It seems crazy, but your baby–or babies–can sleep twelve hours at night. Here’s how to help baby sleep through the night—from a mom of twins! Plus, don’t sabotage your efforts with these five things if you want to sleep, and work towards sleeping through the night.

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How to help baby sleep through the night

I should start this post with a disclaimer.

I was afraid to update this post, certain I’d jink my twins’ now-excellent sleeping habits.

At nine months old (six adjusted) they now sleep seven to seven at night along with 2 – 3 naps. But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, their newborn sleep schedule was much more haphazard.

But around the four month adjusted mark, or more specifically, the day we started strict Moms on Call, they’ve been going twelve hours strong.

Now. Before I dive into the details, prepare yourself ahead of time for something you MUST be willing to put into place in order to help your babies sleep through the night.

Strict routine—My preference for baby schedules is Moms on Call. If you follow this, your babies will sleep but there are costs. For one, you’ll be a party pooper more often than not. You may appear rigid and unflexible—but it’s worth it! Once you get a taste of that sweet sleep life, everything you thought you wanted to do after seven p.m. just sort of fades away. 🙂

Okay so you’re on board with the strict routine and ready to get this sleep thang started? One more thing. Let’s talk about realistic expectations for your baby based on his age.

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Read: The five best baby swaddles in 2019

Baby sleep patterns by age

Newborn sleep schedule phase

In the beginning, we were just trying to survive, and constantly googled things like “how to get a newborn to sleep at night” and “my baby doesn’t sleep.”

We actually spend #allthemoney to have a night nurse to come a few times per week, which was insanely expensive and also some of the best money we ever spent.

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Two – four month baby sleep schedule phase

And even at five months old [two adjusted] I was still trying to get my twins to sleep through the night.

I had one night owl, who liked to stay up, then sleep in, and another morning bird, who went to bed easily then demanded food in the middle of the night.

I guess you could say I’m uniquely qualified to understand how babies can have different sleeping preferences.

During this phase, we focused on how to get baby to sleep longer stretches at night.

On a good night, our five-month-old twins slept eleven hours broken into one, sometimes two, shifts. If you don’t have babies yet, that number sounds awful. But if you have newborns at home, then that amount of unbroken sleep sounds delightful!

six month baby sleep schedule phase

Now the boys’ sleep approximately twelve hours at night and four – five hours during the day.

But it wasn’t always that way. In the beginning, they barely slept at the same time. But then their tummies got bigger and we learned, too!

Read: Finding the best electric breast pump

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Best Baby Sleep Tips

Today I want to list some of the things we’ve done right with baby sleep training, and some of the mistakes we made along the way. YMMV, but I hope this information helps your baby sleep, too!

Here are some things we did right:

Get baby used to sleeping in the crib from the beginning

Sadly, we never got much use out of our beautiful bassinet. And we had trouble adhering to the guidelines to keep baby in your room for the first six months.

We had a good sense of peace with the safety gear we got for the nursery including an owlet monitor, prescribed HR monitor, AND video monitor all at once.

There was a major pro in our method—we avoided the transition baby to crib phase, which is a whole other heavily searched subject.

Along with swaddling and discipline, we started in the crib which I believe really benefitted the babies. They didn’t used to get to the angle provided by a helpful but unsafe sleep space.

More: 5 best baby swaddles ranked

Established a newborn baby sleep routine

From the beginning we stuck pretty tightly to the Moms on Call routine. For the uninitiated, this entails bath-bottle-swaddle-noise then staying out!

For the first few months, since our babies started so little [less than 2 and less than 3 lbs at birth respectively] we’d feed them in the middle of the night.

It wasn’t until they were six months [three adjusted] and the moms on call sleep consultant came to our house that the game really changed. Which leads me to the next major thing we did right.

Incorporated Baby Sleep Training

The major thing the consultant did was assure me that I was doing the best thing—for them—to help the babies sleep through the night.

Sticking to a baby sleep schedule—and the inevitable crying that goes along with it—wasn’t just self-serving behavior.

I was shocked that that very night, also coinciding with dropping the swaddle and pacifier, babies slept through the night.

Was there some crying? Yes

Was it difficult to hear? Well obv. I’m not a monster.

Alex in particular cried for about an hour that first night.

But then the next night he cried for about ten minutes. And the following night it was less than three minutes.

