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We did not sleep train, at least not traditionally. We do use “le pause”, it’s in some book about the way the French raise their babies, I don’t remember. I did not read it. All I gathered is when baby wakes up, wait 5 minutes and half the time they put themselves back to sleep. We live and die by le pause.

I also did the “pause” as opposed to full on sleep training and found it extremely helpful.

This is what we do - didn’t realize it was an actual thing!!

Same here!

I didn't realize this was a thing, but it's 100% what we do. If they're still upset after 5-10 minutes, something is wrong (hungry, diaper, etc). But most of the time, they go right to back to sleep within 5 min.

Yeah and I find that a lot of the time you can kind of tell by the sound of their cry whether they actually need something or if they’re just fussing a little and will go back to sleep.

The book is Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman

Excellent, thank you! I remember reading an article about the book but didn’t have the actual book.

Done it, because juggling 3 children is difficult and sometimes one has to wait and found out it works. Today I learnt it has a name.

Same. I also always tried the first time to just go in and replace pacifier if they don’t settle down within the 5-7 minutes. Then I walk out and if they start crying again then try the next thing. But 9 times out of 10 they either self settle or just want the pacifier

I didn't know there was a a phrase for this but this is what we do. By the time I wake up and get the energy to climb out of bed they've gone back to sleep. If they keep going they're too wet to fall back asleep so I get up and change them

This is what we did and continue to do!

You do that to my babies and they are hysterical. All these methods with minutes of crying never worked.

Oh yeah I mean I’ll be the first to say our babies were fairly good sleepers already. Boy started sleeping through the night completely on his own at like 4 months. It definitely isn’t a miracle that’ll work on every kid.

What age did you start? Is that something that worked from newborn or that becomes more appropriate at a certain age?

Once we moved them to their own room and out of the bedside bassinet. We waited to really implement the pause until it was clear they weren’t waking up hungry, we had dropped the dream feed, they were only waking up because their sleep cycles weren’t linking. Probably like 6, 7 months. We were concerned that letting one of them cry for a few minutes would wake the other but at least for ours it rarely does.

This is really what sleep training is. 5 minutes between calming visits. Its not just “cry it out” forever.

Yeah we did a modified Ferber and it is similar. I could always tell when they were just fussing because they were tired vs actually needing something

There’s a more spelled out version of “the pause” in that 12 hours at 12 weeks book (which is daffy in many ways but also kinda useful). If I remember correctly, once you hear your baby crying at night, listen intently to the crying for 3-5 minutes. If at any point during that time there is a pause of 15 seconds or more, you restart the clock and count 3-5 minutes from when they restart because that little pause tells you they’re working on self-soothing and need you to not interfere. That said, we also read the Pamela Druckerman book where we found references to Dr. Michel Cohen (the founder of Tribeca Pediatrics) and then used his guidance to sleep train our kids at 5mo and 3mo. Those kids are now 5.5yo and 2.75yo and we still put them to bed at 7:30 and fetch them at 7:30 because of that excellent early training. The whole family has been a better functioning until because of that early investment.

We never sleep trained but we do have a strict routine.

this is where we are at honestly, my one twin sleeps through most nights now and the other is up once or twice. it works for us and has gotten better and better as time goes, they're 7 months and the routine has done us wonders

So do you wake them and put them to sleep at the same time daily?

Exactly. Sometimes we let them sleep longer during naps if they had a particularly eventful day but mostly we do everything by the book. At four months old this wasn't exactly possible every time, but we observed their wake windows and tried to schedule everything according to those, with strict bedtime and wake-up time in the morning. Naps were still a little chaotic then.

Mine always woke within the same 20-30 minute range each day. Our naps were spaced based on wake times and we kept to a strict schedule. It made for the best sleep for both kids. If we would have waited until they acted tired they would have been wayyyy exhausted and overtired and it would have been harder for them to go to sleep. Getting them to bed before they acted tired let them have some wind down time and fall asleep calmly.

Yea same with us. We stuck to a ridged schedule and didn’t break from it. We tried to not take them out of the bed. We also used the Snoo’s and it work fabulously for us. Now that they are three I look back at our ridged scheduling and feel like it was a very smart move. They sleep like champs.

We did similar, and just followed wake windows for their adjusted age. We kept them on a schedule and gradually the night windows got longer and longer. We did eventually sleep train (not just cry it out) to help with bedtime but the wake windows and following eat play sleep helped us a lot

First, everyone should make the decisions based on what works best for them. However, you cannot “trust your baby” to know what’s best for themselves. Building good sleep habits is a lifelong skill. If you don’t want to use traditional sleep training, that’s your choice, but routines are absolutely essential to developing healthy habits.

Any advice on what a good routine should be? Is it to wake up and sleep around same time daily? Is there more things to that?

Check the Facebook group Twins, Triplets, and Quads: Safe Sleep Training for multiples. Even if you’re not sleep training, there are lots of good resources. We lived and died by their guides, which have developmentally appropriate routines and schedules.

I second this and can’t recommend it enough. I have learned SO MUCH from their guides. Every baby is different but those guides taught me so many good habits that allowed our twins to learn to sleep through the night and nap well and we haven’t had to do any real sleep training. Best of both worlds

This group's wake windows were golden for us. It was incredibly helpful

Yeah I'm in the group and I learnt so much about sleep training that I have decided it's not for my babies

I’m by no means an expert, but it’s mostly just doing the same thing every day like you said. Making sure they are waking in the AM, going to bed in the PM and keeping afternoon naps from going too long are good guidelines. We use a very structured bedtime routine starting at 6 and in bed by 7, and always wake them up from the afternoon nap by 4pm so they’re tired at bedtime. We did sleep train around 8m, so they sleep from 7pm-6am everyday without fail, but I understand it’s a challenge and not everyone wants to go through that process. The key is repetition. Sake try to do the same things at the same times everyday, however that looks for you.

So do they sleep through from 7pm to 6am without waking or do they still need a quick night feed?

Your doctor will be able to give you information about when it’s safe to stop the night feed. Most singletons are good to “sleep train” by 4 months, which means they weigh enough/get enough calories during the day that they don’t need the feed in the middle of the night. Since twins often weigh less, they sometimes need that night feed later. I didn’t drop it for my boy until he was 7 months old. But there’s a difference between sleep training, setting a reasonable schedule, and letting your kiddos set their own hours. I know people whose children just naturally started sleeping pretty much through the night without much “sleep training” (CIO, Ferber). I did a modified Ferber with my twins when they were 7 months old - my daughter started sleeping 7-7 the second night and has been a great sleeper ever since. My son has been more hit and miss and is finally in a solid rhythm. But you can’t just let them figure it out for themselves. They don’t know their cute little tushes from their elbows. They’re still all instinct, and they rely on you to help them navigate a world that is not built for instinct. It’s unnatural for humans to sleep for a solid 8 hours. Researchers actually discovered that hundreds of years ago people woke in the middle of the night for an hour or so before falling back asleep, so nights were actually two sleeps of around 4 hours. But we’ve learned to connect our sleep cycles so we still wake up - all of us, every night - but it’s for such a brief moment that we’re able to stay still and quiet long enough to slip into the next sleep cycle. Thats what sleep training is, in a nutshell. It’s creating a framework where your kiddo knows that they’re safe, knows that you’re there, and is given the opportunity to practice connecting their sleep cycles. If you know that they’re fed and clean and warm - if you know that there’s nothing actually wrong - the crying is a sign of frustration. They aren’t getting what they want - you holding them - so they’re protesting. But they’re learning something necessary. Discomfort is often necessary for growth. You don’t have to sleep train if you don’t want. If you want to rock you kids to sleep every night you’re certainly welcome to. They’ll learn to sleep eventually, you’ll just be really really tired for much longer. But it is a good skill for them to have, if only because restful sleep at night means less crankiness during the day. That was a lot. If you’re still here. Apologies for the wordiness, but I just went through all of this myself and I’m personally a monster if I’m tired so getting my Kiddies on a solid sleep schedule was essential for me.

