I was recently asked to help a very tired Mommy get some much needed zzz’s!
She had 22 month old identical twin boys and one of the boys kept waking every 2 hours during the night. I came highly recommended by a client of mine so that always puts the extra pressure on!☺
So I got there on the first night of sleep training and Twin A says to me “are you going to sleep train me?” “Yes” I said to twin A in a sweet voice, “I am going to sleep train you” He looked at me with these long lashed big brown eyes and said “good luck.” I almost laughed right there but somehow I mananged to keep it in.
Well luck isn’t what I needed, experience was. This little guy was a tough child. He was a very smart little boy. First off we had to take the good sleeper out of the room so we could sleep train his brother, I know it doesn’t seem fair does it? Luckily they had a spare room so we just put a crib in that room for a few days while we sleep trained twin A. On the first night, there wasn’t a peep from him, neither on the second and third night.
So I left that home thinking I had done my job but the very next night Twin A was up to his old antics again. So I had a conversation with Mom and Dad and we talked about manipulation. Can a toddler really manipulate two grown adults?? Of course he can, babies as young as 3 months can manipulate their parents. Remember when your toddler was 3 months old and would start crying and soon as he heard you coming to the door would stop to listen and make sure that you were really coming?
So I told the parents of Twin A that they had to set some boundaries and rules up for their children. Things that can help with this are:
1. Sticker charts
2. Give incentives
3. Positive reinforcement
So the parents had a talk with the boys, especially twin A, that if they slept through the whole night they would get a sticker and if they got 7 stickers in a row they would get to go on a fun special outing. So on the first night after they spoke, twin A woke up and therefore didn’t get a sticker, but twin B did sleep through so he did. Twin A was not very happy that first morning. He wasn’t very happy for a few morning after that either. Especially on morning eight when twin B had gotten seven stickers and got to go on a special outing with either Mom or Dad, his choice. So as twin B and Mom set out on their outing, twin A looks at his Daddy with these big sad eyes and says to him, “Daddy, I promise, I will sleep through the night every night.”
So that night both twin A and Twin B slept through the night and ther parents were so happy, they told their boys how big they were and how proud of them they were. Since then twin A has only woken up a handful of times over the past few months, which is a real step in the right direction considering he used to wake up multiple times a night.
So try and use my method here or your version of it and I hope you get the much deserved rest you need.
