Twin Baby Girls Sleep Through The Night (STTN)

My twin baby girls starting sleeping through the night (STTN) at three months old. Ok, I’ll wait while you throw your mouse across the room and stomp your feet a bit. I was dreading nights through my entire pregnancy worried that I (according to the peanut gallery) “would never sleep again”. My stress was at an all time high after the first week of having the girls home from the NICU. My husband and I took turns sleeping on the floor of the nursery because they slept so little and screamed so much. Then my husband had an “ah-ha!” moment and downloaded a sound machine app with loud city noises onto his phone. Finally we got some relief with the girls sleeping 4 hours at a time with the sound machine on. I guess I didn’t realize how loud the NICU had been with all the machines beeping and nurses gossiping. Every night we slowly turned down the volume on the app until we were able to turn it off completely. Now my girls can sleep through complete silence as well as my dog throwing a barking fit near the nursery door. Before the girls were born I read a book called Bringing Up Bébé which has a section on getting baby to sleep every night. This book talks about the “wait and see” method that my husband and I have found profoundly helpful. Every night we followed the same routine in order to build some sleep conditioning. Below is our nightly schedule.

• 7pm offer food (or bottle if they were not eating yet). 
• Give them warm baths and allow them to splash around like crazy to expend energy. 
• Get everyone diapered and dressed then let them crawl around on the floor to play for a while. 
• Once they start getting tired and fussy (it’s usually between 8:30-9pm now) we heat one last bottle to offer them. 

At this point it’s a bit of a gamble on if they fall asleep while drinking or if you get a super cranky baby who can’t seem to conk out. I usually have to rock someone to sleep but I try not to rock for more than 10min so it doesn't become a habit. We put them in their own separate cribs to sleep.

Now here is where the “wait and see” comes in. During the night we’ll usually hear someone wake up. I’ll check the baby video monitor or peek in the nursery to make sure no one is in any immediate need. Then we’ll wait a couple of minutes to see if she calms back down. Usually she does and we all fall right back to sleep. Sometimes she’ll keep fussing. At this point I’ll pick her up and check to see what’s going on. Sometimes she is gassy, she needs a diaper change, she’s hungry, or she just can’t calm herself down in which case I’ll try gripe water. Whatever the reason I try not to coddle her too much or let her play. It becomes a sort of game every night called “What’s wrong with the baby?”. Every week they just slept longer and longer until…

*note: This isn't how they usually sleep at night. I just found it cute!

They both slept for 8 hours straight. Some nights were better than others but through consistency they eventually got into the groove of sleeping well. Sometimes I’ve felt others judge us for trying so hard to get the girls to STTN. I’ve heard, “They’re babies. They’re supposed to wake up all night”. They think we’re being selfish wanting to get our nights back but I think sleep training early on will benefit the girls as much as it benefits my sanity. I have always battled with insomnia so I’m so happy they are developing good sleeping skills. I want them to sleep like my husband who could collapse where he stands and fall asleep soundly with no trouble. 

Now I’d like to talk a bit about cribs vs bassets vs co-sleeping. My girls started out in the NICU so they were already used to being in separate cribs when they got home. We never even considered bringing them into bed with us since they were so tiny and fragile. I often smothered my husband in my sleep without realizing it so co-sleeping would be a bad idea. Also, I have no intention of ever kicking my husband out of our bedroom to make room for the children to sleep. I’ve heard of other wives doing this and think it can be really bad for your marriage. Cookie has her own bed, Peanut has her own bed, Tonto (our dog) has his own bed, and my husband and I have our own bed. Everyone has their own space to sleep and I think that’s healthy. I did briefly entertain the idea of using a bassinet or portable crib in our bedroom in the beginning. The only reason we decided against it was because I didn’t want to buy two more pieces of baby furniture that we’d use for two months then shove into the garage. Also, it helped to make our bedroom a sort of quiet zone for whoever needed to catch up on sleep. When the girls were still learning how to STTN my husband and I took shifts so someone was always catching up on sleep in the bedroom. Shift work made it so we had at least one well rested adult in the house (better than two cranky foggy headed adults). Our twins also share a nursery even though they have separate beds. This was mainly for convenience. It’s just easier to juggle their needs when their in the same room. When they’re older we plan on giving each girl her own room.