CIO with Twins

I did CIO with my first daughter, when she was 7.5 months old. It took 3 nights and she was STTN 12 hours.

Now, the twins are nearly 7 months old (5.5 months adjusted) and in 2 weeks once they will be 6 months old adjusted, I'd like to start sleep training with them and start CIO b/c they barely sleep.

We have all the basics down -- we corrected all mistakes from our first born -- i.e. we have an early bedtime, we don't nurse to sleep, we have a bedtime routine, and they fall asleep on their own. Yet they still don't sleep well!!!

So what did you do for CIO with twins and how did it go?

My MIL suggested maybe doing CIO one weekend with 1 twin, and getting them STTN and then the next weekend do the other to make it easier...and once they are both STTN, put them back in the same room together.

They currently both sleep in the same room. They wake each other sometimes. They don't sleep together in same crib.

What was your experience? Thanks in advance!

 

We did a modified CIO and did do both girls at the same time but separated them for the first week or so. DH & I also each took one who was our "responsibility" for the night, as we were going in to do checks & soothing without picking up. We started at a time when DH didn't have to work for a couple of days. Separating them made it easier to keep track of who was doing what when & see what improvement was happening.

 

Honestly, you have to factor in their adjusted age and if they are only 5.5 months adjusted, they just might not be ready to STTN. I know it is hard and frustrating and exhausting - we've all been there :hug: - but they are still pretty young and they might just need a bit longer until their bodies are ready.

 

We did modified CIO, and we did both boys at the same time. Our boys were 9 months, and our issue was both needing to go to sleep on their own (not being held, rocked, etc.) and also multiple night wakings. We would go in at intervals - 2 min, 5 min, then 10 min. the first night. 5 min., 7 min., 12 min. the next, etc. We did nights first, then naps. It took about 4-5 days, and they were finally STTN, then we went on to naps. Overall, the whole process was about 2 weeks for us. We did wait until we were sure they weren't teething, had a cold, needed to eat, etc.

 

With our twins they shared a cot until they were six months old. When they moved to their own cots in the same room we started to let them CIO. I always put them down at the same time. They have never been in separate rooms and to be honest I would find it difficult to sleep train them on their own and then have to retrain them to sleep together. They have not had any problems being trained together. They sleep through the other crying. One of my boys has been teething so has had unsettled sleeps for a while. His brother just sleeps through it all! I hope you find what works best for you and your family. Good luck

 

We separated our twins about 3 weeks ago and then did CIO. DD just moves way to much to be in the same crib as DS. They rarely had issue going to sleep but they often would wake (they don't have paci) I was not sure if they were hungry or not so I contacted a LC to see how much they needed at their age and how long they could sleep. Then I realized that DD was waking every night at 1am, it was a habit. DS would wake every 2-3 hours. At this point we did CIO. They are in the same room and I think it helps. Even when 1 cries, often the other sleeps through it. I think it makes them better sleepers. Now I will only get them up to eat if they wake after 8 hours, otherwise they cry back to sleep but this is rare now with both going 10-12 hours a night. I will peak in to make sure I don't smell poopy or that anything else is wrong,but I say nothing and don't let them see me. I think doing CIO at the same time is much easier than having 2 rough weekends in a row I also read Healthy Sleep Habit Happy Child and it is a great book.

Good Luck!!
:youcandoit:

 

We did CIO to get them to fall asleep on their owns at different ages for different reasons. We always kept them in the same room (brother *always* slept through it) and just went in after 10 mins...it took about 3 nights and the first night was the longest crying at 45 mins.

Good luck!

 

We did both boys at the same time right at 6 months-and that was to go to sleep and to stop eating through the night(it was a game to them-they never ate more than 2 ounces-compared to a full feed), and they tended to fool around with the bottle!). For us, it was really a walk in the park-one night was all it took. They learned rather quickly to sleep through each other's cries. And the first night(I left the house!), it took about 45 minutes for them to fall asleep and that was it! They did wake again in the middle of the night, but they fell back asleep. And they are awesome sleepers now!


Good luck!

 

i have boy-girl twins and they're 10 months old.

If my twins fed at midnight and 3am tonight, but fed at 10pm and 2am the next night, is this considered a habit?

The twins cry bloody murder if we ever so wait a little longer to bring in the bottles. Sigh.

the comforting part is that since young they have already learnt to fall asleep on their own.

 

Ditto this. If they are falling asleep on their own and they're waking up just a couple of times per night, they're probably just not ready. One of my DDs slept 12 hours at 3.5 months, the other not till 14 months! (But from about 9-14 months she just woke up once for a bottle.) She was just hungry.

I tried at 9 months to do CIO on her and break her of that bottle, but she really needed it. We finally got rid of it by reducing the amount 1/2 oz a night and replacing it with water until she quit drinking the whole thing.

If they are waking up more frequently than that, CIO might help, but I would try first to figure out why. Are they using pacis that fall out? Is there something noisy in their room? Do they have gas? Are they working on crawling?

