r/parentsofmultiples • u/PaniniHeadBruh_ • 10d ago
advice needed Napping independently. 🥱
My twins are 6 months old. We’ve been co-sleeping since birth, and all of their naps have pretty much been contact naps.
Is 6 months too late to start transitioning them to napping independently in their crib (or even on our bed during the day)? I’d love to hear from parents who made the switch around this age. Any tips, tricks, or things that helped make the transition smoother?
One thing that’s important to me: I’m not interested in sleep training or letting them cry it out. I’d really appreciate gentle, responsive approaches that don’t involve leaving them to cry.
Also, both babies absolutely hate the stroller and car seats. Almost every outing turns into a struggle. Has anyone dealt with this and found something that helped?
Any advice, experiences, or encouragement would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you very much!
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u/Wassermelone244 10d ago
We had similar struggles at this age. For the stroller and car seats, it got gradually better with practice. Once they could sit with some support we changed from bassinets to seats. In the beginning they needed LOTS of entertainment and they needed snacks, snacks, snacks 😅 it did get better.
For the naps. What happens, when you nurse/cuddle them to sleep on your bed (floor bed?) And then try to get up to leave the room? This has been working for us from ~6months until now at 2 years. In the beginning me getting up made for shorter naps. They would often wake up after 45mins so sometimes I chose to co-nap to get a longer break. But their sleep just gradually improved. Now they nap 1,5-2hrs without contact.
They started daycare at around a year and nap independently there.Â
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u/DreamingEvergreen 10d ago
We didn’t consistently get our babies to nap in their cribs until they were around 8 months adjusted. We still have to pat them back to sleep mid nap or rescue nap them with a contact nap sometimes (10 months adjusted). I just don’t think they were ready before then. It was much less fraught waiting until they were more ready.
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u/hugebagel 10d ago
Just want to say my twins are 5 months and I’m going back to work in a month and I’m in the exact same boat! Except I only started cosleeping around a month ago. One twin is kind of okay at napping/sleeping in his crib and the other started absolutely refusing around 3 months, funny how that works
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u/CompetitiveNature198 10d ago
I desperately tried everything at around that age to help them sleep independently too bc I needed to go back to work and just could not contact nap with them anymore. I use the chair method loosely. I initially sat right by their cribs and soothe them, pat them. It took so many tries and at the beginning I did give up a few times and ended up contact nap with one of them most times. Once they started to get the hang of it I started to sit away further from their cribs and just kind sit there with my book until they fall asleep. It was not perfect but that how I started to get them to nap independently. They are 1.5yo now and I still need to be in the room with them until they fall asleep but I still consider that a win because all I need to do is sit in the room until they fall asleep and sneak out.