Do they sleep through the night?

Sound asleep on our most recent trip to NYC.

Read this post yesterday and just had to comment on it.  From the moment we brought our tiny preemie twins home people asked two questions:  How are they eating? and Do they sleep through the night yet?  Well, they’ve always eaten pretty good but sleeping is a whole other story.  I wish I could say they sleep great, but honestly they don’t.  I sure wish they did.  I think my marriage would be happier and I would be less grumpy and more willing to exercise but their sleep habits are honestly exhausting.

As infants, they were tube fed every three hours in the hospital.  It took almost a year to break them of the need to eat that often.  Since they were conditioned to do this the first month of their lives in the hospital it was like it got hard wired into their brains to eat this way.  Now, even though they are two they still want a snack often.   But, the real issue is that they wake in the night often.  Too often.

It’s hard to believe that any child that sleeps like this could have trouble sleeping through the night.

My boys have never attached to a blanket but do love thier pillow pets pee wees.  They each have three and we alternate them when we can.  They are always one in our travel bags.   The boys also like their Twilight Turtle.  All of these tools help them to get to sleep, but none of them help them to STAY asleep.   Anytime between 12am and 5am the boys wake up.  Not at the same time.  Usually seperately.  They wake crying, sometimes hysterical and nothing seems to comfort them.  We have tried staying in their room and talking with them.  We have tried rocking, singing, rubbing their backs, bringing them downstairs; honestly everything.  We started to bring them into our bed because that is the only way they will get to sleep.  Some nights they get in bed with us and sleep perfectly.  Some nights they toss and turn and push and kick and pinch and try to crawl on top of us.  This graphic that was recently posted by Today’s Parent on their Facebook page is the perfect visual, times two of course!

See the whole description at HowToBeADad.com Image