I Heart Ferber

The Ferber Method.

Sleep Training Twins.

There are few phrases in the English language that horrified me as much as these did.  Well, until now that is.
Rewinding a few days, it all started as a conversation between me and my sister in law, Elizabeth, discussing the fact that little Miss Erin decided to be difficult and started to roll over in the crib while swaddled (dangerous) and also while swaddled in the baby swing (more dangerous).  So, I knew we were facing the challenge of getting rid of the swaddle for sleep and was really reluctant because I knew it would be so hard for them.

The thing that makes it really hard is the fact that when they lose their binky they can't put it back in their mouths by themselves which requires multiple interventions from Todd and I to re-binky babies.  When Lia was younger, she had learned to put her binky in by herself so we just created a minefield of about 30 binkys in her crib for her to stumble upon in the dark of night.  It worked perfectly and gave us months of solid sleep.  Since Erin and Halle didn't have this talent yet, I was really dreading this entire experience until this revalation... "why in the hell am I going to teach them to find a binky when I'm just going to take the binky away entirely in a few short months?"  So - the new plan was formed - cold turkey switch to no swaddle and no binky.  Compress the torture and get it all over with.  It was daring.  It was risky.  It was borderline crazy.  I am aware.

I started reading online about people's experience with various "sleep training" techniques especially with twins and the basic consensus was that some version of "cry it out" was the only meaningful and successful method.  As a knowledgeable person in child development, I wanted to make sure that Erin and Halle were developmentally capable of self soothing so that I wasn't just torturing them with no hope of success.  After more research brought us to the conclusion that they were good to go, we prepared for battle.

We chose to go with the Ferber method because it made the most sense for twins to do them at the same time and also gave us as parents the ability to go in a comfort the babies after a certain number of minutes of crying passes.  Some methods say to never go back in to a crying baby and that just seemed totally heartless.  The first night was rough and I was weak and reverted back to the swaddle... oops.  We have been doing great since then (3 days now) and now both Erin and Halle will fall asleep within 0-8 minutes of us laying them down.  Their naps have shortened a bit which I expected since they are still learning how to settle back down, but I'm hoping those will adjust on their own as they get used to it.

I'm shocked this wasn't harder.  I'm shocked we are done with swaddles, baby swings, and binkys all at the same time.  Todd and I celebrated today by putting all the binkys away, taking down the swings and dancing a little jig.  Haha.  not really. But we did toast Dr. Ferber for the greatest technique to speed train a baby.  Wow.

Before all this began, I snuck in to Erin and Halle's room to get some pictures of them sleeping together b/c they looked so sweet snuggled up.  I'm really glad I did because that was one of the last times they slept that way!