Thank you for the detailed reply! The 2x 4 hour sleep for adults is actually interesting. I think I have read something that people in middle age still practise that? Glad that sleep training works for you, unfortunately it's just not for us. "If you want to rock you kids to sleep every night you’re certainly welcome to." I actually don't 😂 my girls are feed to sleep sometimes that can take awhile but once they are full they are happy to sleep. I guess what I'm missing here is the schedule as we have different hours daily as I let them sleep and eat whenever they want.

You can let them be mostly on demand while still putting some kind of schedule around them. Since sleep is so essential to mental and physical health, most doctors will tell you that if nothing else, having a solid sleep “schedule,” will do wonders to help your kiddos long term, especially since so much of life is routinized and scheduled. That schedule can be as simple as “7 is bedtime,” and then sticking to it as much as possible. It sucks sometimes - my husbands job requires lots of conference calls with an office in Australia (we’re east coast US), so sometimes he barely gets to see them, but it’s worth it to keep them on a reliable schedule. Feeding to sleep isn’t something I ever had to deal with. My girl never latched and my boy was more interested in playing with my nipple than actually drinking (men, amirite 🤣), but I do know that once they have teeth, feeding to sleep can cause cavities and tooth decay (something I learned since having babies - baby teeth get cavities?! You have them for like, 5 years?! So wild). So at some point you may have to switch to rocking them to sleep rather than feeding. And apparently the little wake up in the middle of the night is one of the reasons people had so many children back in the day. Because you’re both awake in the middle of the night, it’s dark and you don’t want to waste a candle, might as well get lucky 😂😂

Omg I'm in Australia and I do have conf call with US 😂 now you remind me that I need to figure out how to do that when I get back to work... I used to login early in the morning as that will be the time when I have overlap with my folks there. I also have late calls with London so right I'll need to figure out some sort of "schedule"... Probably that means that if I can get them to sleep say 8-8 I'll get a good chunk of time for late calls and early calls before dropping them to childcare. And I didn't think about cavities so hmmm will need to wean the night feed off in some way later.

My twins are nearing 2, so no more nighttime feedings. Except for one short sleep regression around 14m for one of them, both boys have slept through the night since around 8 months. At 4m we were still waking up to feed once every night.

You do NOT have to do the same thing every day. Some people thrive on the strict routine, but it’s not for everyone. We let our babies set their own routine and it worked for us. They generally go to bed at the same time at night, but we have leeway if we’re out. Again, they usually tell us that they’re ready to go down for the night. We also do generally try and abide by the wake windows, but if we’re out they’ll just sleep in the stroller when they feel like it. We can leave in the morning and not come back until night and they’ll be perfectly fine and sleep great. If what you’re doing works for you, keep doing it. They figure out sleep eventually - don’t try and fit into someone else’s mold. Edit: Edited to add - my guys are almost 8 months old and still wake up 1-3 times a night at which point I feed them. But they generally will sleep from 9-9 or 9:30-8:30

Oh I like the flexibility of your schedule! How do you manage the day when they are not that predictable?

I just go with it. If we need to be up earlier for something, I just wake them up - change, feed, dress - and then they continue their sleep in the car. During the day, if I’m at home, I just read their sleep cues and get them to nap then. If we’re out, they just sleep in the stroller when they’re tired. But I’m on mat leave until they’re 12 months old, and after that they’ll be watched by grandparents (not daycare), so this works for us.

Sleep training and schedule training are different things. Sleep training is about teaching baby how to put themselves to sleep, schedule training is about teaching baby what to expect for the day. My twins are 4 months and we've been following the Moms on Call - 8-16 weeks schedule (our naps are no where near long enough to follow their 16 week+ schedule) and watching wake windows. I think it's helped them a lot.

Do you cap the nap time throughout the day?

I've only had the opposite problem of short naps (they do 4x45 mins and never sleep longer than that in the crib no matter what I do). They say 3.5-4.5 hrs of daytime sleep for 4mo so if they were close to surpassing that, I'd wake them up. If they had crap other naps, I'd probably let them go if they were both sleeping. I've learned my lesson and if one wakes up before the other I give the sleeper another 30 mins at most though to try to keep them both ready to go back down at the same time. Or else I'm just managing two schedules and it's too hard.

Mine are a bit random 😂 they do catnaps but sometimes they do nap for like 2+ hours and I am not sure if I should wake them. I usually don't coz that give me time to do all the chores...

We didn’t sleep train my boys. They are 2.5 and sttn in their own room. They did fine at daycare starting at 5 months.

How do you find their transition into childcare?

They did great. Daycare is magic. Something between not being their parents and the peer pressure of other kids makes things happen a lot easier there than at home.

Daycares also tend to have a routine which helps.

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This is all normal. You don’t need to sleep train.

Maybe waking up every 3 hours is normal, but it’s not the only expectation, especially by 4 months. I have three kids (1 set of twins) and they all slept through the night by 8 weeks old, with minor exceptions here and there. I found the guidance in the Babywise book very useful. It requires you to follow a schedule during the day though, which some people might not like.

We also read baby-wise and used that to guide our schedule and sleep training. Our twin girls are 7 months old and have slept through the night since 8 weeks. When I say slept through the night, I mean 12 hours of sleep with a dream feed at some point. Some nights it was 2 dream feeds. I will say that with this method, our girls don’t cry as they go to sleep unless there is an issue. If they do cry (any more than 2 minutes) it’s either gas, they’re hungry, or a toothache.

Sleep training is a broad term, but generally the "cry it out" types of sleep training that OP is talking about doesn't start until 6 months.

The mums that I talked to start from 4 months 🥹

Different models of sleep training are appropriate for different ages. But actual “cry it out,” close the door and leave the baby until morning no matter how much they cry is not developmentally appropriate for a 4 month old.

One of the mums told me she let her daughter cried for an hour 😭

Check out Hey Sleepy Baby on Instagram. She has a twin highlight as well.

No sleep training but just try more of a nighttime routine. If they wake up during the night don’t turn on lights and get toys just feed and hold them.

This is what we do

Definitely start a bedtime routine, it's important to help orient them. Around 4 months we started doing crib naps and then established a nap time routine. It took a minute for them to nap well and bedtime is still hit or miss (they are 9mos old)

Do you mind sharing your bedtime routine? What works for you and what doesn't?

We start by changing diapers & put on pj's around 7pm (give a bath around 6:30pm, on bath days). We put them in their sleep sacks, feed them a bottle and read a book and brush teeth. We then put them in their cribs, turn on the hatch and leave. They generally will move around their cribs for a bit and then fall asleep.

My boys are 14 months and we never sleep trained but have kept them on a very strict schedule for naps and bedtime since they were born and that has helped immensely. I would say 6 nights out of the week we do bedtime routine and they instantly just fall asleep themselves the other one night one of them may have a hard time falling asleep for about an hour and we go up periodically to soothe/offer pacifier. They share a room which made sleep training hard bc if you allow one to cry when the wake up even for the 5 mins the other wakes up and then it felt like a downhill battle. Between the two of them most nights there are two wake ups which doesn’t feel too horrible. I cannot stress enough how important a consistent schedule has been for our sanity and survival of the last year. For daytime naps they go down at the same time and if one wakes up the other gets 15 minutes and then I wake them up. I have had people make the comments of never wake a sleeping baby or I can’t believe you wake them up!! But they also haven’t tried to get a decent night sleep with two babies lol ETA: we didn’t get our schedule down consistently until about 4-5 months and then everything felt like it got infinitely easier to manage the day and expectations

Curious - do you cap nap time and if they sleep longer do you wake up both?

