Sleep Training with Twins

I know that as a mom of 2, my life can easily feel like chaos. My toddler is demanding some one-on-one time, while I’m busy nursing the baby, and it feels like I am getting stretched pretty thin. Let alone a mom of twins or multiples who are on the same schedule every day, needing to be fed at the same times every day, and you only have your same 2 hands. I applaud you.

Sleep training with twins might sound scary, but I can assure you that it’s not.

In this blog, I have 6 tips to help you sleep train your twins!

1. Keep a sleep log for your twins.

You can do this with a pen and paper, an app, or the fancy Talli Baby Tracker (discount code: midnightmama). The purpose of tracking their sleep and keeping a sleep log, is to look for patterns in their sleep. These patterns can help you determine if they need more sleep, less sleep, a feeding, and so on. The main things I would suggest tracking are:
- When your babies woke up to start their day
- What time you laid them down for a nap and when they actually fell asleep
- When they ate and how much
- Diaper changes
- Night Wakings & Night Feedings
I recommend keeping a sleep log for ALL of my clients, but especially to moms of multiples. You have twice as much on your plate, and trying to remember every wake-up, feeding, and diaper change will be impossible.

2. Use white noise.

The womb is a noisy place. Your baby is used to hearing your loud, rhythmic heartbeat, and they can start hearing external noises from about 18 weeks on. Once a baby is full-term, they can hear sounds as good as we can; amazing hey?
Because they are so used to being in a noisy environment, using white noise can help Twin A continue to sleep is Twin B wakes up, and vice versa. Sometimes I even recommend using a fan in the hallway outside of their room, while a white noise machine is playing inside their room. This muffles all of the household noises and helps them sleep more peacefully.

3. Use their adjusted age.

Most twins, or sets of multiples end up coming earth-side, early. This can mean that as they get older, their sleep needs actually don’t get higher, they are set back a small bit. As you set up a schedule for your twins, I want you to use your due date when figuring out their awake times and how many naps they should be taking daily. This means that if your twins were born at 32 weeks, even if they are healthy and gaining effectively, you will still need to adjust their sleep times. In the sleep world, you’ll have those long hours of newborn sleep, for longer!

4. Black out their sleep space.

Darkness promotes the production of melatonin, so by having a naturally dark sleep space, you are setting your babies up for sleep success. In the beginning days and weeks on your children’s lives, it is common to have their days and nights mixed up. This is largely because of how they fell asleep in your womb. Walking around and living your normally life rocked and swayed them to sleep in the womb. Likely your babies were the most active inside when you finally took some time to relax and put your feet up.

By having adequate light exposure during the daytime awake hours, you are helping correct their days and nights, now that they’re earth-side.

5. Nap apart, but nights are together.

As humans, we all have something called a sleep drive. A sleep drive is our NEED to sleep. Some people have a very sensitive sleep drive, while others don’t. Some babies can skip naps and still be ‘ok’ until bedtime. Some can NOT. When it comes to napping, little noises and sounds can be really bothersome and wake up both babies. By having separate sleep spaces for naps, you are ensuring that they won’t wake each other for nap-time, since our sleep is generally lighter during the day.

You can nap Twin A in the crib and Twin B in the playpen with the SlumberPod (discount code: midnightmama) overtop in another room. Or if you have a large room for your twins, put them on opposite ends of the room and double the white noise.

The options are endless.

6. The same sleep training rules apply.

If you’ve sleep trained before with another child, then you can use a similar method with your twins. Remember, use their adjusted age up until they’re 2. If you’ve never sleep trained before, then I can help you with that! There are 4 main methods of sleep training. Find one that suits you, or if you want to take the guess-work out of it, find a sleep consultant that aligns with your parenting values. Having someone to help you along the way and to help answer your questions and keep you accountable is literally invaluable.

Bailey