I'm curious to know how other triplet parent's dealt with trying to get their babies to sleep through the night. With one baby, getting up a few times per night to feed would be tiring for the first year, but with three, it just exhausting! We hired a night nanny to come from 11pm -7am so that we can sleep enough to function during the day (my hubby works full-time), but it is wiping out our entire savings.

I have to admit I'm a wimp when it comes to letting them CIO, but I am eager to hear anything from others that worked.

Our 4 month (adjusted) old GGB triplets are 12.5lb, 12.5lbs, & 14.5lbs and are still waking up 3 times per night most nights. We feed them every 3 hours during the day. Bedtime is at 6:30-7pm, we give them a "dream feeding" at 9pm which is the last scheduled bottle. After that we let them sleep until they wake up which is usually between 1am -3am & again at 4am or 5am. Even when we do a second dream feeding at 11pm, they still wake up around 2 or 3am & again a few hours later. What's most frustrating is that, after eating so much over night, they then don't finish their EBM bottles during the daytime. I absolutely hate throwing breast milk down the drain! I can't seem to ever get them to take more than 3-4oz at a time. The girl's have always been difficult feeders without much of an appetite.

At the urging of other mothers, I've recently added a scoop of rice cereal to their 9pm bottles to see if they'll sleep longer, despite my pediatrician's recommendation to wait until 5-6 months. It hasn't made any difference which is in line with the literature on the subject because EBM & formula have all the fat & protein that should be more satiating.

There are so many books/videos & sleep training methods out there. Many of them claim that at 4 mo & 12-15lbs, babies should be able to sleep 11-12 hours without a feeding. Before I attempt any of these techniques & possible CIO, I wanted to check with other mothers of triplets.

I would love to hear if any of you tried those types of methods & what worked for you. Please any advice would be wonderful!

Sounds like you're doing a great job.

My GGG are now almost 11 months adjusted -- we started letting them CIO in January - so they would have been about 6 months adjusted. Before that, we were in a bit of flux - dropping a 3rd nap, transitioning from napping every 2 hours to clock time (2 naps a day) etc. It was a fussy period for us. For mine, at 4 months they were still not sleeping through the night and in my opinion (and my pediatrician's) still needed the night feedings. I can't recall their weights at that point. I do recall we were also feeding on 3 hour schedule but switched around that time to a 4 hour schedule but still did a dream feed at 11pm. They were getting up once at that point I believe and eventually, gradually extended their night sleep to finally sleeping through the night around 7 months adjusted.

To answer both posts at once....we also swaddled up until about 5 months adjusted -- until such time they were "breaking out" more than they were staying in. At that point it was around the same time as we switched to clock-time napping and put them into sleeping bags. This coincided with our beginning to let them CIO as well....the perfect storm!

So -- we used "healthy sleep habits happy child" -- we found it practical and "easy" to follow. Letting your children CIO is HARD -- but if you stick with it, it does work. One of the priciples we used in accordance with this method is: nap/sleep one, sleep all. Feed one, feed all. It maintained a schedule and our sanity. I'm not sure if you're feeding all at once in the middle of the night of letting each of them demand feed -- consider feeding all if you're not.

As far as rice cereal -- I never did this. I read so much that it affects the amount of breast milk the babies will drink as it provides "empty" calories and lowers their demand for breast milk...don't know if any of that is true, but it makes sense. Yours may just not be ready to give up night feeds yet and need some more time to pack on the pounds. It will happen though. Some babes start sleeping through the night and then during growth spurts need to feed again. The book I refereed to suggests that up until 9 months (adjusted) babes could need to feed during the night.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that is helpful. Hang in there, it will get better soon! If and when you do choose to let them CIO - it may be a good time to transition out of the swaddle - they'll be angry at you anyway!

hope that helps!
good luck

Janet
G - 12/07 35 weeks
GGG-04/10 30 weeks

Thank you so much for your response! That makes me feel better to be reminded that feeding in the night at this age is still normal. I am reading Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child & really like the principles, but I feel like I need a step-by-step book for dummies to get better at all this.....OR I just need to toughen up and let them CIO like you said. I think waiting until they are 5-6 mo to wean the swaddles & start eating solid food more appropriately will help.

Amazing that their is another Janet out there with triplets! I'd love to meet you someday!

GGB Triplets Born 32 weeks Nov,2010

Janet

It's a small world -- perhaps someday we could connect up when travelling is a bit easier for both of us.

I recall pouring over that book and still feeling I needed the step-by-step for dummies. All I can offer is decide on the method you're going to use (gradual vs full extinction) and stick with it. Either way it will be hard (so that's why we went with full extinction, took less time). Keep telling yourself (once you go that route) that they are safe, dry and need to learn how to sleep.

I recall reading and reading making sure there wasn't a "loophole" I was missing. It will get better....it's gradual. Don't hesitate to email if you need extra support from someone whose been there....

good luck!

Janet
G - 12/07 35 weeks
GGG-04/10 30 weeks

If you are exclusively breastfeeding, then this is very, very reasonable that your kids would still be waking up for feedings. Almost all the women I know who exclusively breastfed up until 6mos of age (mostly singleton and some twin moms) were feeding round the clock until then.