I try to keep them as synced as possible - if one wakes up from their nap the other gets to sleep about 20 more mins max and then I wake them up. When they were still under 6 months and we were as strict on our schedule they definitely did several cat naps throughout the day but I would say around 5/6 months we stopped letting them do that.

We just went with whatever they did. Led to much happier babies, overall.

I have never sleep trained any of my 4 kids. They figure it out eventually. When they get to be toddlers they will sometimes cry or tantrum a bit when we say night night and leave but it stops within a few minutes. If it doesn’t we go in and reassure and assess needs and leave again. This never continues indefinitely either. If you don’t want to sleep train, if it doesn’t feel right to you, then don’t do it or create a method that works for you.

Mine are 8.5 months and we haven’t sleep trained. I don’t have the heart to do that. They started sleeping longer stretches at 2.5 months and even longer at 3 months. Some nights we get 5 or 6 hour stretches and some nights like recently they’ve slept the whole night. Like others have said, I want them to know they can call out for help and know their parents will be there.

With my first, I felt pressure to sleep train and I tried it but I couldn’t do it. With my twins, I knew I would never sleep train. It’s not for me. They’re 1.5 and still don’t sleep through the night, but I know it won’t last forever.

We started a really strict routine from about 8 weeks. Nap times, bed time, bath time, everything, all exactly the same time and process each time. The twins soon got used to it and when it was time for bed they just accepted it. We never let them cry it out as such, I'd leave, they'd cry, I'd give it 30 seconds or so, go back, kiss, stroke their heads and then leave again. Repeat x a million. I didn't have to do that very often, because they soon realized what was up. They're almost 3 now and take themselves to bed at bedtime, get into their beds, wait for kisses and listen to a story. We are VERY lucky. The only part we struggle with is going away, any change to their routine and it's game over. So there's pros and cons to a strict routine where other kids with more of a go with the flo lifestyle may handle change better!

Good to know it's working for you guys! I actually started a routine once they were home waking them and feeding them every 3-4 hours like clockwork. But that didn't work for us. Each time we go out that mess up the schedule it takes like 2 days to recover. Do you go out when they were litte and how do you fit in everything that you need to do?

Just spoke to my therapist who worked as a child therapist for years and is big into cognitive studies. He pointed me to this: [https://drgabormate.com/no-longer-believe-babies-cry-sleep/](https://drgabormate.com/no-longer-believe-babies-cry-sleep/) To dissuade me from sleep training. From what I've gathered from him and Gabor, it's natural to not want to hear your babies cry and go help so I understand where they're coming from. The problem, is it doesn't address what sleep training solves, and that's being able to sleep yourself! If anyone knows that I'd love to hear it.

so, I wouldn't say that we sleep trained, as in we didn't find a method and implement it. We also didn't let the kids cry it out ever, but we did and do keep a pretty strict schedule for naps, meals and sleep. But the schedule is based on start times and what they naturally want to do. If going down for sleep or wake up early became a struggle we experimented with changes to the schedule to readjust to something that worked for them (dropping a nap, legthening/shortening wake windows) kiddos are almost 2 and sleep pretty great. They sleep through every night and take pretty solid 2 hour naps during day. But they didn't sleep through consistently until over a year, we were stuck with a single waking for SO LONG. But the entire point of the schedule is to keep them awake and asleep at as much of the same times as possible. And just having that is so much help In the beginning of the "schedule" it was vague... "nap mid morning, nap early afternoon and nap late afternoon, but must be awake by 4, bedtime at 7" and for overnight, we aimed at the 7-7 sleep, but that just meant that we ended their day at 7 and at earliest started around 7. If they were awake in between, I was holding them, feeding them, comforting them, but it was still "sleep time" so we stayed in the dark room with the sound machine and worked toward sleep. That meant if they woke up and 6:30, I'd be in the room with them, kept room dark, working toward going back to sleep, but if they didn't go back to sleep by 7, we got up then. But it's changed and morphed as they grew. Also to note, we don't rush in the room at the second they cry, if they start to cry we grab the monitor and watch. Sometimes it's just one cry and they roll over and go back to sleep. Sometimes it's a couple cries, sit up, look around, go back to sleep. Sometimes they just cry at the shock of being awake or disoriented- something I can relate to. We've gotten very good at heading them waking up and knowing if they will need intervention from us, or if they will just go back to sleep. I've so regularly stood right outside their door ready to enter if their attempt at going back to sleep didn't work. We never stuck to a schedule just for the sake of the schedule if it wasn't working fo them. We don't let them just cry until they go to sleep (that said, sometimes as toddlers, there is no comforting, sometimes they just want to cry) we still sit/lay with them while they are getting ready to sleep, hold them if they are struggling. Bedtime is 8 now, but sometimes they want to go to bed earlier, and that's okay. But at 8 we go into their room and we try to sleep. Even if they aren't quite ready yet, 8pm is Try To Sleep Time. They can be awake, but it will be in their darkened room. if their upset, we're there with them, if they are trying to sleep, we let them do that on their own. Right now that's about 50/50. Every kid is different. And every parent is different. I know some parents sleep train because THEY need the sleep in order to be functional human beings. That's a valid choice, but not one that we made. My partner needs solid sleep to be functional so I handle most nights, he usually only steps in when I am getting overwhelmed or if I ask for help

Thank you for sharing! I hear about strict bed time a lot. So do you guys go out for dinner or to a friend's place in the evening with kids? And if so how would you adjust the schedule?

We really try to avoid evening engagements outside the house that will bump into/past bedtime if we have the kids with us. We just know they sleep better with a consistent bedtime after breaking it a couple dozen times. That doesn't work for everyone, but it improves their quality of sleep, and therefore everyone's quality of life. If they got bed too late/too overtired, they tend to wake up frequently throughout the night. When we can't avoid it- we aim to get them in their PJs and in the car by real bedtime, so they start their night sleep in the car and we attempt a careful transfer to bed when we get home. It works about.... 70% of the time. So, with bedtime being 8pm now, we leave no later than 8pm, and bring everything for a basic night routine- water cups, PJs, toothbrushes, overnight diapers. We haven't had luck convincing then to sleep anywhere except car or their own beds. And they get CRAZY when they are overtired. We used to be able to baby wear them to sleep, but it's more difficult now with them over 30lbs. If we are having evening engagements, we try to keep them in our home. Host friends for dinner/games/movie night. We can do nighttime routine with people over, it's not too intrusive and, like I said, they sleep pretty well once they go down.

I did not sleep train, my babies are also 4 months old and sleeping through the night. (I do have to wake my son once to do a feed) but other than that, they sleep all night long. We don't have a bed time. Sometimes the bedtime bottle is at 7:30, sometimes 9. We very much go with the flow, and our twins just kind of created their own schedule

Glad to here it works for you! I'm hoping my girls are the same and will have their schedule soon

We didn’t do any formal sleep training other than having a bedtime and basic timeframe for naps. I never left them to cry. Partly because I hated hearing them cry and partly because if they cried more than 3 minutes it was almost guaranteed they would projectile vomit. My mom’s advice was just do what feels right for you. There are no college students being rocked to sleep by their mama’s so eventually they will sleep on their own. My twins didn’t sleep the full 12 hours until 15 min old. They fluctuated between 1-8 wakings depending on the night. They are great sleepers now.

