The sheer thought of sleep training twins had me terrified, let alone actually having to actually follow through and do it! Ultimately my fears were based on three huge factors:

  1. I have never sleep trained before for night sleep, only for Miss H’s naps way back when, so I was fairly intimidated by it all.
  2. There are two babies in one room, which means they have the ability to keep each other up for hours on end.
  3. Certainly extensive night crying would also ruin whatever sleep Miss H was getting, despite the use of white noise machines.

In all fairness, I think all three of those are quite good reasons to be scared! Fortunately there was one major reason in favor of sleep training that trumped any concerns: SLEEP! I wanted it. Badly. Right before we decided to sleep train the twins were consistently giving us 6-7 hour stretches of sleep but I was greedy for more.

Before deciding to sleep train I made sure that we’d met the following criteria:

  1. They were over 4 months old.
  2. They were past their 4 month sleep regression phase and past any fussiness related to their 4 month immunizations.
  3. They had each more than doubled their birth weights.
  4. They were able to put themselves to sleep (not a necessity of sleep training but certainly a help).
  5. They were able to take slightly bigger bottles throughout the day to ensure their daily intake of formula didn’t dip when we dropped the middle of the night feeding.

Twins_4Months

Little do they know: sleep training is right around the corner!

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At about 4 1/2 months old I decided the twins were ready. I was still intimidated by sleep training, but I don’t have the spare time to read very much about infant sleep so I had to wing it and just push my fears aside. I also had to stop looking at having two of them in the room together as a negative, as it is what it is. And certainly part of being a multiple is getting used to hearing crying siblings. Finally, despite wanting to put ear plugs in Miss H’s ears (jokingly, of course!) I had to risk some rough nights of sleep for her as well in order to hopefully facilitate better sleep for all of us in the long run.

And with that, we were ready to go. Our strategy was fair simple – we decided that we would just let them cry it out (CIO) when they woke up for their middle of the night feeding, which typically took place anywhere between 1-3am. I know there are different tactics for CIO regarding whether or not you go in and soothe your child and how frequently you do so. For us we opted to not go in and soothe them because it really just riled them up even more. I also gave us a time limit of 1 hour of crying before we determined if we’d let them continue crying or if we would go in.

A few notes: if one baby wakes up and we decide to feed him/her, then we wake up the sleeping baby so they stay on the same schedule. Also, after an early morning feeding (anywhere from 4:30-6:30am) the babies go back to sleep until roughly 8am. Our ideal time for an early morning feeding is around 5:30am when Mr. H and I are up for the day.

Night 1
6:53pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
12:06am: Mr. Hop woke up and cried until 12:58am before falling back asleep.
12:10am: Miss Hop woke up and cried until 12:35am before falling back asleep.
3:45am: Mr. Hop woke up again so we fed both babies.

Night 2
6:56pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
3:45am: Mr. Hop woke up so we fed both babies.

Night 3
6:56pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
11:00pm: Mr. Hop fussed off and on until 1:50am, when we finally fed him and Miss Hop, who had been sleeping through all of the fussing. While it wasn’t full on crying he wasn’t sleeping restfully so we thought in this instance a bottle would help, even if it set us back.

Night 4
7:00pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
8:00pm-1am: Mr. Hop fussed off and on.
1:00am: Miss Hop woke up and then both babies cried a lot for 20 minutes before it started to taper off. Mr. Hop fell asleep first and then Miss Hop a little while later. Both were asleep by 2am.
5:36am: Mr. Hop woke up and we fed both babies.

Night 5
7:00pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
6:40am: Both woke up and we fed them. Consider this their first official sleep through the night.

Night 6
7:20pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
4:50am: Mr. Hop woke up so we fed both babies.

Night 7
7:14pm: Both went to sleep with no fussing.
5:40am: Mr. Hop woke up so we fed both babies.

As you can see, by the end of the first week the twins had dropped their middle of the night wakeup/feeding! They also were able to sleep through the other one’s crying – either not wake up at all or fall asleep in the midst of their sibling’s crying – amazing. And to top it all off, Miss H slept through all of the crying!

Since the first week of sleep training we have had a couple of rough nights – likely caused by teething – that have necessitated some off-schedule feedings. But overall once they had a few nights of consistently sleeping through the night they have been able to continue the great sleep. I have absolutely no regrets, all of my fears have vanished, and I am constantly astonished that the twins have become such fantastic little sleepers.

Oh, and I am finally started to remember what real sleep feels like!