Tired as a mother…
Truth be told... sleep has been one of the single most challenging aspects of the infant/toddler stage. Even though I “think” we are doing a pretty decent job... figuring out what issue might have one of the twins off their normal sleep schedule (teething, developmental milestone, illness, regression, time for a nap transition, wind blew the wrong way, etc. etc.) is... exhausting. Pun intended. 🤪
That said... here is what we have done in our attempt to set up a good sleep foundation. As I mentioned in my last post, on most nights our nearly one-year old twins sleep 12+ hours at night and have been for a while. Our daughter is currently going through the 12 month regression but I have faith it will be short lived like the prior regressions! *Disclaimer — I am not a sleep consultant! Lol! And every baby is different... but we have sleep trained all three of our children and I “believe” it has been effective.
We created and stuck to a night time routine very early on. Even though we didn’t “feel” like our babies actually knew what was going on... we were setting the foundation and banking on that good ole Pavlov’s law. Bath or wipe down + lavender lotion + white noise + swaddle = SLEEP.
We always had the babies in their own sleeping quarters lol. First a bassinet next to our bed (shoutout @halosleep), then cribs in their own room.
Ferber method. Yup. We did it. Talk to your pediatrician about the right time to start this method if considering it... your baby may or may not be ready based on a number of factors. Our first attempt was a fail, but the second attempt a month or so later was much better!
We transitioned from swaddling to a @magicsleepsuit around 5 months, then to sleep sacks (wearable blankets) which we still use for nighttime.
We try to stick to our routine. As hard as it is sometimes we try not to unwind months of hard work for a teething hiccup, and also try our best not to start any bad habits we aren’t willing to keep up indefinitely (or do times two)!
Lastly... know this isn’t a one and done. Period. If you get off track just try to reel it in and get back to the routine.
Let me know below what sleep looks like for your kiddos!