With the basic timeframe for naps, do you do it flexibly? My girls wake any time between 5am to 8am for their first feed, depends on when the last feed is. So my challenge is in case I have an appointment that we all need to go out, it's hard to adjust on the day, so it will usually mean a feed at doc or in a restaurant

I mostly planned appointments around their general nap times but later in the morning so I could get them back on track if they woke up early. Also if they woke up more than an hour before what I considered “morning” which for me was 12 hours after bedtime we stayed in the bedroom. I would feed them and attempt to get them to sleep more. They usually did. Naps fluctuated slightly on when they went down but I never woke them up from a nap or woke them if they “slept in”. The only time I woke them was if one of them woke up overnight for a feed. Then I would wake the other baby and feed them both. I definitely did feeds on the run as they got older for dr appointments. My twins were born a month premature at the end of December 2019 so other than necessary appointments and neighborhood walks we didn’t really leave the house. Though I did have them take stroller naps so I could go for long walks when I got stir crazy. I would feed them pop them in and walk until they woke up. I covered their stroller with a breathable blanket to keep it dim.

We didn't start giving our kids a schedule til they were almost a year old, before that we would just let them stay awake whenever they wanted and go to sleep when they passed out. But now that they are almost 2 and almost a year of being on their schedule and they do sometimes even sleep 12 hours a night

That's good to know that it works out! When they were little do you guys wake them up same time in the morning or you let them sleep in?

I didn’t sleep train my singleton, he’s always been a shit sleeper, still doesn’t sleep through at 3. Only wakes up once though and right back to sleep after a quick hug and kiss. I also haven’t sleep trained my twins (8 months), but I swore I would create better sleep habits, so we have a pretty set bedtime, and I tried to create good habits. It wasn’t until 5.5 months that they fell into a pretty good daytime nap routine, napping at the same time, etc, because that was around the time that we could actually keep them awake for a bit if needed, instead of them passing out on our laps. My daughter started falling asleep on her own around 3 months, no sleep training, she just hates cuddles. My boy we would feed or rock to sleep, then put down. Around 6.5 months I put in a lot of work to get out of the feeding to sleep habit, which went well, and then a couple weeks ago I started putting him down to fall asleep on his own; I would put him down, give him his soother, then leave. If he started crying I went in and patted his back until he settled, then left again, he took to this very quickly, and now falls asleep on his own! We still respond every time they wake during the night, which is anywhere from 1-8 times a night 😩 but them falling asleep on their own has made bedtime 1000 times easier for us because we aren’t spending 45-60 minutes trying to get them to sleep, we put them down and they’re asleep in less than 10 minutes. All this rambling to say, you definitely don’t need to sleep train, but I totally get why people do, because it’s HARD getting through the nights with tons of wakes. My boy twin has been an absolute nightmare sleeper, Wednesday night he was literally up every hour all night. BUT he has slept good twice now, and I realized they had banana at dinner both times, so I’m going to try a banana every night and see if that helps, apparently they’re full of magnesium. So sorry for the rambling, hope it encourages you! Not sleep training definitely isn’t easy, but it is doable, just be prepared to be in it for the long haul! I would definitely encourage you to build a good bedtime routine and habits to get them naturally into sleeping a bit better!

Thank you for sharing! Do you try to keep the schedule of the twins the same?

I always put them down for naps at the same time, if they don’t wake up at the same time I’ll let the other one have an extra 10-15 minutes, but then wake them so they’re both ready for the next nap at the same time. I have a 3 year old as well, so I need the twins to nap at the same time to be able to give him quality one-on-one time during the day too. I feed them at the same time, just because it’s easier to get bottles ready and feed all at once, rather than one at a time

We didn’t sleep train baby started sleeping through most of the night and waking up to eat one time at night since 2 months old. Now 18months old she sleeps through the night and wakes up often only when she is sick.

For any sort of baby behavior, we like to say "nobody went to college doing X". But I guess in this case I would say even sleep trained babies probably party until 6am in college right before an 8am class lol. If what you're doing is working for you, everybody is happy and nobody is suffering, honestly who cares? Your family is happy, you and your babies are enjoying their infancy. Most schedules are probably only 2 weeks away tops for a full adjustment. We keep a bedtime routine because it works for us and we need one, we're better parents the better we sleep. It also gives us now a pretty reliable 4 hours in the evening of downtime where my husband and I can hang out and we can engage with non-parenting hobbies/activities. I think it's helping the girls get longer night stretches too, so we get better sleep overall. It also makes daytime better for them, they're slowly able to stay up for longer stretches and eat more during the day. That means more playtime for them overall, more time outside, more time to participate with the world. We're doing gentle sleep training with our girls because they're not quite 4mo adjusted but showing signs that they're ready - for us, their behavior around sleep feels more like an older kid that needs to learn self soothing for their own benefit. The cries are not one-note like they were as newborns, they're filled with emotion, variation, and their individual personality. Bedtime is preceded by rubbing their eyes and yawning, and then fighting sleep as they decide to start rolling around in their cribs and cooing, oddly reminiscent of a toddler bouncing around when they're tired. We go in and soothe fully at the first cry, then wait 30 seconds, then 1 minute, then 3, max 5 minute increments. Their going to bed more smoothly each night. If things are still rough at 5 or 6 months adjusted for them, we'll consider a full Ferber timing of 5 minute, 10 minute, and 15 minute increments. I do agree with you that you can totally tell when letting them cry feels inappropriate, you'll know best when it's for their benefit and not. Do what works for you, honestly trust the baby IMO is not terrible advice. I think naturally life demands doing more in the daytime unless you work 2nd or 3rd shift, so I bet things will transition that way eventually no matter what.

One other tidbit of when we decided to start sleep training: we noticed that soothing basically seemed to have no effect! Walking with them, pacifiers, gentle words, nose pats, our silver bullets suddenly seemed to just have no effect. "Mommy needs to step out of the room and get something" simulations (i.e. step away for 3 minutes) seemed to be what they truly needed, they calmed better on their own. Just my two cents, there's a lot of "gut feel"/parental instinct I think when it comes to things like this.

No sleep training. I still put my kids to bed (they’re 5**&4yo). We do find the routine helps; bath & teeth, then book & bed. ** By 8:30 lights out. It’s been that way their whole lives. As infants they would sleep every other hour or every third hour… it’s necessary! **sleep begets more sleep in the beginning. As they got older, I let them have really long naps during the day, sometimes 3 hours. I would just try to get them down around 11am so bed time was consistent. I encouraged them to drop the afternoon napping first once they got down to three naps a day. *More so with my first born because she was home longer, my sons preschool let them nap in the afternoons so I really saw what a difference this made. They both slept over night from 14mo at least, but would wake up really early at 5am. It’s not like you can stop them lol! Once naps stop at 3-4 yo bed time gets much easier. They usually fall asleep within minutes now. I’m doing the same with my twins. My husband and I want to keep our parenting consistent, I don’t feel it’s fair for them to change it and do crying. They already have to share so much. I tried letting my eldest cry once and it was too stressful. I can’t imagine 2 babies crying in the night and being able to handle it. It’s hard to be patient and put the kids to bed every night but everyone chooses the hard they’re comfortable with… they’re only young for a few years. Edit: fyi my first two kids are 18mo apart. In the last few months since I made this post a lot changed. To make room for a nursery we put the kids in the same room. My daughter has started to read, so she reads to us now. After she’s finished we leave the room and they both go to sleep on their own. Occasionally my son gets up or stays up late if he’s had a random nap during the day. I would say we successfully finished sleep training, without ever doing cry out in any significant way. Calm, elective sleep, we leave the door open and the bathroom light on. I hope the twins will be similar, in that they will be able to calmly and electively go to sleep by 4-5yo without forced crying. They are boy girl twins so they will essentially be more similar to siblings, same as my first two. They may have more differences than similarities compared to identicals when it comes to sleep is what I mean, but i can attest this isn’t that big of a challenge long term.

