Your twins will wake up in the middle of the night for various different reasons.

They may be hungry, fussy, need a diaper change, or just hit the end of a sleep cycle.

Regardless of the reason for waking up, you need to train them to sleep through the night.

Your goal is to get them back to sleep as quickly as possible. The sooner they sleep, the sooner you will sleep.

Examine Your Routine

Think about how you interact with your twins when they wake up in the middle of the night.

Do you turn on the light and greet them with excitement just like it was play time? If this is the case, your babies will want to stay awake.

When you need to care for your twins in the middle of the night, make it as boring as possible.

Boring

Your twins love to play and interact with you. If you give them the chance, they will want to play even in the middle of the night. Avoid anything “fun” when you are called upon to care for them at night.

Quietly

Take care of the business at hand quietly. You’ll be amazed how many things you can do for your little one in the middle of the night without saying a word. Additionally, the quieter you are, the less likely you’ll wake up the sleeping twin or your spouse.

In the Dark

Train your twins to understand that light means daytime and dark means sleeping time. With very young babies you can do this merely with actions. For example, don’t turn on the lights in the middle of the night, or use very minimal lighting (just enough to get the job done).

For example, I’ll turn the closet light on in our girls’ room and crack the door so I can get just enough light to see what needs to be done without waking everyone up.

Sleeping Time

Once your twins are a little older, you can explain to them that it is still sleeping time when it is dark outside and they need to go back to sleep.

However, don’t expect to reason with a newborn. Here, you’ll need to show through your actions and reactions to their behavior that it is still time to sleep.

Consistency

Maintain a consistent routine for bedtime and overnight. Your twins will start to see the pattern and know what to expect.

If every time they wake up in the middle of the night there is nothing fun to do or see, they will soon skip the boring night so they can sleep until the exciting daytime has arrived.

Picture by Ruth L

Don’t expect to get lots of sleep with newborn twins in your house.

As you know, sleep deprivation is brutal and will be your reality for several months with newborn twins.

You have to change your expectations and routine to try and maximize the sleep you can get.

Here are some things you can do to improve your sleep:

Forget Normal Schedules

Traditionally you sleep at night and are awake during the day. Throw all “normal” expectations out the window when caring for newborn twins. There is nothing wrong with going to bed right after dinner at 6:30pm. Any time can be sleep time, so don’t say “I can’t go to sleep, it’s only 7:00.”

Yes, you can go to sleep whenever you need!

Sleep in Shifts

Take turns sleeping in shifts with your wife. For example, you can take the midnight to 4am shift and then swap from 4am to 8am. Your twins will have a pattern to their waking and eating. Plan your shifts around those predictable feedings.

Tag Team

During night time feedings, both you and your wife can get up to feed the babies. (This works best when bottle feeding.) When you work as a team, you can feed two babies in the time it takes to feed one. Everyone then gets back to sleep faster.

The disadvantage of this method is that no one sleeps for a longer period than the twin babies sleep. You’ll get more interruptions during the night.

Get Helpers

The best way to get a full night’s sleep is to not have to wake up to care for the babies. Who will take care of the babies then? I don’t recommend pushing all night time feeding responsibilities to your wife just so you can sleep. Instead, invite family or friends to come and help with the twins during the night shift.

With our newborn twins, we had someone staying with us for the first several months. With three adults in the house, we could rotate two people on child care every night. The third person could then sleep through the night. Knowing that I could sleep the whole night every third night was an awesome relief!

Sleep When You Can

If you aren’t caring for the twins, you can take a nap. You have my permission. It can be any time of day (just not while you are driving). After the babies are fed and changed, seriously think about your next activity. Is it more important than some sleep? Choose wisely.

Getting adequate sleep as a parent of newborn twins is a huge challenge. You need sleep to function properly both at home and work. Expect and plan for small stretches of sleep instead of a solid night’s worth of rest.

Take heart that the sleep interruption is only temporary. The good news is that when you awake in the middle of the night, the routine is pretty straight forward: feed baby, burb baby, change baby, go back to bed. You don’t have to think too much and that definitely helps in your sleepy stupor.

Picture by Rob Sharp

I got an email from a father of twins seeking advice on how to get both his twin girls to sleep in the same room. One is a really good sleeper and the other is very restless.

