Need Help with Getting Twins to Sleep Through the Night

My boss and his wife have 10 month old identical twin boys. They too stuggled at first. However, they soon learned BOTH babies need ONE schedule. They wake together, feed together, nap together, feed together again and then go to bed together. They let no more than 5 minutes slip by from one baby to the other. It works wonders for mom, dad, and twins.

Best of luck to you!

I am a mother of an 8 year old and 3year old boy/girl twins!!!!! I totally know where you a coming from. A schedule helped me. I followed it like clock work. I woke them up at the same time at night. Do you have any help at night? I was lucky enough to have my mom for the first 12 weeks. How often do they eat during the day? I tried to get 4 feeding during the day. I always would bathe them and get them go and awake before their last feeding. I wanted them to have a full tummy. Hang in there!! My twins starting sleeping through the night about 12 weeks. Yeah!!!

Hi S.,

I have boy/girl twins and I would wake them up and feed them together. They slept together in a crib in my room. They were in the NICU for about 6 1/2 weeks, so when they got home, we were told to wake them every 3 hours to feed them. We did that until they were 5 months old. Then we would let them sleep until one of them woke up and then we would wake the other one up. I also kept them on a routine. I use Baby Wise, for a single baby. They are 2 now!

Ohhhhh S. I feel your pain. I had twins 24 years ago and STILL wince @ the memory of all those nights I went w/o sleep. Since I was nursing them I couldn't expect much help from Dad. In fact the one time I tried to leave them with him for an hour he FREAKED at not being able to deal with their crying....can you imagine leaving infants w/o a cellphone?
The only thing that saved me was bringing them to a very close by Mother's Day Out - I would just go home and sleep as long as I could before they'd call me.

I could never bear to follow that advice to wake up a sleeping baby. But it may be the only way. As it was, I let them both nurse on demand and was practically a zombie by the time they were 4 months old. The electronic swing soothed them a lot, but really, I was their only ticket to happiness for 1/2 a year and that did take its toll. Now all these years later I'm glad I was able to cope becuase they've never had ANY health issues and I feel proud to have given them the best possible nourishment. But these were my only kids. Since you have two others to care for, unless you can get a "mother's helper" in I guess you may have to get them on the same schedule. Hang in there and please know it WILL get better soon!

Hey -
I don't have twins, but I do have an 8 month old who is still not sleeping through the night. Two months is not too early to start setting a schedule, but it is too early (I think) to expect a baby to sleep through the night. My baby is still waking up once in the night.

-L.

I have 4 1/2 year old twin boys. My boys were in the NICU for a bit and we had to feed them every 3 hours, 24 hours a day for 8 weeks. We were not able to start sleep training them until they were 2 months old. It took another 3 months to get them to consistently sleep 5-6 hours at a stretch at night. By the time they were 6-7 months old, they were sleep 8-10 hours a night and by 8 months, they were sleeping around 12 hours a night.

My recommendation is this: Put them on a strict routine. When one feeds, feed the other. That means you might have to wake one up at night. At this age, if they cry because they are tired, you've waited a little too long to put them down for a nap. Try to catch them before they get overtired. We did a routine during the day of eat/play/sleep. They would wake up around 7am and by 8:30-9am they were ready for at least a 2 hour nap. When I KNEW they needed to sleep, I would put them to bed (in their cribs), give them a quick snuggle, and leave the room. Don't linger. Sometimes I had to go step outside so I wouldn't hear them cry.

Routine, routine, routine will get you where you need to be. If you can get 4 hours of straight sleep, you will feel like a new woman!

I have two sets of twins; my older ones were 3 when the younger ones were born; I work and my husband travels during the week quite a bit. Fortunately, I did have a night nanny the first 3 months and that helped a lot. For the most part, I would suggest that you continue to wake the second twin when feeding one, but also you should follow your own instincts, too. In each of my set of twins, one tends to be a better sleeper than the other. So at some point, one will sleep longer and better than the other (maybe) and you may want to stop waking the 2nd one and see what happens. Mine tended to sleep better after they learned to roll over on their tummy. At 2 months, you should be swaddling them and that will help a lot; it makes them feel very secure. To me they seem too young to be going six whole hours; were they premature at all? You have to adjust for gestational age. I started stretching their feedings during the day by 15 minutes to help them start to go a little longer, but be careful not to go too long; you do want them to eat as much as they need during the day. Be sure to keep them up for a while during the day and play with them so that they will sleep better at night. All of my babies had stomach problems; a little bit of reflux and that kept them from sleeping well. During the day you need to get as much rest as you can; I'm sure that's not easy with a 3 and 6 year old. Any chance you can get the 6 yr old to take a nap? See if you can get a friend to come by during the day and give you a little relief. It will get better.

HI S.

Congrats on the little ones. I have 5 month old triplets. I can remember those days about OMG how will I ever get them to sleep thru the night. I did what you do, wake all three up when one got up so I wouldn't have to keep getting up. I have also tried seeing who will sleep thru the night. I don't think there is a perfect science to it, one night they just slept thru. But to be honest they were born in March and they didn't start sleeping thru the night until june 5th. I am not a let them cry it out mom-unless I have too. I know you don't think it will ever happen...but they will start sleeping thru the night...good luck

I have a 6 year old boy/girl twins. When they came home from the hospital, I left them in the same crib until 1 learned to roll over. I think having them share the crib helped because sometimes they are waking for comfort. Also, if 1 woke up hungry, we would wake the other. I did not need to be up all night. I do not remember exactly when they were sleeping for 6 hours at a time, but they were sleeping through the night at 4 months old. This is also when they both learned to roll over and we moved them to seperate beds. I hope that this helps. Good Luck

Hi S.,

My twin girls are 10 now, but when they were babies we did wake 1 up when the other woke to eat. Like your first response, routine is the key to sanity. Keep them on the same schedule, they will adjust.

Another thing we did that saved us. My husband and I would alternate at night. I would do the 8pm feeding and go straight to bed after that. He would keep them awake, play with them, then put them down to sleep. He would then watch TV or do things around the house and when they woke again for the next feeding, 11pm or midnight, he would take care of that feeding then go to bed. I would then get up for the next feeding (3am or 4 am) and he would sleep until morning. This gave us both a huge chunk of sleep and made dealing with the babies and our 18 month old so much easier for me during the day. If your hubby is willing, I highly recommend this strategy.

When they were about 4 months old, we dropped the middle of the early morning feeding. Took about 3 nights of crying it out, and some early morning feedings about 5:30 or 6:00 am, but we were all getting 6-7 hours a night now.

Good luck!

My answer to this, was definately not everyone's favorite pick. I was nursing my twin boys through the night. I slept topless on my back with one twin on either side of me and they would nurse in their sleep. There would be nights that I had slept straight through and forgot to change diapers, though, so we would be completely soaked in the morning. BUT it did solve my sleep deprivation issue! I did that until they were about 3 months old before they started getting comfortable in their own cribs.