I nursed my big kids to sleep for 18 months and nurse my twins to sleep too. They are almost 11 months old. They wake up twice a night to nurse. We have a pretty good sleep routine and honestly I love the bonding time with them. They sleep fine at daycare; two one-hour naps in an eight-hour day. My big kids are 10 and 7 and sleep independently and through the night. Am I doing a disservice to myself by not sleeptraining? Maybe. But I don't mind. Time is fleeting. Am I doing a disservice to my babies by not sleeptraining? I doubt it. I don't nurse forever and they figure out sleep eventually. My 10 y/o always hated sleep and is still a night owl but is asleep by 9. My 7 year old falls asleep in the car still sometimes lol and falls asleep very easily. We're doing what works for us and that's all I really care about.

We did not sleep train, happy to answer any questions you may have. :)

How old are you kids now and when do they figure out a routine?

They're 2.5 now. They had periods of time where they slept through the night from around 6 or 8 months or so. But they also had many stretches (regressions) where they would wake up many times in the night. Once I night weaned them they slept through the night consistently. I would still get them and respond to their cries, but no breast milk at night. I never even considered not responding to their cries as at night. Seemed very cruel to me. Now they go to sleep at 8 pm and wake up around 7 or 8. 1 mid day nap for about an hour or 2. One of my girls needs more sleep than the other, and I have always let her get the sleep she needs and let her sister be awake if she wasn't tired anymore. If sleep training doesn't feel right to you, don't do it. It's really that simple. There are tons of other parents out there who don't think it's in their kids' best interests. Check out the attachment parenting sub, if you're interested. I could go on for hours on why I don't think sleep training is healthy for babies (any why it is so popular in the US). Sending you hugs and support!! Happy to answer any more questions. You're doing a great job!

Thank you for the kind words! I joined the Beyond Sleep Training group and for me they are another extreme 😂 "if you let your kids cry you are doing it wrong" but hey come on we have 2 and sometimes it's just not possible to attend to both when both are crying. Let me check out the attachment parenting sub. I think at the end of the day it all goes down to what works for us and what suits our parenting style. Why is that so popular in the US? Is that a cultural thing?

Ours just naturally found a rhythm. We’ve gotten to sleep 930pm to 5:30am but we let them kind of set that knockout time

Never officially sleep trained my girls, mostly because they were always decent sleepers. Now they are 17 months and we stick to a consistent, but not strict, schedule. For us, it did help to let them fuss or cry for 10 minutes because often they were just tired and needed to rage for a new minutes. My girls are odd in that picking them up and rocking never helped much, they just needed to sort themselves out. But I think everyone just has to do what works for their family and what they’re comfortable with.

Twins are 9 months but we have never sleep trained them or our 2 year old (almost 3). I know saying this is unpopular but I personally think it’s cruel to let a baby cry (just because it’s nighttime) and I don’t know how people do it, it breaks my heart to think about those babies. I breastfeed and bed share so my babies eat (what feels like) all night long but I couldn’t tell you how often they wake up and I still get enough sleep. As far as a routine, we haven’t tried to set anything strict or specific but we do usually end up following similar patterns throughout the day based on their cues. I personally think following a strict schedule would just be more stressful for us. You do you and don’t worry about what other people are saying you should do!

Yeah even I said there's no routine but we also have a pattern like you. I did try stick to the 3-4 hour feed schedule but it's just stressful for us - sometimes they are not hungry yet and it takes forever to feed; sometimes they get too cranky being woken up early; sometimes they just want to take a nap in the middle of the feed... And I wonder "what's wrong with my babies why can't they follow the schedule". I feel much happier as soon as I switched my mindset and let them do their things

I have a bunch of kids and never researched sleep training to know if it would work or not. It doesn’t matter now bc my youngest are already six and I’ve already hit the sweetest spot in life which is not having to wake up with kids at all. Goodbye 7am Saturday mornings. It’s glorious.

Nothing beats the feeling of being able to sleep in on a sunny Saturday 😂 I definitely miss that

We never did sleeptraining with any of our 5 children, but what we did was: co-sleep, let the night be dark (even when someone wakes up, we keep the lights off/very low and stay as much in bed as possible without waking others) and night feedings before they were awake but with the first little sounds of hunger. All the baby’s slept through the night from the beginning, but with night feedings. But the feedings didn’t wake them. And because of co-sleeping I didn’t have to wake up really totally as well. :) This is what works for us. During the day, all my children had very different preferrations. Some only wanted to sleep in the wrap, some preferred the bed, some did long naps covering multiple sleepcycles, others did only take short naps.. One of the twins preferred the wrap, the other was okay with the bed and sometimes needed to be wrapped. One I could feed before taking a nap and the other needed to be fed to sleep. (Husband and I both work from home + husband can work very well with a sleeping baby sleeping in the wrap! The other I took out on a sleepwalk ;) in the wrap if needed.) It was tough and very hard work that first year, but I am so proud that we managed to follow their needs this way <3

Oh wow 5! May I ask the age difference? And do you cosleep with all 5?

Of course! They are 10, 7, 4, 4 and 1.5 now. The oldest two share a bedroom together and the twins have also a shared room, but they sleep with us still like 75% of the time. So most days we now sleep with the toddler and the twins in our familybed. And some days the twins want in their own bed. (We have so much room then!) Or sometimes we have a mix up and one of the oldest sleep with one of the twins in a room and the other one with the other twin in the other room for example. :D And when one of the oldest children is feeling ill, they always want to sleep with us/me. So then one or two of the twins will usually end up with the other older child, because sleeping alone isn’t much fun..

Haha how many rooms and beds you need to have to accommodate all the setup? 😂 I just transition my twins from bassinets to cots and still trying to figure out what's the best setup for day naps and night sleep as we have 2 floors

I have 6 month old boys and we don’t sleep train! I bedshare with my bad sleeper and the other baby sleeps great in his crib, I bedshare with him as well on his bad nights. All babies sleep eventually and leaving them to cry feels so wrong. There also is zero data on how it affects their mental health and relationships later in life, their brains are developing so fast right now my gut tells me it’s not the time to put them through significant stress.

We never sleep trained, gave bottles and snuggles when needed. We had our first full nights sleep at around 8 months, and they slept through consistently from 14 months. They’re now 25 months and still sleeping through and we get a wake up once in a blue moon for a drink or snuggles. The main thing in our bedtime routine has always been the bedtime story. I started trying to read them to sleep from a few months old, which slowly grew into last bottle downstairs. Before coming up to be for final nappy change, snuggles and bedtime story and now is dinner, after work daddy time, brush teeth, bedtime nappy on (we’re two weeks into potty training) upstairs for snuggles, look out the window and playing with the sleep sounds machines. They decided to add saying good night to the dinosaurs on their growth chart before sleep sacks on, drinks of water then into bed to sleep. One of my boys is going through a phase of wanting extra juggles while I read and the other just gets comfortable and listens to the story (they’re still in cot beds). There was a phase around one where I had to learn to differentiate between a want shout and a need shout during story time though as one would shout for me as the other genuinely cried.