Will a restless twin wake up her sister if they are in the same room?

Our girls seemed to sleep fine through the cries of each other. If the sleeping child is the “good sleeper,” the chances are she will remain asleep regardless of the noise her sister makes. Granted, if the restless twin starts making lots of sharp, harsh noises (i.e., is having a fit), this will probably wake up the other. Remove her as a courtesy to the household sleepers and calm her down in an opposite end of the house. However, don’t feel like you have to immediately remove the restless baby at the first sound she makes.

If the restless twin is such because she doesn’t want you to leave the room, try a gradual approach.

One thing that has worked for us in the past is staying in the room after we put a baby in the crib. Your presence will comfort the child and slowly you can work your way out of the room.

This may take several nights of you putting baby down and then standing or sitting progressively farther away from the crib. Perhaps if your baby isn’t accustomed to the crib, you could put the crib in your room and once she is used to sleeping in there you can move the crib to her room.

A general rule of thumb is start as you mean to go on. The earlier you can get your twins in the sleeping arrangement you want (in their cribs in their room), the better life will be for all. The longer you go on with bandaid solutions, the harder the habit and routine will be to break.

A book I highly recommend is The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight. It served us well in getting our kids into a good sleep routine.

Getting your twins ready for bed is often an adventure. Regardless if your twins are newborns or toddlers, you will have the daily responsibility of getting your twins ready for bed.

Here are some tips I’ve found useful for getting our twin girls ready for bed:

Bed Time Routine

Consistency and a familiar routine are essentials for a successful bedtime with your twins. Review your current bedtime routine and see where it differs from what you did yesterday. Think about how you can standardize bedtime so your twins know what to expect every day.

Our toddler twin girls follow a predictable pattern every night:

1. Baths
2. Put on pajamas
3. Read stories
4. Brush teeth
5. Floss teeth
6. Have family prayer
7. Go potty
8. Go to the bedroom
9. Say prayers
10. Tuck in to bed
11. Mom or Dad sing them songs
12. Good night and shut door

There is comfort in the familiar and repeatable pattern they go through every night. It reduces fighting because they know what to expect.

We have also found it helpful to have bedtime at a consistent time every night. For us that is between 7:00 and 7:30. Granted this time varies when we have evening activities or plans that take us out of the house. Nevertheless, when we follow the pattern and stick to the routine time, the twins (and their brothers) do really well.

Tag Team the Twins

If your twins are in the routine and pattern, it will be possible to have only one parent help with bedtime. However, if your twins are still infants, you’ll find the process goes much more smoothly when both parents help.

As with most things, having two sets of adult hands is always helpful with twins. But if you are by yourself, don’t worry. You can always put one twin to bed at a time.

Peer Pressure

Leverage the power of positive peer pressure with your twins. If one twin isn’t cooperating, help her twin get ready for bed while showering her with positive attention for compliance. The resistant one will likely follow.

Pick Your Battles

Bedtime with twins can be a challenge, particularly if your twins park their heels like stubborn mules. Not all steps in the getting-ready-for-bed routine are necessary every night. Your twins will be OK if they skip baths for a night or don’t floss their teeth for a night. Be patient and compromise with choices, such as “Do you want to brush your teeth or floss?” instead of caving to their “No!” demands.

Good luck! The sooner the twins are in bed, the sooner you can rest too!

My wife and I were talking on Sunday night when we heard a thump from the girls’ room. I went to investigate and found one of our girls standing next to her sister’s crib, talking with her.

I put the jailbreaker back in her crib and said good night. Almost as soon as I closed the door, I heard that same thump sound. I went in again and saw that the offender had a very large I’m-proud-of-myself smile on her face.

I put her back into the crib and told her to stay put.

Emergency Transition

My wife and I quickly discussed the safety issues and our options. Since both girls were still awake, we went into the room and took the girls’ crib mattresses out and put them on the floor. We told them they were big girls now and that they got to sleep in big girl beds.

Well, they didn’t buy it. They bounced around, played, and turned their light on and off for about an hour. We realized our mistake and went and put them back in their cribs (after several unsuccessful interventions). We got the escape artist to stay in her crib by tying a large bed sheet over the top of the crib on each of the four corners. It was enough of a deterrent to buy us the time we needed.