We did do CIO to get them to fall asleep on their own -- I'm not opposed to it -- but I was forced to realize Amy just wasn't ready and it was too painful for all of us to make her keep crying.

 

Thanks Ladies! As I posted above, I def am going to wait until they are at LEAST 6 months adjusted. They are now currently 6.5 months adjusted and haven't yet started but am planning on it next weekend as it's a long weekend and will need 3 solid nights to start. I am definitely going to keep 1 night feed for them....as I still feel they need it and want it. I just hope to eliminate the rest of the wakings.

But other than that, they wake non stop. I have a fan on for white noise - so it's not as if they are really waking each other. My DS wakes every 1-2 hours!!! He will not take a pacifier at night. So basically wants to be on the breast. He is not even really eating, he just wants the suck to put him back to sleep. He needs to learn to fall BACK to sleep on his own somehow and not from me. He falls asleep at bedtime and naptimes but once he wakes, he can't get back to sleep on his own. My DD can go 6 hours at night --but you can't bank on it. One night she does, the other night she wakes every 2 hours or 3. It's totally inconsistent.

They are on rice cereal now and while everyone hopes it's the magic cure to getting them to sleep at night, it's not! lol.

 

So to those ladies who put them in the same room, did they not set each other off crying hysterically?

As when my lo's are tired, if one starts bawling, the other does too.....and then it's a huge cycle to break trying to get one quiet, then the other.

I am so nervous about doing CIO with twins! I guess maybe it's because I am so worried that intitally they won't fall asleep quickly bc they both will be crying...and also because I know how much work it is to do (both emotionally and mentally) UGH. But I know the best gift I can give myself and them, is sleep--and a happy, rested momma and babies.

 

I agree, sleep is so important for everyone. We've done a modified CIO for my boys. The slept together in the co-sleeper in our room until about 5.5 months. Then we moved Callum to a crib in their room. He was fine with being moved but we ended up doing CIO with him when we could no longer swaddle him at about 6 months. He was waking every 10-20 minutes!! We tried everything but in the end we had to do CIO for our own sanity. He needed to get used to sleeping unswaddled. It took him about a week to get used to it.

We kept Ronan in the co-sleeper during this time. Both boys were great sleepers for the next couple of months so we put off moving Ronan. They still woke 1-2 times a night to bf (usually only once) and we knew that if we moved Ronan they would wake each other. We kept putting it off until Ronan started waking up every hour! He could see us from the co-sleeper and wanted to be in the bed with us, so at that point we decided to move him. They've only been sleeping in the same room at night for about a week or so and are still adjusting to it (they were about 7.5 months). They had a hard time falling asleep b/c they were used to complete silence to fall asleep before. Now they have to listen to each others' noises and they took turns crying and setting each other off. That happened for a few nights but they are already much better now. They still wake once at night to feed and one does wake the other. I don't tandem feed at night so dh has to walk around with one while I feed the other. It's a pain but I'm hoping they drop that feed soon. They go back to sleep easily at that time, thankfully. Every baby is different and I know some can go longer without feeding, but I feel my boys still need that one feed at night.

We only feed them once at night but sometimes they still wake at around 4:00 or 5:00. If that happens, we let them grumble until they fall back asleep. They don't seem to wake each other at that time but they do earlier. Weird. They were waking early in the morning and we decided to keep them in their cribs until 7:00. They used to wake earlier but we would just put a few soft toys in there with them and leave them. Now they sleep from 6:30pm to 7:00am! Yay!

They sleep in their cribs at night but I still separate them for naps during the day. Ronan needs more sleep than Callum.

They are pretty good sleepers now but I'm still tired! lol!

 

We did pretty much the same thing and it worked well for us :good: Our boys were also around 9 months old (or 6.5 months adjusted) and early on the only way we could get them ready for their cribs were to rock them and give them a bottle until they dosed off on us and then we laid them in their cribs asleep. Well that was the WRONG habit to get into! We felt so trapped after that, and I would be in a sheer panic if ever there was the possibility DH wouldn't be home to help tuck in the boys. So at 9 months we decided to put them in their cribs drowsy but awake. And we would go in and check on them at increasing intervals - 5 min, 10 min, etc. It was also extremely helpful to have a video monitor, because we could tell if they were flopping over and about to give up the crying, in which case even if we were close to an interval time to check on them, we knew not to dare go in there and rile them back up. It's true that sometimes they would wake each other up if they woke in the middle of the night, but it doesn't take long for them to get used to the other's cries and totally tune them out. Our boys turned 2 a few months ago and occasionally one will wake in the middle of the night, and 90% of the time it doesn't phase his brother who continues to slumber. If the other kid does anything he usually just rolls around a little more until he gets used to the crying and then drifts right back off to sleep.

Doing CIO can be *so* hard on the parents. But as long as you know they aren't sick, teething, or hungry I assure you it will get much easier on the parents AND the twinfants. Good luck!