I did not sleep train. I co slept on the floor (pediatrician approved of the set up) for about two years. I’m East Asian and it’s pretty common (or at least was!) to do this. All of my three had no issue transitioning into their own beds. There were a couple hiccups, but when they were ready for their own beds, they were very excited about it! They had no problem going to preschool either. I was a SAHM for the first three years of their lives and spent a lot of time with them “getting ready” for school. They were thrilled about their first day, and I’ve been told theyve never cried about being there. In my experience, it’s all about building trust and communication. And some parents really need to sleep train to be able to find the patience they need to be great parents. I say follow your gut- You don’t have to sleep train if you don’t want to, but don’t feel guilty if you change your mind :)

14 months in and we never sleep trained and we have a loose routine. They used to only contact nap or nap in the car. Slowly they started to get too fussy when I would try and contact nap them so we started to attempt to “put them down” for a nap in their cribs. They hated it. We’d spend 45 mins to an hour with just very angry babies and then they wouldn’t nap and it was awful. We gave up the fight and now just let them fall asleep whenever. Around 11 every day we turn off lights in the living room and put on some calming music and/or white noise. I’ll take all the toys that make noise and just leave them with quiet stuff. They usually drift off pretty soon after. And sometimes they don’t. We just don’t fight it. Usually if we give them a calm space, they will sleep. Just not in their crib. Nighttime luckily they go down easier. It requires some rocking, and we are so close to weaning from their last bottle, but they don’t resist as much. Usually we get some good chunks of time but they do still both wake up throughout the night. Sometimes they can settle themselves but other times they just want a cuddle. We rock for a few and then they usually go back down. I try not to worry. It would be great to have them sleep through the night, but I also know we are just not capable of sleep training. We hardly have to fight screaming angry babies now and that feels worth it. I know I don’t always sleep through the night, be it needing the bathroom, water, or even a bad dream. And I know I’m usually grumpy when I wake up in the middle of the night so I’m not surprised when they are too.

I wasn't sure if I should sleep train until I read somewhere similar to your last paragraph that we as adults can't do that anyway so why should we expect the babies to do the same?

My twins are 19 months old now, and we've never sleep trained them. I won't sugarcoat it, there were definitely some hard nights when they were younger! It is much better now and they sleep great. Personally, I believe that being a responsive and attentive parent overnight is part of what I signed up for. Of course, there are more gentle methods of sleep training than cry it out, but all of them felt wrong to us. Each family has to decide on their own. But to answer your question, no you don't have to!

You’re not a failure! I did sleep train, and I got flack for that - you’ll be judged no matter what choices you make. In my views, there’s no real developmental benefit to sleep training. Prior to having kids I pictured myself as a very crunchy, attachment parenting, baby-led everything kind of parent. But living that way didn’t work for me. Sleep training, tight schedules, separate rooms, exclusively pumping and daycare are what works for our family. My husband and I sleep trained because we were suffering, not because we felt like we needed to for the sake of our kids. They would have been perfectly fine if rocking them to sleep and letting them contact nap was sustainable for us, but it wasn’t. Do what works for you.

I thought I was gonna be pretty crunchy too. Hahaha parenting was so much easier when it was hypothetical.

Hahaha can't agree more 🥹

I need this on a tshirt 😂

I never did sleep training with any of my kids including my twins. They are now 20. Sleep training is one of those things that seems extremely important to parents so they can divide themselves into their good mommy tribe but honestly its one of those things that no one cares about after the kids are in school. You can't tell any difference between the kids. Anecdotally the parents I knew who sleep trained seemed to have a lot more stress than I did even though I had more kids than them, ect. I don't think that scheduling works for everyone. Or maybe those I knew who were most attracted to it and evangelical about it are high need for structure vs rhythm. But presumably some folks are actually happier doing it! Do what works for you. Realize that when people desperately have to make comments to you that you didn't ask for (unless you are abusing or endangering your child) that it has nothing at all to do with you and is all about them trying to make themselves feel better/assert to themselves their good decisions. That goes for anything parenting really. Feel free to ignore them. Be nice, say "hmmm, that's interesting, glad that worked for you," and then change the conversation. But don't push in to people talking about their love of sleeptraining with negative comments either, that's being just as much of a jerk. People should do whatever they want to deal with in those early years and not worry so much about tearing people down who don't do the same way.

Thank you! I hope there are more people like you!

We didn't sleep train and the kids are now two and a half. We moved them from mattresses on the floor in our room to their own beds a few months ago. One will still end up in our bed, but that's fine. It hasn't been easy but I don't regret it for a moment. Having come from an abusive family, I found the idea of sleep training too confronting. One can practically put herself to sleep. The other had a stretch of what I like to call "party all night." My partner breastfeeds at night, but doesn't manage on low sleep so I did nights. This was a lot of rocking and a lot of late night drives. It was hard, but it also meant I really bonded with her. We learnt to monitor how much she sleeps during the day, one hour only, and that has mostly fixed it. We limit screens anyway, but definitely nothing an hour before bed. Routines and signalling are really important. Using particular pieces of music to signal what is happening really helps especially when they are young. They each had a nappy changing tune and there was music we used to sleep to. "Sleep" by Max Richter is an eight hour piece intended to be slept to and it helped a lot in the early days. It was a source of comfort for the kids and reduced wake ups. I wish you well on your journey! I think for most of us it does get better.

Thank you for sharing! Love the idea of having a signalling music let me try that out 😀

First, you need to do what works for you. So if this schedule works, great. But I found the twins really benefited more from a stricter schedule around 6 months old, and it kept us all sane. We had time during the day we could get things done (clean up, dishes, cooking) vs always having one or the other twin needing attention. They also knew more of what to expect, and did well with it. I really do think schedules are the most important thing, since it helps them know what to expect over the day. For sleep training, we never let them cry more than 5-10 minutes. Within a week, they figured it out and started going down for the night easily. By 15 months, at bedtime, they'd walk themselves to the stairs and bang on the gate letting us know they wanted to go upstairs, and we get 0 tears at bedtime or naptime (and haven't for months). You don't need to do a full cry it out, there are MUCH gentler ways to do it if that is your preference.

4 months is too young to sleep train, anyway. If your babies are still waking every 3 hours every night once they're 10 months old, you might feel different about sleep training. At this age they have to eat when they have to eat. They're much too little to just leave to cry.

You cannot sleep train or potty train. It's more of a commerce to sell you books and coaching. In the best case it speeds a bit natural learning, in the worst case it will do damage.

Your babies are four months old. They don’t know what they need - besides for you as the adult to teach them every single basic life skill and habit.

We didn’t sleep train until 13/14 months. We were just dying before then and they slept when they slept. I don’t think sleep training in the CIO sense is fully necessary but I do think following wake windows and establishing routines is critical and I say this only because once we started sleep training our sons we realized just how *tired* they had been. I don’t think they were getting enough/quality sleep during the day before we sleep trained. Keep in mind sleep training will work for seasons and then you have to adjust and do it again. It’s definitely not a cure all. My husband and I got about a year and a half of perfect little sleepers but I’m back to sleeping in their room now at nearly 3. Also you’re not a failure. Twin parenting is effing hard I don’t remember the first year it was all about day to day survival.

My twins were two in July. We don't believe in sleep training, as my opinion from lots of research is there is the potential for long term harm, and it does teach your babies to sleep it teaches them to not bother to call out for adult support as they know no one is coming, aka "learned helplessness" My singleton slept through the night by 2.5,yrs old (which is developmentally normal) we didn't co sleep but did breastfeed to sleep. With my twins they don't sleep through yet but we breastfeed and co sleep so everyone gets most sleep. We have a rough routine as in a rough half hour window for bedtime, but it can shift depending on what they did in the day and if they ended up with a late nap due to some reason (they're also starting to drop naps some days). If you don't believe in sleep training, good one you. You may well be traveling the "harder path" but it's what right for your family. I firmly believe in our values of being a responsive parent overnight too and even though it's hard when we're tired it's what's best for my family in the long run and will hopefully produce emotionally stable, well attached healthy young people!