Big Bed Preparations

The next day was Labor Day so we scrambled to get the girls ready for their official big girl beds. We got our boys’ box springs down from the attic, bought two new twin mattresses, and took the girls to the store to make a big deal out of buying new sheets and such for their big girl beds.

The girls were really excited for their new beds and redesigned bedroom. Unfortunately, they were so excited that sleep wasn’t a top priority.

We removed anything that could break from the room as a safety measure and even put child-proof knobs on the door handle on the inside of the room and on the handle to the closet so they wouldn’t escape or get into more trouble. We hoped that all the fanfare about getting big girl beds would help them settle into the routine.

First Night

We tucked them in after saying prayers and as soon as we said goodnight and closed the door, they turned into Twinadoes.

The girls pulled all of their clothes out of their drawers, played with toys, bounced on the beds, yelled, screamed, and had a merry old time.

We went in occasionally when we heard cries of pain (typically when one had fallen off the bed), and got them tucked back into their beds. Nevertheless, they weren’t calming down even after an hour and a half.

So I went into the room and unscrewed the light bulbs from the overhead light and took the nightlight with me.

Without any light to guide their mischievous activities, they finally fell asleep close to 10:00 which was about 2.5 hours later than normal.

Second Night

Tuesday night we kept the night light in the room, and did the go-to-bed routine.

As soon as Mom left the room, they bounced up and started playing again. With the overhead light bulbs missing, they only had the nightlight to see with. Nevertheless, that was enough to once again empty their dresser drawers and put all the clothes on the floor.

There was loud playing, talking, screaming, and even banging/kicking on the door and wall. We tried to ignore all the noise but it was so loud that we feared it would wake up their sleeping brothers in the other room. However, we found that if we went into the room it seemed to reset the timer on their play and they would just continue that much longer.

As with the night before, there were some cries of pain and I’d go into soothe and put the girls back in their beds.

They must have been extra tired or perhaps were getting used to the routine because by 8:30 the room was quiet and they must have been on their way to Dreamland.

Third Night

We did the bedtime routine: prayers, tuck in, songs, and left the girls in their room. They played and made noise but overall were quieter than the previous nights. Around 8:15 one girl started crying like something was wrong. I went into the room (which was dark) and fumbled for the night light. It was missing. The non-crying girl had it in her hands, with the light bulb in one and the fixture in the other. I put it back together and plugged it in. Tucked the girls back in and left.

Ten minutes later, I heard cries again. The room was dark and once again the nightlight thief was clutching her prize. I plugged it in behind the dressers so the girls couldn’t reach it, tucked them in and said good night. They fell asleep shortly thereafter.

The girls didn’t empty their dresser drawers this evening.

Fourth Night

The girls skipped their naps today so they were treated to an early bedtime. Good news: all was quiet in the house by 7:10 p.m. My wife peeked in on the girls at this time and they were both–amazingly–sleeping on their own beds.

Nights Five and Six

On the weekend, my wife and I went out on a date each night and the babysitter reported no problems getting the girls down to bed. By the time we got home, they were asleep on their beds.

Essential Tips for Transitioning Your Twins to Big Beds

• Practice tucking the twins into their cribs with regular pillow and blankets like they’ll have in regular beds
• Build up the excitement with your twins that they will soon be moving to big beds
• During the day of moving to big beds, talk about it all the time
• Take the twins to the store to buy the mattresses and/or sheets and bed spreads
• Have your twins help take apart and move out their cribs
• Let the twins help you organize their new room with big beds
• Remove any and everything that can break from the twins’ room
• Remove light distractions (overhead lights, nightlights, etc.) that are within reach to be turned on and off
• Lower your expectations of a clean and tidy room when the twins wake up in the morning
• Be consistent. Follow the bed time routine even if the twins immediately pop up out of bed.
• Minimize going into the room after bedtime unless absolutely necessary
• Expect one or both to fall out of bed during the night.
• Try to prevent them from opening the door. Perhaps child-proof handles on the inside, or if their handle has a lock, switch the handle so the lock is on the outside of the room. You could even gate the doorway if your twins aren’t likely to jump the gate.
• Give it some time. The transition won’t happen overnight. It may take days or even weeks.

