Sleep training multiples

[lobstertail]

Have you done it and lived to tell the tale? Did you do train at the same time or one baby/toddler at a time? What methods did you do?

Our boys are seven months and just had a really bad last two weeks due to illness. I know it's not the time to sleep train because of that but the sleep deprivation has made me a little crazy. I think once they're back to normal it's time. I've read so much information, though, that I'm kinda paralyzed and don't know what to do.

[Narwhal]

Haha, I had pretty much the same post about a month ago! It's about 1/2 way down the page, and there are some great suggestions in it.

We were really hesitant to do CIO, particurarly before they hit 6 months adjusted, but we were so sleep deprived and nothing else was working, so we ended up doing a very, very mild form of CIO with both in the same room. We kept them up about 30 mins past their bedtime so they were very sleepy and would put them down sleepy but awake. C would always start to cry/fuss and J was more hit and miss. Sometimes he would go to sleep, sometimes he would fuss. Anyway, we would wait 5 minutes and the would pat their backs to sleep. After 2 ish weeks of this we moved to patting for a minute or so and then would leave for another round of 5 min fussing and then would pat to sleep. We have just kept going on the progression and now we usually let them fuss for 5-10 mins and pat for a min and leave while they are still wiggling. Most the time they will fall asleep. They still get up once a night to eat, but once a night is a HUGE improvement! And obviously, there is a rough night here and there for teeth breaking through, or other sleep ruining things babies go through. Our new thing is pulling up to standing, so that is so much fun! Haha 

Anyway, good luck! Sleep depravation is brutal! My fingers are crossed for you! 

[lobstertail]

Oh my gosh! I should have checked further down...can I blame lack of sleep again? A gentler CIO hadn't crossed my mind - I'm definitely going to look into it further. Thanks!!

[Narwhal]

Sept 20, 2014 22:19:46 GMT -5 lobstertail said:

Oh my gosh! I should have checked further down...can I blame lack of sleep again? A gentler CIO hadn't crossed my mind - I'm definitely going to look into it further. Thanks!!

No worries! No sleep makes me loopy! We went to a wedding last night and being up late plus the usual 2 am wake up is making me feel hungover. Haha. 
Anyway, we just kind of made up our CIO approach taking into consideration our boys' personalities and what they need. J is better at independently putting himself to sleep where C needs more cuddles and reassurance, so I'll push the time limit for J but not as much for C.  I hope you can figure out something that helps! I did read the revised Ferber book which I liked. It details the sleep patterns babies go though which was helpful in having us be more patient and understanding once we started getting into our groove.  

Good luck!! Feel free to PM me with any questions or just a sympathetic ear!  

[macchiatto]

We followed Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child with both boys. We started following a lot of the general advice in that book around 7 weeks and it worked beautifully for them to start napping at the same time. They started STTN at 4.5 months.

[lobstertail]

Just popping in with an update, in case it helps someone out in the future. We decided to CIO, and Weissbluth/extinction CIO at that, which we previously swore we would never do. To be honest, we had never let the babies fuss before out of fear of one waking up the other. So we never really gave them a chance to try to self-soothe and anytime they did (very rare), it was a happy accident.

Last night was the first night and it went well. They were very sleepy when we put them down to sleep at 7pm-ish and there was minimal fussing. There were wakeups at 8:30 pm (one baby), 11:00 pm (the other baby) and 2:30 am (both). The last one was the longest, 45 minutes, which was hard to hear. Hoping to make more progress in the next few days.

[trafficgirl]

I'm glad you updated lobstertail. We do CIO when they go down, but have yet to do it at night because I hate it when one wakes the other up. So every night at least one ends up in bed with us.

I think at this point we're going to separate the boys into different rooms b/c DS2 usually sleeps through the night, or nearly through the night, while DS1 constantly wakes up. Then we'll do CIO with both of them, hoping that the separation provides some barriers with the crying.

[lobstertail]

Good luck trafficgirl! I feel you, I'd place ours in separate rooms if we had the space. Last night, they cried in unison during two night wake ups...hard to hear.