Magic Sleep Suits

Someone asked what I thought of the Magic Sleep Suits so I figured I'd write a post about how the girls are sleeping now, and the challenges that are coming up.  This has been on my mind for a while so this is as good a time as any to write this.

Right now, I'm loving these things!  The girls outgrew their swaddles a month or so ago and at the same time, someone posted a coupon code for getting these at half price so I went ahead and bought two of them to try them out.

We put the girls in their little suits and they pretty much go right to sleep.  They sleep through the night, a solid 12 hours or so and don't appear to wake themselves up much.

When we first got them, we thought they would be useless for some time because they are designed to be really snug, but the girls were swimming in them.  They come in sizes 3-6m and 6-9m.  The larger of my girls is only now crossing over from 3m clothing to 3-6m clothing.  But they've been doing fine these even though their little arms and legs barely got into the arm and leg holes and certainly didn't reach enough for the hands and feet to come out of the ends.

At first, the girls couldn't move at all.  They weren't strong enough and their limbs weren't long enough to move around.  Now they are able to move a little bit, but their movement is very limited.  They can reach their mouths with their hands when they want to and they can kick their legs, but they have to flex and use some strength to do that.  Once they fall asleep, they're just little starfish lying there.  Tina has recently been able to scoot herself around enough to turn about 90 degrees, but that's the extent of the movement we've seen.

We zip up Charlottes Wubba in the suit so that the body of it is mostly under her armpit and the nipple sticks out.  She's able to turn her head to suck on it and turn her head the other way when she doesn't want it.  But it's always right there if she wants it again.

When one of these is in the laundry, the girls do have a tougher time falling asleep.  For the most part, we're able to get it washed and dried before their next nap so this hasn't been a big deal.  It's rare that we've had to put them down without a suit.  But yeah, whichever one doesn't get her sleep suit has more trouble going to sleep.  Charlotte had such a rough time yesterday in just a plain sleep sack that I eventually went in and tightly wrapped a swaddling blanket around her chest and she finally fell asleep.

They are just now growing into the size they are supposed to be for these and we've already purchased the next size up.  At the rate my girls grow (slooooooooow), those could last until they are 16-18 months old!

Concerns that I have:

1)  Being too warm.  These are like snowsuits so I have to imagine they are really warm.  We keep the girls in either jammies or onesies, but not both when we put them in these.  It's winter now so I'm not very concerned at the moment, but when we cross over into the summer months, I think I'm going to write to the company and ask about that.

2)  Snuza muffling.  I was worried that there is so much thickness of material that it would completely muffle the Snuza alarm.  We tested it out and the alarm is a little bit quieter.  We turned up the volume on our monitor one notch to compensate.

3)  They really can't move much.  This is generally a good thing, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that all the squirming around and moving that babies do while asleep is somehow good for development.  Problem is, I can't remember where I read that and I can't seem to google anything that will tell me that again so I don't really know if that's true or not.  If anyone else can lead me to that information, I'd appreciate it.

4)  If they manage to roll over, I'm not sure how easily they'd be able to roll back.  They haven't done that yet, show no signs of being anywhere near able to when wearing these things, so I'll worry about it when it happens.  I'm pretty sure that were they to do so now, they could turn their heads and breathe just fine and they're only getting stronger with time.

5)  They only go up to size 6-9m.  For my girls, no big deal, that's going to last a while.  But what happens when they can't wear these anymore?  Are we creating a dependence we're going to have a hell of a time undoing?  We have that same question about them sharing a crib.  They are somewhat dependent on each other, getting upset when the other one hasn't made it into the crib yet, when one cries, the other grabs her hand and that often stops the crying.  What's going to happen when they can't sleep side by side anymore and each need their own sleep space?

Overall, yes I recommend these.  They seem to do what they claim to do and my girls sleep very well in them.  Added benefit if you have twins that sleep together - they can't really move enough to smack or kick each other.  Pretty much how you set them down is how you're going to find them when they wake up.


*****Update*****


A few people expressed concern that the girls looked like they were roasting in the pictures.  Their cheeks were really flushed and Tina has some drool on her chin that further looks like she's just dying.  Don't worry, the cheeks had nothing to do with the temperature.  I took those pics right when I got Charlotte in the suit and before Tina was even zipped in.  That was before their nap, not after.

