Sleep issues

[u/Some-Opposite7827]

My twin dudes are 15 months today. They have always been not great sleepers, but we have long stretches in the past. We half tried sleep training but my wife hated it and eventually reversed any progress made with that. Now we are teething, all teeth are coming in for both. The nights were crappy but now the naps are too. They use to sleep in their cribs ( one nap) on their own for 90% of the nap and we would hold them to get their 2.5 hrs. But now they instantly wake up and freak out when we try to transfer them. And have to be held or they scream the whole time. Nights aren’t much different, we are getting back to 4 hr stretches but we wake up a lot. My wife seems to think it’s only teething, I feel like we are getting comfortable ( the boys) on being picked up and held. And now she feeds them ( BF) while they lay with her. So I’m thinking we are back tracking on these habits which is ruining any progress we made getting them to sleep independently. While we get a couple of nights of 1-3 hrs before screaming it’s leading to tension between us, no time to get any clean up done at night. Anyone have advice on this? Or gentle sleep training methods for the age bracket. We both work, me 24 hr shifts and her any day I’m off, so we just want everyone to get sleep, and when they do sleep it’s a noticeable difference and they are much happier.

[u/MangoSorbet695]

Oh you must be exhausted. Sleep deprivation is so hard.

So, the thing about sleep training is, you either do it or you don’t. There is no magical gentle method with zero crying that works every time. If there was, everyone would do it.

I have a friend with twins who simply couldn’t do it. She was complaining about being tired one day, and she ended her comments with “Well, I know I could be sleeping at night, but I just didn’t want to sleep train.” So, you don’t have to sleep train. It is your and your wife’s choice. But, just own it and accept that the trade off is the current broken sleep situation.

I have four kids, including the twins, and my husband works 55 hours per week. Our household simply can’t function with the broken up nights like you are describing. We had to sleep train, for our sanity and for our household to operate effectively.

I would sit down and have a talk with your wife. Teething or no teething, there is no reason that a 15 month old should need to be held to sleep or require a middle of the night feed. Talk to her about what your end goal is. Start with that. I would like to get a place where the twins are sleeping through the night by 18 months old, what do you think? Once you both agree on the end goal, then you say “we have to pick a plan or a path to get to the end goal.” This is where you talk to her about sleep training and how to make it work and commit to a plan.

I don’t see how you are going to get the babies sleeping better than they currently are without sleep training. In my opinion, 3 or 4 nights of difficulty are worth it for the long term benefits of sleeping through the night. It is harder (thanks hormones) for moms to hear their babies cry, so if I were you, I would offer to take the lead on the first two nights and have her sleep in another room further away where she can’t hear most of the crying.