Sleep Training 6 Month Old Twins; Prologue

I'll start by saying that the decision to sleep train is personal one. There is a lot of controversy around the subject and what works for one family does not necessarily work for another. Sean and I talked about sleep training for a month before we decided to bite the bullet and give it a try.

We chose the Progressive-Waiting Approach and I read Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber in preparation. If you are planning on sleep training using this method, read the book first. This is so important. It was helpful to learn the specifics about infant (and toddler) sleep cycles and it gives all the information you need to help determine why your child is not sleeping through the night.

After reading the book, I realized that we had created negative sleep associations for Teagan and Owen. They were falling asleep on their own at night, but not in their cribs. They started off the night sleeping in their swings and then at 10 PM, we would take them out, wrap them up in the sleep sacks and then do a bed time bottle feeding. Once they finished eating, we put them in their cribs for the night. Owen would then wake up two or three times during the night and Teagan once or twice. They would wake up crying and we would run in and give them back their pacifier to settle them back down. Neither baby was awake for more than a few minutes, but Sean and I were up several times a night and we were exhausted. I learned from reading Dr. Ferber's book that all of us, including infants, wake up slightly as they transition from REM to Non-REM sleep. We use this brief period to check our surroundings, make sure every thing is the same as when we fell asleep and then settle back down. Generally we do not remember these brief periods of wakefulness. For Owen and Teagan, they remembered falling asleep in their swing, so when they woke up in the crib, it was different and upsetting. They were also dependent on their pacifiers and were not soothing themselves back to sleep. So these were the two issues we had to fix. We also decided to stop swaddling because both babies were starting to fight their swaddles and trying to roll over in them.

We did make a few changes prior to starting sleep training, hoping that it would make things easier. We started putting the twins to sleep in their Rock and Play Sleepers as opposed to the swings so they did not have the constant motion keeping them asleep. We also slowly reduced their bedtime feeding. They were taking 4 to 5oz at night, so we reduced by 1/2oz every few nights. Once they were down to an ounce and a half, we were ready to start.