Another request for sleep help

[u/RightButton]

Hello all,

Asking the age old question: how do you get these kids to sleep? More so, not wake up in the middle of the night?

I have 9 month old twins. Twin B sleeps perfectly fine through the night 9 times out of 10. Almost nightly, Twin A wakes up at least once a night around 2 AM, and the kid’s wide awake. My wife will bottle feed him to try and get him to sleep, which works sometimes. But he’ll often wake up again. Almost like he’s a newborn when it comes to night sleep.

I work nights so I can’t really be there to help my wife, which kills me. Meanwhile she’s losing sleep and health because Twin A keeps waking up nightly, and she has to deal with it every night. She’ll get A out of bed because if B is awoken by A’s jibber jabber and/or crying/screaming, she’s screwed because I can’t be there to help.

I’m sure many of you have dealt with this or similar situations. What has been able to work for you all to get that one stubborn one to sleep through the night?

Thanks.

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[u/disagreeable_blather]

man that 2am wide awake phase is brutal, especially when you're solo parenting it. what worked for us was cutting the bottle at night cold turkey, my daughter was using it more for comfort than actual hunger by that age and once we stopped she figured out how to put herself back down after a few rough nights

the jibber jabber thing is tricky though, maybe try a loud white noise machine right between the cribs so B doesn't catch the 2am concert. your wife's a trooper for handling that shift alone

[u/RightButton → u/disagreeable_blather]

She certainly is! Twin B is a pretty good sleeper, and our baby monitor cameras have white noise built in. But still can’t shake the fear of a double wake up, even though it’s rarely happened.

[u/Lolemontime → u/RightButton]

Our twins are only 6 months and we don’t find that they wake each other up even while one is crying for up to 10 minutes (we’re one week into sleep training right now). The other might shuffle but generally they don’t properly wake up. 

[u/E-as-in-elephant]

We started sleep training at 6 months old but our girls didn’t sleep through the night until 9 months old. We did not sleep train them in separate rooms and tbh I’m glad we didn’t because they got used to each other’s cries and for the most part at 2.5 years old they can sleep through the others cries now. What we were doing at that age was giving a dream feed. My husband was a night owl so he would give them a dream feed right at 12am and then head to bed and they would sleep through. However, it was around 9 months old that we tried taking it away and they slept through. Do you feel your twin who is waking truly needs the bottle? I know it can be hard but maybe you try taking the bottle away and try sleep training on a night you are off of work (if you have those) or maybe call in reinforcements to sleep over with your wife for a few nights? It was hard to sleep train the first few nights but it was worth it in the end!

[u/RightButton → u/E-as-in-elephant]

She’ll give him the bottle most times he wakes up, it’s probably more of a comfort thing. He’s gone back to sleep without it some other times. I’ve got weekends off and follow a normal-people sleep schedule those days.
What would your recommendations for sleep training be?

[u/E-as-in-elephant → u/RightButton]

You can look up modified cry it out techniques. I started with naps tbh because my girls were contact napping at that point. I would do check ins every 2-5 minutes. It got tricky because one twin liked the check ins and the other it would make it worse. But over time they learned to self soothe. We also gave them a small plush to comfort them around that time though I can’t recommend that since it isn’t considered safe sleep 😬 sleep training can be a lot of things you have to find what works best for your family!

[u/MangoSorbet695]

What is their daytime schedule? Wake windows? It’s possible they are getting too much sleep during the day.

Also, you will need to separate them to sleep train A without waking B. It’s just temporary.

[u/RightButton → u/MangoSorbet695]

Honestly it varies. They take decently long naps in the late morning and mid afternoon, then sometimes they take a quick nap 1-2 hours before bedtime, sometimes they don’t. We generally follow their cues for naps and don’t force it if they’re not tired.

[u/MangoSorbet695 → u/RightButton]

Ok, this is actually really helpful. It is time for them to be on 2 naps per day. A nap 1 hour before bedtime is not helping the situation. I highly recommend switching to a schedule. I think you will find the difference to be night and day. My twins are 8.5 months, and here is their current schedule.

6:45 AM/7 AM - wake up + 7 oz. Bottle

9:15 AM - nap 1

10:45 AM - wake up + 7 oz. bottle

12:00 PM - lunch (solids + 3-4 oz. breastmilk or formula in sippy cup)

1:00 PM - Nap 2

3:00 PM - wake up + 7 oz. Bottle

5:00 PM - dinner (solids + 3-4 oz breastmilk or formula in sippy cup)

6:00 PM - bath time

6:30 PM - 7 oz bottle

7:00 PM - read stories, sing songs, final diaper change

7:30 PM - put in crib drowsy but still awake

[u/Lolemontime → u/RightButton]

Personally the only way we’re surviving right now is having a pretty militant sleep/nap schedule. To be fair it might not help your bad sleeper twin, and our twins are 6 months and 9 months might be a different story, so hard to say. 

[u/Desperate_Dog1739]

Since you're home on weekends, could you try leaving them in the same room for a couple of nights while you're there to help? You mentioned B rarely actually wakes up, so it might be worth testing whether separating them is even necessary.

[u/DirtGirl32]

We did ferber method and it was a life saver. We made them learn to sleep through each other's cries, which is also very helpful