So, last week, (the day my mom left to be exact-- more on that later) we began sleep training. I have read several books on the matter. Babywise. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Babies, and Sleeping 12 Hours by 12 Weeks Old. While they mostly all share the same principals we decided to follow the latter. Mainly because I am so exhausted and the first two books did not have a step-by-step plan and the last book clearly maps out what to do.
Week 1 we spent stretching the girls feeding times to every 4 hours. This was surprisingly not to difficult. They eat at 7am, 11am, 3pm, and 7pm and they we put them down to bed which takes about an hour for them to actually go to sleep. We "sssshhhh" and put binkies in, and then walk away. repeat, repeat, repeat, and sometimes repeat again and then they are usually asleep. After a week of this schedule I think we decided to move it back 30 minutes making it 6:30am, 10:30am, 2:30pm, and 6:30pm. It's all about making the necessary adjustments for your family and your children.
During the evening we let them sleep as long as they will go and then feed them through the night. In a few days once they get a hang of the newly tweeked daily feeding schedule then we'll work on eliminating the night feedings. Right now Alan has the 9pm-3am shift while I sleep and then I take the 3am-9am shift while he sleeps. For now this works well for us, though we'd both like to get a full night's sleep (at the same time!!) again!
Pray for us as we "teach" our girls the importance of healthy sleep!
my kids are 7, 5, and 2 and we still don't get a full night's sleep! It won't happen until they move out.
ReplyDeleteOh, girl! I remember that time we went through with A trying to get her to sleep through the night. It was hard at times. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI imagine it must be twice as tough with twins. Babywise has worked for us three times over. Sleep is great. Alyssa is 9 wks and we are getting 9 hours. Good Luck.
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