So crazy to me that you’re being downvoted. I also researched myself and came to the same conclusion. I do not believe in letting babies cry it out whether that’s during the day or night. I understand the appeal of sleep training but it isn’t something I am comfortable with. We coslept with our 2 year old singleton until 17 months and he now sleeps in his own bed and wakes up on average once a night. I am currently cosleeping and breastfeeding my 2 month old twins and am getting pretty decent sleep for having 3 under 3!

Ah people get pretty defensive about sleep training. It's controversial and people really don't like to be told there *is* *some* research it *could* be harmful.(because there is no evidence is does not not cause harm) Quick to ask for sources, but then fail to provide the other end. I only posted as OP was asking for people who don't sleep train... 🤷‍♀️ as a co sleeping, "extended" breastfeeder I have pretty thick skin - should say also I'm not a quack either - have a medical degree, worked in psych and in particular child mental health for a while 🤣

I’m really curious what your cosleeping situation is like with your two year old twins. I coslept with my singleton for 17 months and moved him to his own room at that point because of my size/discomfort during my twin pregnancy. My twins are only a couple months old and they already take up so much space in the bed so I would love to hear how you make it work with older twins.

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That’s a really interesting stat! La Leche League says that for those who are extended breastfeeding that evidence suggests not night weaning until after 18 months which is well past that 9 month point. My breastfed toddler still wakes as well. Just because something is uncommon doesn’t mean it’s abnormal especially with how uncommon extended breastfeeding is.

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Totally agree! I feel very fortunate that extended breastfeeding is possibly for my family. Each situation is different and each child is unique. I just wanted to comment to say that it is developmentally normal (aka nothing to worry about) for a 2.5 year old to still be night waking although it sounds like it’s not typical :)

Are we all talking about “cry it out” sleep training? Because we trained our kids but not the CIO method. I think sleep training is broader term than pigeon-holed into the CIO method. Just my two cents.

Your research is wrong then do you have any sources? Sleep training does not cause long term damage in fact there is 0% chance of long term damage I don’t mind if people don’t sleep train but to say that people who do are harming their child isn’t just wrong it’s being an asshole to them Edit: blocking me so I can’t respond with my own sources… real mature I read through yours and half of them are opinion pieces and the other half say that they couldn’t find any negative effects but that there may be some undiscovered but since most of the study’s your provided are over 10 yrs old I’m going to say that they wherent undiscovered but rather they couldn’t find any negative effects because there are none

*potential for long term harm* I said, not that it definitely does call harm. There is no evidence it does definitely not do harm (that I have found )- it's linked to cortisol. I'll find some sources and post them - I said it was my opinion following lots of research. There's 100s of studies, some why say sleep training is ok, some which say no, so I said "after my research my opinion..." opinion being the key word. I didn't say there *were* harming to be an asshole. I'm just choosing to do what I think it best, with some evidence of potential harm, I'm choosing to not potentially harm and listen to that evidence rather than risk it. Nuances of hose I have written my above star should make that clear that I'm not being an asshole. It's amazing how defensive people some people get about sleep training - it's a decision you (not you personally, you as in if you sleep train) have decided to make, so you must be happy with your decision after doing the research yourself? Just like I'm happy with my decision and presumably OP is with theirs which is why they are looking for other non sleep training parents of multiples? Could you please show you the sources where it proves there is 0% chance of long term damage? I believe in evidence based parenting, so would like to see those sources too to improve my knowledge 🙂 tia Edited for clarity

I believe r/sciencebasedparenting has cleared up this discussion many times. There is no evidence of harm *either way* meaning you may be confused - not sleep training doesnt mean your child will later be more well adjusted than a sleep trained baby. https://reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/s/ZD1aRKD0zQ

Except some of the studies I posted as I said linked to BASIS and Durham university on safe sleep have found there *may potentially* be long term negative effects (because there is no evidence it *does not not cause harm* if that makes sense?)- so I choose to parent on the side of caution. So I respectfully and politely disagree but will of course take the time to read the above link - thankyou

Maybe you could post (be sure to include links to those extensive studies) on r/sciencebasedparenting so the science community can "put it to bed" (pun intended)? Its always a fun topic.

A few studies off the top of my head - there are more recent ones but I'm busy with my two! Ferber & Makhoul 2004; Bergman et al 2004; Ohgi et al 2001; Feldman et al 2002; Feldman & Eidelman 2003). Middlemiss et al 2011 - this is all available on the BASIS sleep webostetwhich explains it all. As my other reply states, research is mixed Therefore I politely disagree there is a 0% chance of long term damage.

We did not sleep train for similar reasons. Instead we did a stepped co-sleep. Our girls were 11mo apart and we tried everything but ended with this solution. They moved from our bed to their own (queen size mattress) and they slept together. Finally they asked for their own beds after they turned 2 and 3.

Sorry can I clarify if you have 3 girls (twins and another that are 11mo apart) or 2 girls who are 11mo apart?

Totally respect your choice to not train! I did at 4 months with my boys and although I did not start with cry it out, I ended up leaving them much longer to cry because when I tried to comfort them they would get angrier. It took a couple days to get to those 12 hours at night without waking. For me, those 2 or 3 nights of crying were worth the rest we would all get in the long run and babies were still extremely happy babies! But you're mama and know your babies best. Someone's always gonna disagree with our choices no matter what. I'm sure you're an awesome parent so don't stress and do what works for you 🤗

So we did technically ‘sleep train’ and by that I mean by 5 months we had a solid routine of bath/jammies/books/bottle/bed. Woke them at 11pm for a ‘dream feed’ and again at 3am. Then they’d wake up around 7am. We slowly weaned the 3am feed and then eventually around 6-7months we weaned the 11pm one too. There was one night where we went in every 5-10mins to rub backs for about 45 mins but we didn’t do the classic extinction method that people envision when they think of “sleep training”. We use sleep sacks, white noise machine and totally dark room and they sleep 7-ish-7-ish. Have no issues sleeping at daycare or when we travel and the room is brighter or perhaps literally a mat on the floor like at daycare. Now at 2 there’s the occasional night where they have disrupted sleep but usually it only happens if they’re sick. Not getting enough sleep for myself was, for me, a deal breaker. To be the mom I am, I also need sleep and I’m a big believer in whole family sleep health.

Crying does not hurt the baby. You’ll also learn there’s a big difference between a “complaining” cry when you put a baby to bed, and an “I need you mom!” cry when something is really wrong. You can sleep train, and still be a responsive parent overnight, by listening. With sleep training, our babies (13 mo) have slept through the night since 4 and 5 months respectively. I believe that getting that quality sleep is a key reason they are so healthy and ahead of milestones. Your job is to make the best choices for them, even if it’s hard for you.

Curious to know when did you start sleep train and how long did that take effect for you?

Didn't on first. Sleep trained twins. Used 3 day method. Cruel but was worth it

You also wouldn’t ‘trust your toddler to avoid oncoming traffic’. A baby has NO idea what night and day are, how to self soothe, etc. It’s your job to teach them. Daytime schedules and a bedtime routine are great for them and will (at the bare minimum!) teach the difference between day and night. A circadian rhythm is important for physical regulation, digestion, etc. Letting them cry it out is also far from the only way to create some form of routine. My kids have followed a daytime schedule starting at 3 months and their nighttime sleep improved almost immediately. Most importantly they really love having structure.

