Customer Reviews

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins: A Step-by-Step Program for Sleep-Training Your Multiples

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The follow-up Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins is a good resource to a parent of twins, offering practical advice for handling your multiples with a nice balance of confidence and humility.

I had a singleton first, and we used the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child book to sleep train her. (Sleep train is a harsh description as it invokes images of a screaming baby and stressed parents but this is NOT how I'd describe this method) Because I had previous experience with the Weissbluth method we had an advantage in sleep training our twins. I found while the twins' book offered some practical detail about twinfants, and dealing with common concerns related to prematurity, it lacked the detail of its predecessor, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.

The Weissbluth method focuses almost entirely on the premise that rested babies sleep better. You need to toss out the age old notion that if you keep your baby up, they will sleep longer and better at night. This simply is an old wives tale not unlike putting cereal in your infant's bottle. Weissbluth focuses on preventing bad habits from starting and getting your baby down in their crib sleepy but awake and allowing them to drift off to sleep by themselves. I was skeptical at first, particularly because he says that babies can't comfortably stay awake for more than 90 minutes. BUT ITS TRUE, after 90 minutes all of my children reach a state of irritability, where they seem to want to nurse and be cuddled. With my first child I mistook this cue to mean that she was hungry. I was nursing her every 90 minutes when I should have been napping her.

All in all I HIGHLY recommend the Healthy Sleep Habits method, but I suggest the parent of multiples buy the original book, Happy Child, and skip Happy Twins. It just didn't have the detail and step by step instructions like Happy Child had and I still use my Happy Child book as quick reference when one of the kids hits a funny sleeping stage.

FAQ's about being a mom of multiples.
- Yes, my twins shared a crib until they started moving around. They tended to snuggle close together so I had to put a barrier between them in the crib to reduce the risk of SIDS and them accidentally smothering each other.
- I put them in separate cribs in the same room at 5 months.
- They really do ignore each other. One does not wake the other when they cry in the middle of the night
- When one wakes for a night feeding we always woke up the other one and fed them too to keep them on the same schedule.
- We keep their room at about 65 degrees
- We give them a bath every night before bed but instead of trying to wrangle the baby tub we bought the 2 of the spongy things and put them in the regular bath tub. It is faster and they like the water.

There is definitely some good information in this book. But it's really drawn out. The first thirty pages or so describe the importance of sleep and healthy sleep habits. If you're reading this book (and especially if you have newborn twins in the house), I suspect you already know how important sleep is. Chapter 3 is probably the best resourse. It lists sleepy signs from your baby and how to make sure you get him or her to bed before he or she is overtired. And it makes suggestions about the amount of sleep a baby needs and good times for naps. If, however, you don't think you can bear to let your baby cry, this book may not be for you.

There is also a chapter on breastfeeding twins and one on prematurity. Again, this is good information, but if you are reading this book just for help with sleeping habits it feels like filler. And the chapter on creating a sleep team can be summerized like this: make sure you, your spouse and anyone else who cares for your twins are on the same page with sleep-training so you don't screw up each others' efforts. He takes about 20 pages to say that.

Double Take: My First Year as a Mother of Twins

I have already read Dr. Weissbluth's previous book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby. This book for twins seemed to repeat much of the earlier book. I found that there were a few unique points for twins, but it's not as different as I had hoped. But it's good and helpful information, just no need to read both books.

I am a mother of 29 week fraternal twins, and I am thankful every night that we were lucky enough to have Dr. Weissbluth as our pediatrician. We jokingly refer to Dr. W as "the baby whisperer" in our home. All of our relatives are astounded at how well our kids sleep. They are happy and well-adjusted throughout the day, and simply reply "okay!" every time we ask them to go to bed at night or to take a nap. Our entire family is well-rested! He is the reason that my twins, who were 11 weeks premature, had almost no developmental delays, because they were able to sleep and grow.

