Sleep training

Having the girls learn how to soothe themselves to sleep and stay asleep was necessary for my sanity because I needed to sleep. So I pulled out the books that I used to sleep train Porter and got to work. I knew it would be harder to train the girls because not only was I dealing with two babies at once but I was dealing with two babies who have different sleep personalities and are sleeping in the same room. But I was determined.

The main book I used for actual sleep training was Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old. It is short and sweet and totally works. I used it for Porter and was able to get him to sleep the 12 hours by the time he was 9 weeks old and he has been great ever since. The book was first made for multiples and it takes longer to sleep train multiples because they usually are smaller so that's why it says by 12 weeks, but for singletons you can do it earlier.

For multiples the book says that it would be quicker to train the babies if you follow their individual patterns than if you kept them on the same schedule. But I was not about to wake up and just feed the one baby that had woken up then just have to get up later for the other baby, so I kept them on the same schedule and fed both at the same time, which meant waking one of them up. Thus it did actually take longer to sleep train because I wasn't exactly working with each babies' own sleep pattern, but I had to do that for my own sanity and sleep. Plus you can't start training the babies until they are 9 lbs each and it took forever for Scarlet to get to that point so that also delayed things. But I had them both going the 12 hours at night by the time they were 13 weeks. That was my goal because that was when my surgery was and since I couldn't lift the babies I didn't want to have to make Jeff or one of my parents get up with me in the middle of the night to feed the babies. After that point I wasn't needing to feed them during the night but I did have to help them soothe themselves sometimes if they woke up before it was time to feed them again.

With twins you need to be very organized or else you will go crazy. So my schedule for them is I wake them up and feed them at 8am, feed them again at 12pm, then 4pm, and then get them ready for bed and feed them again at 8pm after which I put them to bed and don't go in again until 8am. Sometimes now I do hear them wake up during that time but they either soothe themselves back to sleep or wait and play happily until I go in at 8am. They also nap around 9:30am, again at 1:30pm, and have a short nap around 5:30pm. This book is fabulous!

This book has helped too in that it gives a nice background behind sleep and babies and gives tips on how to handle sleep for babies at different ages and under different circumstances. It's an awesome reference.

This book also gave more 'how to' info and other practical advice.

When I had sleep trained Porter and had him on this awesome schedule other people were saying that I was just lucky and had a good baby. He even never complained when it was bed time or nap time, he just knew and expected that it was time to sleep. But I knew he was a good sleeper because I had showed him how to be, but I didn't want to argue with people. So when I got pregnant again I knew I was going to sleep train the same way again, but little did I know there would be two to sleep train. So the challenge was on. If I could have the same kind of awesome success with twin babies then I knew it wasn't just luck of the draw that I had good sleepers. Simone and Scarlet definitely have different sleep personalities. But I was able to work with them and help them learn to soothe themselves, which is the key to sleep training. I had the babies in the same crib until 10 weeks when I noticed that their flailing arms and legs would wake each other up. So now they are in their own cribs but since they have been sharing a room since day one if one cries it doesn't wake the other up.

I'm writing this because with Porter I felt like not many people believed that that 12 Hours book really worked for every baby, but I know it does and I know there are people out there who could totally benefit from this.

Just as an update on nursing the girls, instead of offering formula to Scarlet I have been nursing them longer at each feeding to really get my milk going. I didn't want to deplete my milk supply by giving formula because I have worked too hard to be able to nurse both girls and I knew that the more formula I offered the less I would make. Plus they were going through a growth spurt (I had read about the 4 month growth spurt) so I just kept them on longer at each feeding, and a few times I had to add in extra feedings. But the growth spurt is over and things are going good. But I am still keeping them on longer to ensure they do get enough.

Just had to include a recent pic of the girls.