Some say breakup is tough. Well, we are pretty sure they haven’t tried parenting yet. While there is no doubt that your precious ones are the best things that have ever happened to you. They do cry a lot and putting your twins to sleep in the same room at the same time requires a helluva of patience, a heart of steel and truckloads of love. But most of all, you need to make sure that both are on the same sleeping schedule.
Sleep training twins is slightly different from sleep training a single child. Either twin has to get used to sleeping through their sibling waking up at any hour of the night. And then they are tired, fussy and cranky pants the next day.
Sometimes parents can’t help but put the twins in the same room. Not sure if it’s telepathy or something but they do wake up at the same time, all loud and whimpering. However, with proper sleep training, you can make both of your kids snooze through the night peacefully. After reading tons of books on parenting and using our years of experience as parents, we have come up with some useful hacks for sleep training twins. So here we go:
5 Simple Tricks To Sleep Training Twins Babies
1. Maintaining the Same Schedule:
Make sure to fix a consistent bedtime routine for the twins. The nighttime routine should begin at least half an hour before they are supposed to sleep. For example, if they hit the sack at 8 pm, start the routine (this involves changing diapers, singing lullaby, cuddling and all that) at 7:30.
In fact, if they are early, it might help in other ways too. It’s not that they would instantly fall asleep. There are a lot of lullabies to be sung and stories to be told. And even after that, they would play around for a bit before they finally fall asleep.
To sync their nap schedule, also try to wake both up at the same time. If one wakes up early and doesn’t fuss, wait until they do and then feed it.
The only exception to this case would be if the sensitive sleeper wakes up in the middle of the night hungry and fussy. In that case, feed it immediately and soothe it to sleep.
If you succeed in maintaining the same schedule for both, their internal body- clock will eventually tell them to doze off when hits 8.
2. Teaching Them The Hard Way:
As we stated earlier, sometimes you need a heart of steel to put your little munchkins to sleep at the same time. Many expert pediatricians recommend that you let your twins cry themselves to sleep. This is because after the age of 4 months, they learn to self-sooth.
So if you are sleep training 1 year old twins, this is not cruelty, this is simply good parenting, alright? However, while you implement this technique, be very sure that the babies are fed properly before hitting the sack.
It is very painful to do so in the beginning but anything for the betterment for your babies, right? In some cases, while the other twin does wake up as well, after a few days, they learn to go back to sleep.
Eventually, both the twins learn to sleep through the night at the same time. You might be concerned about any psychological repercussions about letting your babies cry. But mostly, they will be well rested and happier. What else can a parent possibly ask for?
3. Keep Tabs on Them and Soothe When They Fuss:
Our motherly instincts do call for at least a periodic check through-out the night. So if they start crying, check on them every few minutes. However, don’t feed them unless you’re really sure they are having hunger pangs. You can also use a baby monitor to keep tabs on the activities of your twins from afar instead of sneaking into their room every now and then. That will give you some much-needed rest and peace of mind as well.
Just soothe them a little, and reinsert the pacifier. Instead of a pacifier, you can also give them any other comfort object like Hugsy (Worked for Joey!) or a soft blanket. Each twin should have its own transitional or comfort object like this.
They will feel more secure with your comforting presence and it won’t disturb their sleep training either. And check on them every 5 or 10 minutes when they are crying. Sneak in quietly. If 1 baby starts crying, you shouldn’t immediately start nurturing it. Wait for a minute or two to see if they self-soothe. You don’t want to wake up the other one, do you?
If your kid doesn’t settle down after tending, just grit your teeth and let it cry for another 10 minutes before you tend your precious one again. That’s for the first night. On the second night, wait for 5 more minutes and like that, keep increasing your waiting time by 5 minutes with each passing day. We know this is going to be hard but whatever it takes, right?
4. Arrange Separate Cribs in the Same Nursey:
Sleep training twins 2-month-old is more difficult than said. But it is necessary to start out early, or they would never get into the habit. Don’t keep shifting their room every night. If you want them to sleep in separate nurseries, do so from the beginning. But most parents might not be able to afford to separate nurseries for their twins.
That’s not a big deal, trust us. Just remember that if you do assign them the same room, just make sure that it is consistent from the beginning.
Shifting rooms mean that they have to readjust their sleeping patterns every time. Even you, a full-grown adult, mother/father of two can’t sleep easily when you have to sleep in a different environment. It’s even harder for the babies for obvious reasons. So ideally, your twins should sleep on separate cribs in the same room.
Place the cribs at least a few feet across each other so that they don’t wake each other up. If one of your twins is a light sleeper, place the two cribs in opposite directions of the room. This is to ensure that the sensitive sleeper doesn’t wake up while you soothe another.
Talking about creating a comforting environment for your twins, here are a few steps you can follow:
5. Creating the Environment:
There are a few things you can do to ensure a restful sleep while sleep training twins:
- Block out Outside Noise
Either use a table fan or some source of white noise so that any noise that penetrates the walls of the nursery is not registered. But we do not want to block out all sounds from the nursery either. And sometimes background noise can be soothing to babies who want to feel their parents nearby.
- Block out the Sunlight
Babies or really anyone sleeps best when it’s dark. So use heavy curtains that completely cover the windows. This way you can induce early sleeping patterns when it’s not that dark out. And you can also ensure that they do not wake at the crack of dawn. Keep a night light of course, but nothing too disturbing and bright.
The Bottom Line
Usually, one of the twins is a heavier sleeper than the other. So put them in the crib that is away from the door. If the fussy sleeper is nearby, you can just reach them and soothe them before the other one wakes up.
Sleep training twins take time and patience. But don’t hurry and jump to the harshest methods, thinking that it’s good for the child. In the beginning, it won’t work for long hours and you would manage only a couple of hours at a time. But eventually, they learn to sleep through the entire night and wake you up with that beautiful smile and make your day. Happy parenting!