You are doing a fantastic job!
Joey

http://berubebabies.blogspot.com/

We more or less followed Babywise with our kids. It took a little longer to get the triplets sleeping through the night than my singletons, but by about 4 months they were going a long stretch at night (maybe 9 hours--don't remember exactly). I breastfed all of my kids and by about the 12-13 pound mark they were all ready to sleep through the night, so I just stopped giving them milk when they woke up at night (we never did the dream feeds, either). Initially, we weren't super rigid about letting them cry it out because we didn't want one to wake up the others, so our approach was to take the one that was crying out and lay her down in a pack 'n' play in another room. That actually worked pretty well for getting them to sleep through the night initially. However, it came back to haunt us around the 6 month mark when they started teething, because we had never really let them learn to sleep through each others' cries. So, after a stretch of sporadic good and bad nights (we already knew they were capable of sleeping all night, they were just waking each other up because of the teething), we started letting them cry it out. It didn't take more than a few nights for them to start sleeping right through anything and everything and now they happily sleep about 11 hours every night.

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but yeah, I have 5 kids that were able to sleep through the night by then. We did introduce rice cereal (with a bowl and spoon--not in their bottles) at 4 months with all of our kids, and that may have helped with the sleeping, too.

Rebecca

Laura (5)
Lucas (3)
Aubrie, Emily, & Teresa born 7/5/10 at 34w3d.

Okay so here is an update & another question about sleep training triplets.

Has anyone else, thrown the CIO method out the window & still been successful?

I tried the CIO method & couldn't do it. The girls cried for over an hour the first night and were not showing any signs of stopping until I reswaddled them and shushed them to sleep. It was so aweful & I cried after they went to sleep for about 2 hours myself because I felt so guilty.

Since then, I've decided to start with one child at a time because its too difficult to do anything with all three at once. My boy is the most hearty and best sleeper so we are putting him down in the crib after a story, some milk, and a song. He plays under his mobile and just as he gets sleepy begins to fuss a bit, but each night it is getting less and less. I guess I'm using the same principles as that book "No Cry Sleep Solution" to lull my baby to sleep & make bedtime inviting. He has gotten progressively better at putting himself to sleep in a two week period of time. Until he is a breeze, I'm not ready to start the girls so I am getting them to fall asleep in their swings & then transitioning to the crib after a 9pm dream feeding. They are all sleeping through the night most nights.

Has anyone else, thrown the CIO method out the window & still been successful?
GGB Triplets Born 32 weeks Nov,2010

Janet

Hi Janet --

I too had great difficulty with cry-it-out. I don't know who did more crying me or the babies. Besides having my nose in "healthy sleep habits happy child" a whole lot, I also utilized a "sleep coach" via email. She was great -- her advice to me was straight forward but seemed so hard to me...in the end we followed her advice which paralleled much of the book.

If I'm correct, yours are about 5 months adjusted? We probably started CIO sometime just after ours were about 6-7 months adjusted. It took a while for everything to settle. The nights were relatively quick -- days before we started getting minimal crying but the naps took a long time (months) to gel.

So, the advice from the sleep coach -- they are going to be mad at you anyway, so make the changes you need to make and get it over with. For us, this amounted to us not rocking them to sleep any more but rather cuddling after a book for 2 minutes, kiss and into bed. We also stopped swaddling and changed them into sleep sacks. The big one, was we took away the soothers and gave them little cuddly animal blankets. Okay, if I recall correctly, we did this pretty quickly but not in one day. I can report though that I don't regret it at all. There is no waking and crying for soothers....there is still some crying before going to sleep but it is clear to us this is "I don't want to go to bed yet I want to ...." Crying it out is tough, but they all get used to each others fussing and sleep through it eventually.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't use this method however, for me CIO was successful with my first and I couldn't see how I would have the time or energy to put three babes to bed that needed so much in order to fall asleep. CIO was right for us, but it certainly is not the only way.

I wish I could be more help to you...I know how frustrated/anxious/desperate/exhausted I/we were when they were at the stage yours are. Hang in there....

Janet

Janet
G - 12/07 35 weeks
GGG-04/10 30 weeks

I never had help at night and never let my babies cry it out - it can be done! Around a year old, they would fuss for a bit, but never cried, to get to sleep. I just couldn't let them cry and I think there is a reason it bothers us. No judgment of anyone who used this method, but it just wasn't for us.

We always fed on demand (well, when the first demanded, we fed all three) and noticed they would "cluster feed" in the evenings - so if they ate every 3-4 hours during the day, they'd have a full bottle every 2 hours, sometimes every 90 minutes, between 6 and 9. Then we'd rock them to sleep and put them down one by one. We always did it in the same order based on personality (I had one easy one who would take her pacifier and go down drowsy, and two to rock). You absolutely can do it without letting your kids scream. Now, I'm not going to say it was always easy. Sometimes we rocked and sang and rocked some more for 30-45 minutes or more (believe it or not, I miss those times now), and sometimes they were up way later than we wanted and we had less alone time, but it was worth it to me not to leave them to cry. They will only be babies once and the time really does fly by, even if it doesn't feel like it in the tough moments. Falling asleep in the swing and transitioning to the crib is fine at that age, I think. Whatever works!

It looks like your kids are just about 7 months old, 5 adjusted. Mine still were not sleeping through the night with any regularity at that time. They'd load up on formula at night but still woke up once for a bottle.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but it DOES get better! I don't remember when they started sleeping through the night, but by 12 months I think they were doing it most or all of the time, and I know for sure they were sleeping all night a few months later. They will be 3 years old next month and I can count on one hand the number of times they've been up in the night in the past two years. They go to bed on their own, sleep 12 hours a night and have for a very long time now. It is wonderful! Soon enough, yours will be doing the same and the first year will be a blur. I know it's crazy-making when you're in the middle of it but it does pass. Hang in there!

BGG born at 34 weeks on 8/12/08