When the girls get overtired, their cheeks and nose go red.  My mother commented on it this morning when we were all out for breakfast.  After about 2 hours of awake time, they get overtired and their cheeks flush.  Here's a picture from this evening, Charlotte refused her afternoon nap and had been awake for a few hours by the time we took this picture.  Big rosy cheeks and a cheesy dad.

This was the closest thing I could find to a picture taken immediately after a nap.  They go from the crib, sometimes directly into the high chair to eat, sometimes there's a diaper change in there....anyway, since Tina doesn't have food on her face in this picture and I hadn't yet put the tray in place, this must have been within a few minutes of waking up and being taken out of her sleep suit.  No rosy cheeks!

Just wanted to reassure everyone that the girls are perfectly fine.  While the rosy cheeks and Tina's drool covered chin does look like they were sweltering in the those pictures, they weren't.  They weren't even warm at that particular moment.  Y'all know how paranoid I am about being judged as being unworthy.  The last thing I need is CPS showing up at my door reporting that a bunch of people from the internet are claiming I'm roasting my babies alive every night.  And again, when spring comes around and the nursery temp increases, I'm going to really keep an eye on how warm they are in the suits.  I appreciate everyone's concern and if anyone knows anything about temperatures and these suits, please share that info in the comments.

Today didn't work

Most days, we've got a pretty good groove going.  Wake up, eat, play, after they've been awake for about 90-120 minutes, down for a nap, rinse and repeat.

Today, Tina wouldn't finish her bottles.  She left about half an ounce in all of them.  She did that thing that she does where when she's eating solids, she cries like her tummy hurts or something until the spoon gets near her and then she gobbles it down.  We've figured out that her problem is that she likes eating so much, she gets upset at the pause in between bites.

Charlotte finished her bottles, but was just a spit up queen.  Every time I took my eyes off her and looked back, it was time for another wardrobe change.  Most often it was because she spit up, but we lost an outfit or two to errant poop.  I stopped putting her in jammies and started going for tshirts and pants in hopes of reducing the amount of laundry she was generating, but no, she managed to spit up on both the tshirt and the pants just to ensure we did a full wardrobe change every 5 minutes.  Between them, they also necessitated putting the tummy time play mat and 2 boppy covers through the laundry.

Yesterday, we had all of the laundry in the house done and put away.  It was a major undertaking because we were a little behind, but we went to bed with a sense of accomplishment.  Today, I've put through 5 more loads and still have another load in the hamper to do.

Tina was generally content, but not her quite her dynamic, happy self.  She spent a lot of time playing in her exersaucer because Charlotte was getting upset whenever she was put down.  She didn't seem to be hurting in anyway, she would smile and be happy when we sang songs, but she wanted to be held a good portion of the day.  I did my best to engage and interact with Tina while holding Charlotte but still feel like she kind of got the shaft.  Besides, I spent so much of the day at the changing station just changing Charlotte's clothes....I'm just glad both tend to be pretty content playing on their own most times.

Anyway, something was up with their naps today.  After about an hour, both would show tired signs.  I'd keep them up a few more minutes because I figured I was misreading them, but they would continue to show tired signs so I'd put them to bed.  Sometimes that worked out, but other times it was a screamfest for 20 minutes or so before they would conk out.  Then they'd only be asleep for about 30 minutes before getting up again.  Usually when they wake up, they are happy and cheery but today they seemed to wake up crying which is really unusual.  So we spent the day in this weird unpleasant 2 hour cycle when we're usually on a 3-4 hour cycle.

This did not do good things for my pumping schedule.

Thinking back over the whole day, the only thing I can think of is maybe something was off about their milk.  When my folks babysat last night, I started thawing 2 bags in case there wasn't enough fresh in the fridge for the time we were gone.  They weren't needed, so today I distributed that milk into the bottles for today.  Maybe it upset their tummies or something?  I used it less than 24 hours after thawing it.  Tina did reject the last half ounce of her bottles, but chugged down the other 3.5oz and Charlotte seemed to enjoy it just fine.  Normally if there's anything off about the milk, they both reject it outright.  They've never had an issue with thawed milk before.  I just don't know.

