Twins waking 60-80 a night to sleeping through.
Elodie and Aubrey, at 4.5 months old corrected, these girls had their parents up all night.
And when I say all night, this is what mum had emailed saying after I’d asked how frequently they were waking:
"I did the form last night but after counting the night wakes we are more like 60–80 per baby on a rough night and probably more like 20–30 on a good night at the moment."
Our goals were pretty obvious from the get go, get these girls sleeping longer stretches at night, more consistently during the day with a predictable routine, with them both in sync (twin things, IYKY). Which meant removing their dummies, which is what was keeping them up 60–80 times during the night, and supporting them to independently self settle.
This family had the space and equipment to be able to separate the girls whilst we got things underway. This meant we were able to really focus on each of their needs when it came to supporting settling and resettling. During the nights, the parents would each take a role with one baby to make it more manageable for them as a family. This isn’t the case or possible for all twin families but is preferred. Towards the end of our journey, the girls were of course back together.
Changes were implemented and progress was already showing from day one! Both girls were self settling and mastering resettling through their naps.
But our biggest challenge was yet to come, the nights… but also as their parents said, "It can’t get any worse… right?" And I mean, being woken to replace the dummies 60–80 times, I truly didn’t think it would! And it didn’t. The first night the girls woke 3 times each and were self settling when they didn’t need a feed. By night 3 of sleep support, Aubrey was sleeping through the night, which continued on, and Elodie was not far behind her, also then sleeping through the night. "We’re in shock" is what dad was saying and to be fair, so was I.
Going from 60–80 wakes a night to sleeping through after 3 days of sleep support is pretty incredible if you ask me.
Here’s what mum and dad had to say:
"We have just completed a few weeks of sleep support with Hannah and our family is thriving. When we started our twin girls loved their dummies, hours of patting, shushing and cuddling to finally fall asleep. While I love a good cuddle it was all getting a bit much for us, particularly as the girls liked to wake around every 10 minutes overnight to get some more shushing/patting/cuddling.... needless to say, there was very little sleep in our household!
Honestly, even though we were struggling we were still really dreading these two weeks of sleep support and I felt a little sad that we needed help. I always thought I would be the kind of mum that cuddled my babies to sleep, no matter what. However, I am so glad we reached out to Hannah. She understood this and encouraged us to continue to use the things that work (for us) to settle our girls like shushing, bum pats and even some cuddles, just in a more manageable and sustainable way.
After just a few days of working with Hannah our girls were like different babies. They are sleeping unbelievably well (one of them sleeps through the night and the other just wakes once or twice a night!!) and are so much happier when they are awake. We have even managed to get them back to sleeping in the same room overnight, which was our ultimate goal. Hannah has been the most incredible support for our family while we navigate this parenthood journey and she has genuinely changed our lives”.
What a journey!! Very proud of this whānau.