You guys, I cannot tell you how thrilled (and well rested) I am to announce that after a nightmare few weeks of waking all night, I’ve got my 8-month-old twins to sleep through the night! And the best part: there was no crying it out. In fact, getting our twins to sleep through the night involved no work on the nighttime sleep at all. Yep, we found that our ‘key’ was to focus on their daytime schedules, awake windows and naps. And that’s it.
I know, I know: it sounds too good to be true. And if you had asked me two weeks ago as I was getting up 10 times in the space 1.5 hours at 2 am, I would have probably told you to stop spreading unrealistic lies while I sat and cried to my husband about how hard having twins can be at times (because it absolutely can). Until it honestly happened to us.
It wasn’t “smooth sailing”, and it didn’t happen overnight. It took four days of absolute consistency and sticking to the schedule during the daytime. It took a little trial and error. It took a bunch of reading plus voice messaging friends. But we got there, and here I am sitting here three weeks later on a full night’s sleep with the energy to write this and share it with you because it might just work for you too. And if it does, I’ll be so thrilled for you!
So, before you splash out a bunch of money on sleep guides (nothing against these, there are some great ones) – start here, by reading through what I did (all free). Give it a week. This is the important part because our sleep got worse the first two nights, before it got better. But as everything I read said: you have to be consistent and stick with it. And it’ll pay – at least it certainly did for us.
Sleeping Through The Night Without Crying It Out
One of the key reasons I’m so excited to share this is that we used a total of zero cry-it-out techniques. Which was really surprising. Full disclosure: after the horrendous weeks we’d been having sleep-wise, I was fully prepared to employ some kind of ‘gentler’ modified Ferber or other CIO technique. Please don’t judge me: between mothering 3 kids including baby twins, my job (which I do from home), prioritising my marriage and that relationship, having meaningful social interactions, and all the daily household things, my bucket was just way too empty to be running on no sleep.
And I’ll completely admit it: when I’m severely sleep deprived (which I was), I’m a much worse mother:
- I have less energy to play with my kids the way they love
- I zone in and out, not being able to be fully present (and I truly believe kids, even babies, can tell!)
- My patience plummets, and my toddler unfortunately has to bear it as I feel physically incapable of giving him the time he needs to thrive and succeed with daily tasks
- My relationship suffers – I’m more snappy, and spend most evenings apologising to my husband for earlier behaviour, particularly around the times I’m hungry too (and rightfully need to apologise, I can become quite an unpleasant person, and he is incredibly patient and understanding)
As a result of all of the above (and so much more), I’ll do things like take ‘shortcuts’ throughout the day, which may be needed for the sleepless state I’m in, but doesn’t support me and my family in the long-term. For example, instead of meal prepping food for the twins for today and tomorrow, I’ll just do something easy today – which gets me through the day, but that I regret when I have to cook something new tomorrow. The bottom line is: I need sleep to be my best self and to function well. So we decided to take action regarding the babies’ sleep. Here’s what we did.
Sleep Training Twins In The Same Room
One thing I should note before we dive into how we sleep-trained our twins is that they sleep in the same room. And when it came to sleep training and working on their sleep and naps, we did it in the same room. It didn’t even cross my mind to separate them – firstly because we have no spare space or rooms, and secondly because it felt a little unnatural.
Now, I did think this could be quite hard and they’d disturb one another – and I was so wrong. Maybe it was their age (8 months) or maybe they’re just so used to having someone else constantly next to them or around them, but our twins did not (and do not) wake one another up. Even in the earlier days, one twin could wake screaming for milk, and the other would stay fast asleep. So if you’re worried about them being in the same room, please don’t be. At least not without trying it first!
I should add that our twins slept in the same cot until about 4 months when they learned to roll, and we separated them into different cots that are still close to one another. I don’t know if that makes a difference, but they’re very used to being in each other’s space.
