,

Karin
BGG @35 weeks, 1/14/11

We also used Healthy sleep habits....if you get it, get the regular book, not the one for multiples - it was much of the same information but less of it. one of the key message from the multiples version of this book was to stick with the schedule..including scheduled wake ups to protect nap and night sleep.

Naps were difficult...we stopped the third nap sometime around 5-6 months adjusted and went with a 9:30am, 1:30 pm naps and then 6:30 bed...the girls were tired with the adjusted schedule...they didn't catch on right away however, gradually they started extending the naps. We did this in combination with sleep training as guided by the healthy sleep habits book...worked out well.

we've kept ours in the same rooom and, at times they do wake each other up however, generally, they sleep through each other's cries...

hope that helps...

Janet
G - 12/07 35 weeks
GGG-04/10 30 weeks

My trips are 6 months as well and naps drive me crazy!! About a month ago we were still doing 4 naps but I realized that we needed to move to 3 and then to two which we just started this week. I'm finding them to be overall happier babies w/ 2 naps. They are so off and on with whether or not they take a good nap. My son is really the one who has a hard time. One of my girls is a PERFECT sleeper/napper and the other girl is so-so. Seems we only get one good nap a day that lasts about 2 hours. The other lasts about 1 good solid hour. They eat around 7 p.m. for the night. Our schedule goes as follows:

7:30 - bottle
8:30- Breakfast
9:30- nap
11:30- wake/bottle
12:30- lunch
1:30- nap
3:30- wake/bottle
5:30ish- dinner
7- bottle/bed

All times in between are playtime. I've had to let mine cry it out quite a bit for them to get the hint that this is nap time!!! I noticed that once I moved to 2 naps a day they napped better than when I was forcing more naps b/c they were taking shorter/less solid ones.

Liz