Remember to be patient and consistent and eventually your twins will come around to the new normal. Good luck!

If you’ve already transitioned your twins out of cribs and into big beds, what worked for you?

Can your twins sleep in the same bedroom?

Absolutely.

Start Your Twins in One Crib

When we brought our girls home, they both shared a crib for several months.

When they started to roll over and get a little too crowded, we moved each girl to her own crib but kept them in the same room.

Two Cribs

Remember, your twins have been together since those early days inside the womb. They are completely used to each other and we noticed that ours actually missed each other when we first moved them to separate cribs. Our girls would squawk at each other to make sure the other was in the room.

Two Beds

When the time comes to move out of the cribs, you’ll probably want two beds, too. You should be able to fit two twin-sized beds (yes, they call them twin beds) in the floorspace of even a small bedroom. Alternatively, you can look at bunk beds or a trundle bed to economize space.

Advantages of Sharing a Room

• You only have to decorate one room.
• When you hear one of your twins crying in the middle of the night, you don’t have to figure out which bedroom to run to.
• All the kids’ clothes will be in one room, which makes it easy for dressing when they are young and makes it easy to share clothes (especially if you have identical twins)
• If you put both your twins in the same room, you don’t have to buy that bigger house right away.

Disadvantages of Sharing a Room

• As they get older, your twins will wake each other up. Most often this happens in the morning, when you are hoping for a few more minutes of sleep.
• Quieting down for bedtime is a challenge. Our girls like to chatter and sing to each other after we put them in their cribs. This leads to about an hour of activity before they calm down and finally go to sleep.
• Naps in the same room are difficult because your twins will just want to play with each other and not sleep.
• Boy/Girl twins will eventually reach the age where sharing a room is awkward.

If you’ve already had your twins, do they share a room?

When your babies are newborns and very young, you can have the twins sleep in the same crib.

As they grow, they will each need their own crib but you can still have them in the same room.

However, as they head toward their one year mark, you’ll notice that nap times are getting more difficult. Your twins may not fall asleep like they used to.

Now they babble and squawk at each other and neither seems to fall asleep quickly or at all.

To help solve this problem, we turned to The Sleep Lady, who suggested we start separating the girls for nap time.

Since we opted not to buy a bigger house when we found out we were having twins, we didn’t have a spare bedroom to put a sleeping girl in. So one girl stayed in her crib and the other went into a pack-and-play in our master bedroom.

This separation was great. Both girls started falling asleep quicker and took better naps. When one girl woke up, the other could continue sleeping uninterrupted if needed.

At bed time, the girls still both went down in their cribs in the same room. They would talk and chirp for awhile but we didn’t see the same problems that we did with nap time. After all, it’s easier to fall asleep when it’s dark and there aren’t as many fun things to do just outside their door like during the day when the sun is out and their brothers are running around.

So if you’re having trouble with your toddler twins sleeping during naps, try separating them. You may then have a return to a quiet house where you can get all those “to-do” items done. Or just take a nap, too.

One of the most trying aspects of having newborn twins is sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is torture.

Think about those old war or spy movies where the hero is literally tortured by being forced to stay awake. Just when the hero falls asleep, the bad guys wake him up.

You, my friend, are the hero.

Unfortunately, your twins play the part of the torturer. Not that they don’t love you. They just haven’t learned to sleep through the night yet.

By the time we had our twins, we had already had two boys. Since they were both singletons, my wife ended up caring for them most nights because she was breastfeeding.

I didn’t know how spoiled I was.

With twins, your wife can’t do it all herself. This means that you will be working the night shift as well.

Since you will be up and down all night with your babies, you need to be ready to deal with sleep deprivation. It’s time to make a plan.

The key to surviving the early days of your newborn twins is to have some plans in place to overcome the inevitable sleep deprivation.

Sleep When You Can

You must sleep when you get the chance. This means that when babies are asleep, you should be too. You’ll be tempted to get stuff done once the babies are asleep. That “stuff” can wait. Emails are not as important as sleep. Your favorite T.V. show is not as important as sleep. Gaming is not as important as sleep. You need a nap. Take it. Sometimes this means laying down at 7:00 p.m. Do it. Sacrificing some of your normal activities is a small price to pay for functionality. Besides, your twins won’t be the torturers forever–there will be a return to normalcy in your near future. So sleep now.