Twin Sleep Training Steps We Took
In case you scrolled through the first part, let me reiterate that what worked for us to successfully sleep train our twins involved no crying it out or self settling methods – in fact, we didn’t do any night time work at all. We just focused on the daytime naps and awake windows.
I Adjusted My 8-Month Awake Windows
We followed awake windows of 2.25 hours, nap, 2.25 hours, nap, 2.5 hours, nap, 2.5 hours, night sleep. This was vastly different from what we were doing previously – which was winging it, using 2-4 hours as a rough guide, and not having a set schedule for whether it was going to be a two-nap day or a three nap day.
As it turns out, babies and their bodies love consistency and knowing what to expect and when. I knew I wanted to give this a real go, so I cleared my schedule for a week so I could be home to get the naps just right. I know this isn’t sustainable – but it was important for me to see if the sleep craziness could be fixed with this method, or if there could have been something more going on or other measures I needed to consider, like “proper” sleep training.
So I cancelled my social commitments, turned down my playgroups if they didn’t fit in with the awake windows, and if anyone really needed to hang out, they’d need to come to me and be understanding about me getting the babies down when I needed to.
I Capped Naps
My exact nap schedule evolved into looking like:
- 30 minutes (capped) for the first nap
- 2 hours (capped) for the second nap – where anything at the 1 hour 30-minute mark and over is great
- 30 minutes (capped) for a quick cat nap to get through the second half of the day, where even 10 minutes is a great bridging nap
The disclaimer here is that the guides I read said that 75 minutes, 75 minutes, then 30 minutes was the goal – but my twins naturally woke after 30 minutes for the first nap during the first 2 days. So I capped it at 30 mins on the third day, lengthened the second nap, and that’s the first night they slept through the night. So don’t be afraid to have a bit of trial and error! But also, I wouldn’t exceed a total of 3 hours of daytime sleep. Maybe if your babies have high sleep needs then 3.5 hours, but for my babies that’d be pushing them into under-tiredness come bedtime, and I don’t want a battle every night before bed.
Our Sleep Cues (Sleep Associations)
I know some people are super strict about this, but I feel like our sleep associations and cues are fairly standard and minimal. They have a dummy (pacifier) that is only used at nap times and night sleep time, they have a cuddly (a sleep-safe one) because touching something soft seems to calm them massively, we use white noise (thanks Spotify rain sounds!) and we keep the babies’ room dark (without using blackout blinds).
Our (Controversial) Bedtime Routine At Night
So, almost all of the sleep resources that I read talked about having a solid bedtime routine that you follow consistently every night. Often this involves a bath, story time and cuddles, bottle, bed – and whatever else works for your family.
We actually don’t have a bedtime routine. I know! It goes against everything – but with a toddler in tow, there are often times where if we went through a big bedtime routine, the awake windows (and our desired bed time) would go out of the window. So we’ll play, eat, laugh, cuddle, do whatever – then shortly before bed we’ll give the babies their last bottle or breastfeed, read some books together, pop them down with a kiss and saying goodnight, and turn that white noise on, and head out the door.
We also never bathe before bed. Our kids get energised by having baths and we actually found they had a much harder time going down when they were younger if they’d just had a bath in the evening. So we usually just shower after we have our lunchtime swim in the pool and ditch a formal bath altogether.
9 Month Update
Between when I first wrote this and now, an entire month has flown past! We’ve had a few nights where the babies were much harder to get down, but all in all, their sleep has been so good. We are very happy! And their day time naps are great too – we’re able to put them down and walk away (for now anyway) and nine times out of ten they’ll drift to sleep on their own. Again, with zero sleep training at all.
We’re also currently in the process of dropping down from 3 naps to 2, so just navigating and figuring out what that should look like.
Most importantly, if you’re struggling with sleep, there is hope! Try working on the daytime naps and awake windows, give it at least one week (change takes time and it may get worse before it gets better!), and don’t be afraid of hiring a sleep consultant if you need to, or purchasing any formal sleep guides. Your sleep and mental health is important!