Normally bedtime is about 7pm but their naps were so weird, they ended up in bed at 6pm.  Then they woke up about 7:30pm but I didn't want to do a full wake cycle so they got bottles in their crib, I changed both diapers, then did the truncated one person bedtime routine all in the darkened nursery and they went back to sleep about 8:15pm.  I hope their day is over.

No catastrophes or anything, it just didn't work right today.

Going out, it's just not worth it

Whenever they find themselves in
matching jammies, I do a photo session.

I had 2 excursions with the girls this week.  First we went to visit my cousin J and her little girl A (the source of a great deal of my hand me downs), then a couple of days later I took the girls to the mall to hang out with some other twin moms and their kids.

Both trips were fun while we were on them, but I paid the price for both once we got home.  We're in this weird place where the girls are ready for a nap about an hour and 45 minutes after waking up.  Their naps are anything from 30-120 minutes with no predictability other than they start approximately 2 hours after the last one ended.  *Just to make a liar out of me, the girls have today decided that they're going to get crabby 90 minutes after waking up so the naps are closer together than usual*

We're now doing solids 2 or 3 times a day.  Since they are sleeping a solid 12 hours at night, I have to fit in all of their bottles and solid feedings over the course of 12 hours.  I feel like I'm just shoving food into them all the time.

Our wake up routine starts with about 10 minutes of getting the girls out of bed, double checking/changing diapers, getting them both into their high chairs.  Then we eat a puree of some sort and that takes 10-15 minutes.  It might go faster if I were to put a spoon in each hand and feed them at the same time, but I prefer the alternating bites method so I can focus on what I'm doing.  Much less mess this way.  Tina behaves as if she's really upset most of the time, crying as if something is really bothering her.  Her problem is that she likes food so much, she gets upset when it's not her turn.  As soon as the spoon approaches her again, she's all gimme! Gimme! Gimme!  Once the puree is done, we do bottles.  Charlotte generally finishes within about 5 minutes but Tina, oy Tina, she's generally a slow eater anyway and now she's reached the stage where she gets distracted by the tiniest thing so a bottle for her can easily be 15-20 minutes.  I leave the girls in their high chairs while still wearing bibs while I clean up for a few minutes to give them a chance to spit up if they're going to.  Often during the feeding, I've heard either farts or poos so there's usually another few minutes of double checking/changing diapers and or clothing if they spit up.

By this time, they've been awake 45 minutes to an hour.  Normally we move on to play until tired and then another nap.  But, on days where I'm taking them out, I have to factor in the time to put them in car seats, double check the status of the diaper bags, and get us out the door.  That's another 15 minute ordeal, and that's IF I packed the diaper bag ahead of time.  I also have to coordinate pumping which always seems due right when I need to be heading out the door and it takes 20-30 minutes.  My choices are either let the girls play while I pump and ensure that we're going to be really late, take the pump with me and try to pump at my location (never happens), or just skip it and suffer having a porn star physique.  I usually opt to just skip it and pump when we get home.

So it's pretty much guaranteed that I get the girls in the car right when they are supposed to be going down for a nap.  It used to be no problem, the girls would either sleep in the car or just sleep in public, but they won't do either anymore.  The good news around our household is that being put in their crib is a very consistent sleep trigger.  Once they are there, they are pretty much asleep within a few minutes.  The bad news is that they pretty much don't sleep anywhere else now.

They might be napping in the car a little bit, we never did get the darned mirrors set up so I can see them when I'm driving, but I don't really think they are.  I often hear little noises from them and when I get out of the car at my destination, they are looking at me with bright eyes as I unload the stroller.  If they are napping in the car, they wake up the instant the car stops.