Set Expectations

Sleep deprivation will lower your ability to work effectively, communicate properly, and live normally. This will impact the people around you. Set expectations with your coworkers, friends, and family.

Let everyone know that you aren’t getting any sleep and that you won’t be able to do X, attend Y, or deliver Z. Offer alternatives. Make compromises. But communicate the reason for your altered physical and mental state. Most people are very understanding.

Don’t Take it Personally

Sleep deprivation will try your marriage like almost nothing else you’ve ever seen. Since both you and your spouse will be tortured with no sleep, you must remember to not take anything personally.

If your wife snaps at you, it is because she is beyond tired. If something didn’t get done like you liked it, blame the sleep deprivation.

You’ll live a long, happy life if you don’t take anything personally while you or your spouse are under the effects of sleep deprivation. It will probably be the most charitable action you take in your marriage.

Your twin babies, while the source of your sleep deprivation, are not intentionally torturing you. So don’t take your babies’ actions personally either.

How Are You Doing?

After my paternity leave, I returned to work but was still suffering from sleep deprivation. Whenever anyone asked how I was doing, I answered, “I’m tired.”

You’ll be tired too. But hang in there. Your babies will start sleeping through the night and you will, too.

When I first learned we were having twins, I was in shock. I stayed in that state of shock for at least several weeks.

This shock was fueled by fears and questions of how I would successfully care for my family.

One of my big concerns was how my new, bigger family would fit into our current home. I spent several days looking for a new house and running numbers through mortgage calculators online.

Did we end up buying a new home? No, and you shouldn’t either.

Why?

If you want to live a long, happy life, don’t make a pregnant woman, especially one pregnant with twins, move her family and house.

Your wife will get extremely large with twins. This means possible bed rest and definite exhaustion. Think for a minute about how she might handle packing up the house, moving to a new location, and getting settled into a new place.

Moving is stressful even without a pregnancy. So don’t do it.

The good news is that you can wait until the babies arrive and reassess the situation.

Amazingly, twins don’t initially take up too much more space than a singleton baby. In fact, you can even consolidate and sleep both twin babies in the same crib for a few months.

Until the twins start getting mobile, you can survive in your current home assuming you have space for one baby. Twins share a bath, changing table, rocking chair, and even a blanket for tummy time on the floor.

Take a deep breath. Stop searching for a new house. You’ll have plenty of new expenses anyway. Why add a bigger mortgage to the list?

When you bring your baby twins home, can you let them sleep in the same crib?

Absolutely.

In fact, at the hospital, the nurses had our twins together in the same bassinet. When we got home, we just continued this pattern. From their time in utero, each twin has constantly been with their sibling. Why not continue?

We found that our babies would actually turn towards each other when they were sleeping side by side in the same crib.

As newborns, your babies aren’t going to move around much so where you put them is where they will stay. In the crib, this means that you can have both babies sleep together.

We’d swaddle each baby individually and then have another blanket swaddle them together.

What about wiggly babies?

Eventually your babies will start to wiggle and hit each other. Don’t freak out. They were doing this in the womb for months (just ask your wife). If it doesn’t bother them, it shouldn’t bother you.

When to Separate

We kept our girls in the same crib for several months until they started getting bigger and rotating around. We knew it was time to separate when were jarred from sleep because Twin A had put her foot in Twin B’s head and Twin B was crying.

When that time arrived, we had two cribs in the same room, with one baby in each. The girls seemed to miss each other at first but would call out to each other via squawks or gurgles in a form of echolocation (think bats) to make sure their sister was near.

Hard to Sleep?

So you may ask: Don’t they wake each other up if they sleep in the same room or crib? No, not necessarily. Typically one twin can sleep through the cries of the other. You’ll even find one of your babies with arms or legs sprawled over the other with both twins sleeping contently.

Some Extra Advantages

Feel safe and confident starting with one crib. This may give you time to move an older child out of his crib like we had to do, or can give you time to defer that expense a few months.