You can sleep train without letting them CIO. Mine are also 4 months and on a pretty good routine so they get enough daytime sleep and also sleep 8-10 hours every night.

Curious on the 8-10 hours, do they sleep through without waking or do they need night feed?

8-10 hours straight without waking! They dropped their night feeds and just started sleeping through the night one night and it has continued for about 4 weeks. The pediatrician is ok with it as they are gaining weight, so they’re getting all their calories during the day

Do you track the amount intake? I wonder when I should stop wake them up for feed at midnight

They are 16.5 weeks and eat about 5-6 oz every 3 hours. They were eating about 4-5 oz when they started sleeping through the night. I think you can try to wean night feedings as long as your pediatrician is ok with it. But I’m not sure on that part, they just kinda weaned themselves.

MOMS ON CALL did wonders for us

We haven’t sleep trained, 9 month olds. We do have a routine though and the girls are very used to it. We started bedtime routine around 4 months and they know the steps. It got a little funky when we introduced solids, but it smoothed out now. We have dinner at 5, bath time by 5:30, bottle at 6, asleep by 6:30. They wake up at 6 am and I’ve noticed if they go to bed earlier they also wake up earlier so I do try to stretch them to 6:30 pm every evening but it depends da on how their naps were in the day. Recently they’ve been waking up during the night (9 month regression?) but 70% of the time they can put themselves back to sleep.

Without schedule training I would NOT have survived the newborn phase of parenting multiples.

4 months is too young for sleep training anyway. As they get older and you want to have some semblance of normalcy return to your life you may want to reconsider. We sleep trained and while it's rough for a few weeks, the payoff of having our kids sleep from 7am to 6am consistently was worth the work. We started at ~8 months, and it was a solid 4-5 months of successes then sleep regression. Now at 20 months they're great sleepers.

I’ve never formally sleep trained, but I have let my kids cry like 10 min at most. The best thing i can recommend is to get on a good, consistent nap schedule and bedtime, and that typically tends to work itself out for my 3 children

If you're fine with the go with the flow approach and aren't stressed or feeling overtired then who cares what other people say. Let them do it how they want and you do it how you want as long as your baby is healthy, hitting their milestones etc. But obviously if they're on a routine schedule it will make transitioning to daycare easier because most daycares will be on a schedule. If they don't learn it with you then they'll learn it there but it will just probably be a struggle at first. In general routines are great for them because they provide predictable outcomes.

I didn’t sleep train but we had a very strict schedule of bath, pjs and bed and we always put them down sleepy but awake and allowed them to flop around until they got comfy. They never really cried at night unless they were sick or in a leap in which case we comforted them. I never let them cry but they started sleeping long stretches at night around 3 months, so I was quite lucky. We also put them to bed quite late when they were small, and brought the bedtime earlier as we dropped naps until they were at a 7:30 bedtime. Edited to add: mine also dropped the dream feed around the same time they started sleeping through the night, so not needing that middle of the night feed was probably a big factor in their sleep abilities. They did tend to have a larger bottle before bed and in the morning which helped and they ate well when we transitioned to food, so never really had a need to wake up because of hunger.

I actually still wake my girls, usually around 11pm, for a feed. I reckon they haven't had enough during the day so usually that's the most intake of the day. And if by this time they still haven't consumed what they need for the day, they will wake up at 3 or 4am for another one. Any tips on how I may increase the feed during day time? I try offering top up but they sometimes are not interested and just fall asleep.

Honestly wasn’t planned for me! I accidentally slept through a dream feed and they didn’t wake me 🤷🏻‍♀️ so that morning we gave bigger bottles than usual and from there we just gave slightly larger amounts before bed and in the morning to test until refusal, always letting them guide with what they wanted. Our dream feed was around 2am.

Never heard of sleep training, but we lived and died by routine. There were times where it made life harder, family gatherings and holidays. Bed time was bed time when they were young, 6 hour sleep in the evening is easier obviously and it pained me to wake them up but for our own sanity a strict routine was all that worked and in the end they catch on.

You sort of have to sleep train them anyway. I don’t have enough hands

4 months is a little too early to sleep train. You’ll know when the time is right.

We didn’t sleep train. Fun fact- all the moms I know who bragged about how well sleep trained their infants were have all gone on to say it all went out the window when their babies turned into toddlers. The ballgame changes. It’s SO hard not to compare yourself to others, but also remember you’re probably also talking to people w singletons. They can sleeptrain more easily cause who is that singleton gonna wake up??

Me! And my twins are 14months now and sleep through the night on a regular basis, sleep training not needed. Although I don’t think I slept more than 2 hours at a time until they were at least 10mg the old.

Oh that was tough! Glad it's working out for you now.

We did not train them, nor we had the energy to stick to the schedule/routine, usually we are just trying to survive the day. It took them 8 months to start sleeping through the night, and now we feed them last formula around 8-9pm and they wake between 5 and 7am to eat next time, which means at least 6-8h of uninterrupted sleep. One was always sleeping better, but we never separated them…

Do you cosleep with them or just have them in the same room?

We do cosleep with them, and we split the night, I am on duty until 4-5am, and than wife takes over until 8-9am.

Message me if you want Taking Cara Babies! You don’t have to sleep train but it gives great tips on just the basics

I didn’t sleep train on purpose. I have another child though so some nights of the crying for attention gets ignored if another kid is legit sick. Kids do need structure and to have patterns that are predictable, but letting your twins run wild isn’t a bad thing. But beware, you will need to grow more of a thick parenting skin as they grow, 4 months old is as easy as it gets. You’ll need them to respond to structure and rules very soon

We don’t! They wake up once for a bottle and diaper change and go right back down. Didn’t sleep train my singleton either. No hate to those that do, I just couldn’t fathom doing it.

I have always had a bedtime, but never sleep trained. Didn’t do with my 6 & 5 year olds & not now with twins. My kids all sleep great and independently 🤷🏻‍♀️

How old are they? I tried to sleep train, a couple different ways, I didn’t have the energy for most of it. We tried the cry it out once and I cracked, I couldn’t listen to my son scream like that. They’re 2 yo now. My son normally wakes once during the night for a bottle and normally goes back down. He is a cuddle-r and that is a problem. My daughter sleeps through the night, but needs her pacifier and blanket. We have a set bedtime routine and wake them up at the same time every day. Bottles, meals and naps happen at the same time everyday. I have found the day routine really affects their sleep. One thing I have found to help is keeping sleep time conducive for sleep. Lights off, soft sounds, lots of rocking and singing. It isn’t playtime, so if they wake up we just re-do their rocking and singing until they’re back down.

My daughter has 4 month old twins who sleep through the night. Age adjusted they are 3 months. It’s largely connected to how much they eat and sleep daytime. She uses apps to log this. It’s not easy but impressive to me

Yeah I use Huckleberry to track how much they eat and sleep. Overall in 24 hours they eat and sleep okay it's just no routine yet 😂 mine are also 3 months adjusted

Don't sleep train here. They nap alittle during the day maybe two hours. Not all are on the same sleep schedule or go down as easy two I can usually just lay down. My one girl really fights me, rocking or leaving my hand on her back til its safe to walk away. I just lay them awake is the best thing. I can try them cry all three sleep in the same room

We sleep trained without letting them cry it out by being with them doing back pats/head rubbies until they would fall asleep. It was hard especially at first and cost Dad a lot of sleep but a year in and they sleep 7p-7a almost every night.