And each morning, just like the MOC consultant had promised, I entered the nursery at seven a.m. to two happy, well-rested, and smiley babies.

The worst thing you can do is let them cry for awhile, then give in and go in get them. Hello, intermittent reinforcement people.

All that assuming they are healthy, fed, clean, changed, and have no major health problems.

The three items mentioned above were definitely the best steps that contributed to two babies that consistently sleep through the night.

I only wish I started being strict a little bit sooner!

Read: The real hospital bag must-haves from a twin mom

Worst Baby Sleep Mistakes

So you’re reading this and thinking I’m doing all that, but it’s not working!

Now let’s talk about some of the major mistakes I made, and see others making, in a well-intentioned effort to survive lack of sleep.

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Here are some new mom mistakes you should avoid in order to sleep.

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Going to bed late

Duh, right? But when you haven’t had a moment to yourself all day, it’s tempting!

That said, every time I go to bed late, I regret it. It’s great to have some time after the twins go down to relax. Sure. That’s what’s going through my mind when I agree to watch another episode of something on Netflix. But not even the latest season of Travelers or Ozark is worth missing out on that sweet before-midnight sleep.

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Pro Tip: One thing that helped get our twins to sleep quicker, thus allowing chill time before lights-out, was the Ollie swaddle. Check out my comparison of all the swaddles we tried.

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Have a coffee/ diet coke / red bull party to survive witching hour[s]

On one of the worst night-days–or day-nights, I was still wide awake at midnight. Given the fact the twins need food somewhere in the 12 – 2 range, this did not turn out well.

It’s easy to get into a cycle of didn’t sleep well, need to caffeinate. Then you don’t snooze again and need more mojo the next day. And so forth.

YMMV, but my personal rule is to avoid after four p.m..

Let baby snooze whenevs

Here is a mistake where my perspective changed. In the beginning, it felt really cruel to not let the babies sleep whenever they wanted.

What would happen is that they would inevitably not get enough sleep during the day, then they’d want to take a major nap in the late afternoon which would screw up bedtime.

Here is what my perspective looked like before:

It’s so tempting to let fussy babies snooze through witching hour, but you’re just kicking the can down the road. Instead. Keep them up. For our schedule we feed at 1, 4, and 7. We try to keep napping to a minimum after the four o’clock feeding.

Since switching to MOC, that problem is basically solved. Oftentimes Ethan will take a power nap for 30 – 45′ as late as 5:30 PM and it still doesn’t mess up his 7 PM bedtime. As long as he’s on schedule with everything else, the time of that third power nap doesn’t matter.

If you’re all like what, third nap and seven p.m. bedtime are you freaking kidding me, then be sure to grab a copy of the Moms on Call book.

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Pro Tip: Our twins’ current fave toy for dance-kick parties is BeatBo. Really. They’ve been obsessed with it since they were teeny-tiny. In fact, I’m thinking of picking up a BeatBelle, too.

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Do everything yourself

The fourth major baby sleep mistake is to try and do it all.

I’m not going to say it’s impossible to take care of twins alone, but if you have any choice at all. Don’t. Use help!

My husband and I use to divvi up night responsibilities many different ways. Most nights I took the 12 – 2 AM feeding, then he took whenever the next one was. Sometimes he lucked out and there wasn’t a second one.

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Try It: My husband and I realized early on that the only way we’d survive is if we’d get breaks. That means when it was his night shift, I got to sleep and vice versa. It can be tough to wrangle two babies feeding–especially at first–but see my post on tandem feeding tips!

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Get Discouraged

We all get discouraged sometimes. Though it can seem like this baby phase will last forever, it won’t! Not every day will be like the hardest one, and the more tired you are, the easier it is to catastrophize.

Our lives improved dramatically when the twins cut down from four down to three wakeups, then three down to two. I got so used to the 2 a.m. sess, for a moment I actually missed it!

Now I definitely don’t miss it. But knowing I’m likely to get plenty of sleep makes bedtime one of my favorite times of day when it used to be the most stressful.

Hopefully these tips to help baby sleep will help you too! Have any I missed? Please be sure to let me know in the comments.

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next up:

Nailing down a productive morning routine with baby.

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Other ideas for rocking #momlife:

• 3 new mom hacks to save you hours per week
• How to tandem feed twins to save time
• 5 tips for a productive morning routine with babies
• Four most comfortable and flattering maternity dresses [for 2019]
• The real deal on getting back in shape after baby

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