This book is especially good if you twins are fraternal (which are more difficult, because their sleep patterns will be different) and if they are premature (one of my kids spent 1 month in the NICU, while the other spent 6 months, and was woken up every 3 hours). We thought we might never get them on a schedule to be able to share a room! Dr. W had them sharing a room and sleeping 12 hours a night within 6 weeks!

I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone with multiples, along with his other book. My twins are now 2 years old and continue to take one nap a day and sleep 12 hours at night. Because of his sound recommendations, my twins are easier than any child I have ever seen. No tantrums, no fighting bed time, and I am so grateful!

As a mother of twins, I am sincerely grateful for this incredibly helpful book. Dr. Weissbluth's sleep advice literally improved the quality of our lives: we followed his advice word for word, and our twins literally began sleeping through the night within days--which enabled us to sleep through the night too! Also, the twin's daytime sleep improved as well, and their nap schedules provided us with much needed free time. I found the book easy to read, concise, and it provided concrete steps for creating healthy sleep habits. I read the entire book in one night, and could immediately implement Dr. Weissbluth's advice. We have not found another book anywhere that specifically tailors sleep advice to twins: this is a must-have survival guide for any parent of multiples.

I bought this book and started reading it when my twins were less than a month old. I was hopeful about getting them to sleep well through the night as quickly as possible! As my twins got older, however, I realized how useless this book was. First off, I'm not a fan of the cry it out method and this book is a variation of that. In addition to that I don't feel that it addressed the individuality of twins. My children are exactly opposite when it comes to sleep patterns and styles. One is very easy to settle down and one is not. They share a room so leaving on in there to cry while the other is trying to sleep is ridiculous. Anyhow, my copy of this book is going in the trash. I prefer The No Cry Sleep Solution. The No Cry Sleep Solution doesn't really address the needs of parents of twins, but at least the strategies make more sense and aren't cruel.

I read MANY books hoping to find a magic solution to get my twin girls to sleep better both during the day, and and night. I was sleep deprived, exhausted, and down right cranky. While there is no real "magic" solution to get babies to sleep - this book offers information that is the next best thing! After following the recommended method of looking for "sleep cues", we saw an improvement in sleep quality in a matter of just 2 days. The babies were napping consistently throughout the day, and sleeping 7+ hours at night. We've had great (and FAST) success with this book, and I recommend it to all new moms and moms of multiples.

This book is a good read for those with twins, but I wouldn't say its a "must-have" for twin sleep training. I like the original "Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child" because it is better for specific schedule details. I also think that "Babywise" is a much better sleep training book for twins. Overall this book is a little boring and I only look at it for references to age-specific sleeping. Example: my twins just turned 4 months and I looked at the 4 month section to see what it normal sleep patterns for their age. It is also great for preemie babies and adjusted age sleep patterns.

Easy to follow step-by-step training plan.
My fraternal twin girls at 11 weeks (6 weeks corrected age) were sleeping through the night, they are now 14 weeks and sleeping more than the estimate in the book for their corrected aged in a 24hr period and going down within a 3 minute period of fuss or less.
I highly recommend this book.Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins: A Step-by-Step Program for Sleep-Training Your Multiples

This is the only sleep book we got so I can't say how it compares to other books and other methods. It is not in my nature to be a stickler for sleep "rules" and its not in my nature to let my babies scream anymore than they have to given the fact that there's two of them. This book seems very gentle to me and we have followed the suggestions from the beginning. We split the girls into separate cribs at 3 months old or so but they sleep in the same room. And they really do ignore each others noises and such. They are now 6 months old and both girls sleep 12+ hours at night every night.

The book suggests that at 6 months of age, babies will be taking 2 or possibly 3 naps every day. My girls take 4 naps. But the book also helped me to know that that's ok. Weissbluth is very reassuring as far as "your twins are individuals and what's right for them is right for them." The info about sleep-windows is dead on and I can honestly say that I have two well-rested, lovely little girls.