Where I live, somehow every destination is about a half hour to get there and about an hour to get back.  Not sure why it always works that way, traffic I suppose, but that's what you can predict.  By the time I get where I'm going, I'm pooped and the girls are overdue for a nap.  But since they won't nap when out and about anymore, my job is to entertain the tired babies.  At the mall, Charlotte was content to just sit in the stroller and suck on her wubbanub but Tina is all action all the time so I had to take her out to visually explore and flirt with all the people.  She really wants to launch herself at everything so it's a workout just holding her.  She was flirting with just everybody, totally distracting the business man trying to make phone calls at the other table.  He didn't seem to mind though and thought she was cute.  She gets so much attention (well, she demands it), I often want to point out "Uh, there's another baby right there in the stroller, yup, she's here too."

After about an hour, it's time to give the girls bottles again.  They've now missed a nap entirely and I'm stuck where ever I am to give them bottles and clean up any spit up that happens.  Pile us all back in the car and hope they'll sleep on the way home while stuck in traffic.  But again, I get home, and there's the bright eyes, no indication that they've slept at all so they're cranky.  I put them down for a nap and go pump and they are just thrown off for the rest of the day.  That nap lasts about 20 minutes so they wake up before I finish pumping and I have to listen to them being pissy trying to get me to come get them while I'm stuck at the machine.  They spend the rest of the evening tired and cranky.  We often have a cry it out night on days that we do our excursions because they are so overtired by bedtime.

I think I'm just going to have to bag going out with the girls for a couple more months.  Evenings are ok when K and I want to take them out to dinner, but during the day by myself, it's just not worth the overall hassle.  I'm hoping that in another month or two, they will consolidate their naps into 2 long naps during the day with longer awake times in between them.  But right now, only having the tolerance of a maximum of 2 hours awake time and being unable to sleep outside of their cribs, sorry folks.  Unless you want to do a 30 minute coffee run somewhere that's right near my house, I think we're going to have to decline.

Getting into the benefits of two at a time

While I would never want to do the newborn stage with 2 again, now that they're getting older, having 2 is really great.

This is demonstrated to me every time we put them in their crib.  Tina is so social, I think she might have real problems if Charlotte weren't right there next to her.  When I'm getting them into their little sleep suits, Tina looks over at Charlotte and just smiles so big and Charlotte looks back at Tina, the wubba pops out of her mouth and she puts on a little grin too.  I tried to get some video of what happens when I put them down for a nap, but as soon as the camera came out, they just stared at it like a deer in the headlights.  The best I could do was a still picture taken from the side as I left the room.

I'm not sure what we're going to do when they can't sleep side by side anymore.  We were going to put a second crib back to back with the first, but now I'm thinking they'll need some space in between them because if they are abut to each other, I can see little hands and heads trying to reach through the bars and getting stuck.  Fortunately they are so small that we've got some time before that becomes an issue.  I think we have months before that crib starts feeling a bit crowded.

This looks like an ultrasound, but it's actually me holding up a camera to my video monitor showing the girls sleeping holding hands.

I believe that having 2 is a reason why sleep is going so well.  When they wake up in the middle of the night, they aren't alone.  So they don't get that fear and they just drift back off to sleep.  In the morning or when they wake up from a nap, they don't cry or scream, they just talk to each other and that's what eventually wakes us up to go get them.  They wake up all smiles and giggles.

I think having 2 is also the reason I'm able to do things like dishes and laundry.  They sit in their exersaucers and when they need some interaction, they look and smile at each other and then go back to playing with the toys.

Me playing with a cinemagraph app on my phone

I'm still having some cuddle issues because there's two of them though.  Or maybe it's because I've been so diligent about their naps.  The minute they start to appear tired, into the crib both of them go.  They never get the opportunity to fall asleep on me.  I don't think they even comprehend that as being an option because I've just never really allowed it.  I wish I could.  But if one falls asleep in my arms, the other one is going to need something and I'll have to disturb the first one.  All that leads to is a tired crying baby who just got startled awake and I don't want to do that.  The good thing is that when they go into the crib, they are asleep within minutes.  The bad thing is that Mama don't get her cuddle quota.  Honestly, that's one of the reasons I'm considering trying for another baby with our leftover embryos in a couple of years.  I would like the experience of just holding a baby while they sleep.  Oh well.  When they're big enough to be able to climb on and off the couch themselves, I'm hoping to get in extra cuddles.