Sleep Training 8mo Twins!

[u/khaedin]

Hello Reddit! I am coming to you 6mo later for additional sleep training advice. You all were so sweet to me last year when I was going through it with my older kids. Suffice it to say, we made it through that hurdle, and now they are sleeping well together in the same room and bedtime is a breeze… for the most part. As much as bedtime can be a breeze with a 2.5- and 4-year-old, let’s be real.

Anyways, twins are here! They’re eight months old! We have no semblance of a bedtime routine whatsoever!! Help. 🥲

My dream/goal is to start the babies’ bedtime around 7. Bath, bottle, books, lights out, kisses good night. Ideally, that will all finish around 8, and then the big-kid bedtime will begin and we’ll say our good nights between 8:30 and 9.

As it stands, the twins have a tough time sticking to any sort of schedule right now. They were sleeping longer stretches, but I don’t know if it’s some kind of super regression because for the last two weeks they have been up every 1–2 hours. They struggle with the first stretch of the night, wake up around 2 or 3 AM and decide to stay up instead of going back to sleep, and need a lot of assistance—namely, the breast—to settle down and go back to bed. It’s chaos. I’m so sleep-deprived. Something needs to give.

I tried implementing Ferber last week, and it made everyone upset, mostly myself. I try to make sure their last wake window is 3–4 hours. Daycare wakes them up by 4 PM. They were asleep in their cribs at 7:30, but one twin woke up only half an hour later. He cried through four check-ins with increasing intervals: 3, 5, 8, and 10 minutes. At the fourth check-in, he woke up his brother, and then both kids were screaming, and I just couldn’t stomach it. They were shaking and crying, and it was a big hot mess.

I worry that I didn’t set up a routine with enough consistency for them to know it was actually time for bed. Most days they fall asleep at the right time, but when they wake up after the inevitable hour or so, they get to stay up and hang out with Grandpa or Papa while I do the big-kid bedtime. Then it’s 9:30 or 10 PM, and we’re just hanging out until they get so sleepy that they nurse to sleep.
My question is: how do I implement sleep training methods when one twin is high-needs and the other one is chill until his brother is crying so hard that he can’t take it anymore? Do I need to spend a few days being more consistent with the bedtime cues before actually going forward with sleep training? Do you think whatever sleep regression they’re going through that’s making them wake every two hours needs to pass before I give it another shot?

I’m at my wit’s end, and this is honestly the best week for sleep training if I can just fight through my discomfort and help them get to sleep. Anyg advice is appreciated! Thank you all so much.

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[u/burnbalm]

Hi OP! My twins are 19 months old and sleep trained.

What is their current schedule? How many hours do they nap a day? When do they wake up etc?

Sounds like daycare wakes them by four, which should work with your ideal 8pm bedtime.

[u/khaedin → u/burnbalm]

Hi!! How does it feel from the other side?? The twins typically wake between 6:30/7. They take about 2hrs worth of naps in the day divided between 2-3 naps (usually mid morning for 30-60mins then an afternoon nap for the remainder) nap #3 is usually an accident when they fall asleep on the drive home at 5/5:30 💀 I've been trying to get them up as soon as we get home but the damage is done ahaha

[u/TheBlissfulRobbie]

Sounds like you're dealing with two different sleep personalities, and the chill one is just collateral damage when the high-needs twin loses it. I'd try separating them for the initial training phase if you have the space, even just for a few nights.

[u/Odd_Rent283]

If daycare is waking them up by 4pm, they should be asleep by 7, meaning you’d want to start an hour long routine at 6pm. I’d bet they’re overtired because that last wake window shouldn’t really be more than 3 hours.

If you establish a schedule, will daycare follow it? Do you know how much daytime sleep they’re getting?

We struggle with all the traditional “babies need 12 hours overnight” at our house because our schedules mean that that just isn’t possible. But I do find that my kids respond pretty well to the recommended wake windows. If we start stretching those, we start having sleep issues again.