It is a period of civil war. Two babies, striking from their comfy cribs, have won many victories against their exhausted parents. During recent battles, the parents conspired to unleash the ultimate weapon, the FERBER METHOD, a plan with the power to teach the babies to soothe themselves back to sleep on their own. Pursued by sinister stacks of laundry and dangerous dirty diapers, Mommy races through her new book, custodian of the secret plans that can save her sleep and restore sanity to the family...
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| Photo courtesy of clix on stock.xchng. |
As you may have guessed, the babies are still having some major sleep challenges at night. As you may also have guessed, I am a major sci-fi geek. And the less sleep I get, the geekier I become. I am only moments away from whipping out my beloved Star Trek Federation Academy sweatshirt from high school. It is awesome and it is authentic, because I bought it at a Star Trek Convention. But, I digress.
The Master Chief and I have decided that something has to be done. We've been keeping sleep logs, and have been horrified to discover that between the two babies, we've been getting up ten to sixteen times a night. The fastest way to get them back to sleep is to nurse them - and oh my word, is that a lot of nursing. This Mommy is wiped out!
Now that we've read Dr. Ferber's book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, we're ready to implement one of his solutions. We're going to start tonight with the progressive-waiting approach: the plan is to allow the babies to cry for very short intervals, after which one of us will go in and briefly reassure them. The intervals get longer until a maximum amount of time is reached; so on the first night, the intervals start at 3 minutes, and gradually increase until they are being left alone in their cribs for ten minutes at a time. Doodlebug has a lot of separation anxiety, so we think this will work better for him than just letting him cry continuously.
The big question is whether to do this while both babies are in the nursery. We've tried moving each one of them to our room recently, but this didn't work out so well. We're seriously considering keeping them both in their cribs; maybe, in the long run, it will help them learn to sleep through each other's noises.
Interrupted sleep, lack of sleep...it's not good for the twins, and it's not good for us. We have to find a solution, and I hope this is it. Wish us luck!
Oh boy! When the girls were six months, they were getting up MANY times a night. The only way they knew to get to sleep was to nurse to sleep. And even then they wouldn't stay asleep. It. Was. Terrible.
ReplyDeleteSo--we went to see a sleep nurse. She gave us a plan--sounds like something similar to what you're doing with increased intervals. The thing of it was--since they associated me with nursing, and nursing with sleep, I couldn't be part of the initial plan.
So, my darling husband did the sleep training. I had to leave the house for the first two nights, and come home after they were in bed. The third night I was in the house, but in the basement hangin out. If you'd like to look at the plan the nurse gave us, I can email it to you.
Within three nights they were sleeping through the night. They were still sleeping in the same crib at that point. I think it soothed them to have one another.
I swore I'd never do sleep training, but you know something---when they would fuss or cry. I no longer had that feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. It was gone! Sometimes I hear them moving around through the baby monitor, and they go right back to sleep. Heaven!
Good luck!
I wish you lots of luck!!
ReplyDeleteAgain, I don't have twins but if they rely on you to nurse it sounds like MC is going to have to do the bulk of the soothing. Which will be hard on him, and torture for you. Ugh, I feel for you mama! They say a mom going into the room to soothe her baby when she is not planning to nurse is like holding up a piece of chocolate cake to someone and not letting them have a bite! Yikes! Be there for MC, because he's going to need it and when you hear your babies crying out try to relax and breathe deep and know that this too, shall pass. Good luck and keep us posted! :)
ReplyDeleteJulia - Thank you again for sharing the sleep plan with us! I am excited to say that I now know what you mean about the feeling of dread being gone when the babies wake up in the night.
ReplyDeleteCourtney - Thanks!
Reedu - Thank you! MC was a champ. He did an awesome job, and I feel RESTED!! The twins must feel rested too, because they have energy like I've not seen yet. :)