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. 

Post Twin Pregnancy Weight Loss Advice

I decided to dedicate only one post to weight loss in this blog because I think that’s all that is required. Maybe I’ll make another blog concerning my tips to staying slim but I don’t want to spend much time here.  At 5 months post-op I now fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes.  In fact, they are getting looser every day!  At this time in my life weight is no longer an issue and I don’t like to dwell on the subject. I’ve made peace with food and my body.  Our society’s views on nutrition, weight loss, and food has become so perverse that it usually puts me in a bad mood just talking about it.  So how did I drop the pregnancy weight you ask?

1. gave birth to over 6lbs of flesh plus some fluid and other yucky stuff
2. didn’t get much sleep for a while
3. cared for twin infants which is very physically demanding
4. once the girls started sleeping through the night I had more energy to cook again and could continue my pre-pregnancy eating habits

Ta Da!

Are you disappointed?

I didn't use any totally AMAZING body wraps.  I also took no expensive pills that send you to the toilet every hour. I ate three square meals a day when time allowed and I tried to avoid fast food as much as possible. Exercise consisted of me trying to juggle increasingly heavier babies while keeping my house looking like animals didn’t live there. My belly did get stretch marks from pregnancy but they are getting lighter every day.  My core muscles were thrashed after housing two babies and the cesarean weakened what was left.  I make sure to do some squats and crunches every day which is slowly helping to restore my flat belly.  My hair went through the customary massive shedding session which was no fun but it’s finally starting to get thick again.  You're probably thinking, “Oh, you’re just genetically inclined to be thin so it comes easy to you.”  Just like most women out there if I eat a bunch of fast food, sit on my butt all day, and have dessert with every meal then I’d be as big as a house.  There is nothing special about me (or you for that fact) and you shouldn't over complicate weight loss. If you want a true weight loss guide then I would recommend Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting or French Women Don't Get Fat . These books helped me to have a better relationship with food and to form my own nutrition philosophy.

Cookie and Peanut are born.

My twin girls were born way too early at 3lb 8oz and 3lb 11oz.  My smaller girl had VSD (a hole in her heart) and my larger girl was apt to Bradys (heart rhythm would drop).  They were delivered during an emergency c-section at a hospital we hadn't planned on.  In fact nothing had went as planned and the NICU stay was even harder to deal with then my emergency surgery.  Visits consisted of 30min with each girl who was hooked up to tiny tubes plugged into large intimidating machines that thew alarms incessantly.

It was a hard time for my family.  Then one day the girls were assigned a new NICU nurse. She was a very positive and happy Belgian woman with a passion for her job.  Like a Belgian Fairy Godmother she really took my girls under her wing.  She made extra time to feed them even though the regulation time for bottle feeding was 20min and she even allowed us to put the girls together in the same room during visits (they had been separated the minute they were born and hadn't been together for weeks).  The tubes and monitors started to disappear.  The Bradys became less frequent and the VSD closed up.  The nurse exclaimed one morning, "Cookie and Peanut would go home soon!"  "Cookie and Peanut?" I asked.  She laughed, "Oh, I name her Cookie because of her love to eat and I name her Peanut because she is so small like a little peanut."  I then realized that these little identical beings had already started to develop their own personalities and habits. They were thriving and growing fast everyday so I decided to create a blog to house their story. I want other mothers to be prepared for how tough twin pregnancy can be, how dealing with twin infants is not as horrible as people make it sound, and how you will pity parents who will never experience the joy of twinning.

Our first family picture.