Sleep training?

10-4LilBuddy

Lurker here looking for some advice.  We need to sleep train our kiddos.  She won't go to sleep unless being held and he won't go to sleep unless being fed.  We are exhausted.

My pedi supports doing Ferber, but wasn't sure if it would be better to do them in the same room or separate them while training and then put them back together later.  What do you do?  What do you think?  I can see the benefits of both, but since they wake each other up, I can't figure out how we would go in and soothe on a regular basis.

Thanks!

pillowass

We did Ferber starting at 5 months. It took about a week before things started to gel, and we have had to re-up a few times because of illness/travel, etc. But the improvement in our quality of life was so dramatic that I have become a sleep training evangelist!

We did consider separating them but in the end went with a "rip the bandaid off" approach (weaned them from swaddling and pacifiers at the same time).  They learned very quickly to sleep through each other's crying. At 18 months, they still share a room and sleep through the night reliably. When one wakes up early, the other can continue sleeping, so in that sense I'm glad we kept them together although I wasn't considering this at the time.

Good luck!!

Rachiemoo

I used the Weissbluth method, but I would keep them in the same room since that is what they are used to.  I know my twins seem confused when the other one isn't in the room with them.

twinmom1121

I just read the "healthy sleep habits, happy twins" book and am in the process of starting sleep training my almost 6 month olds. I see a little bit of improvement already after only a few days but we will see if it continues! It suggests to keep the babies in the same room because they will learn to tune out the other baby. I cant wait for the night I sleep longer than 2 hour intervals! ha! Listening to them cru is hard sometimes but I think it ultimately helps them soothe themselves. Good luck!

TREDgirl

We followed the Moms on Call method (two pediatric nurses here in the Atlanta area) and a key component to sleeping through the night is them getting enough food during the day to sustain them at night. You may need to alter that as well. 

Never save the quiet one is our motto! Now ours can sleep through the others nonsense. It took about a week for them to get used to the new schedule. It's all about consistency. By 7pm ours know it's bottle and bed time. Bottle, bed, sound machine on, door closed until 6:30 the next morning. People don't give babies enough credit to learn new routines. 

Of course if one is really upset and going off during the night I will go in and soothe them back to sleep. 

Oh and we started at 5 months old and they are now 7 months. 

SV917

How many times a day do your twins eat? The LC said I should feed H 8-12 times a day because of his weight issues, but we usually only get in 7. He sometimes sleeps through the night but I'm still regularly waking him up to eat because it's so hard to get in enough feeds and pump for E if there's not a MOTN feed. I'd like to get them STTN, but I'm afraid to give up that night session and have more weight issues with H and/or hurt my supply.

SV917

AshB62 said:

SV917 said:

How many times a day do your twins eat? The LC said I should feed H 8-12 times a day because of his weight issues, but we usually only get in 7. He sometimes sleeps through the night but I'm still regularly waking him up to eat because it's so hard to get in enough feeds and pump for E if there's not a MOTN feed. I'd like to get them STTN, but I'm afraid to give up that night session and have more weight issues with H and/or hurt my supply.

My boys are still up once a night to nurse. Before we started sleep training, I was up almost every hour. If they still need one MOTN feeding, I can handle that. A 4-5 hour stretch, followed by a 5-6 hour stretch is like heaven!

Edit: grammar and spelling

Ok. I won't worry about sleep training then. E actually has 2 feeds, but one is around 11, which my husband handles before going to bed. She has to take medicine then anyway. She ends up sleeping with me most nights, but besides that they are pretty good sleepers.