Sleeping Tricks for Twins

We had it down to a science. Or at least as close to a science as blurry-eyed parents of newborn twins could muster.

In the darkness, we'd hear a plaintive cry from somewhere inside the bassinet shared by our tiny boy-girl twins. The cry was hard to miss, seeing that the bassinet was positioned right next to Mommy's and Daddy's bed. Someone was awake and wanted food.

Now.

My thankless hubby would fetch the hungry tot, change the baby's diaper (if needed), and bring the child to me while I was hiding out, cocooned inside my bed sheets. In a mental haze, I'd push back the sheets and nurse the first baby from one of my two engorged breasts. Once that child was satiated, hubby would wake up the second baby, change his or her diaper, and then hand that babe over to me for feeding on the other breast. If that child didn't really drink much, he or she would almost always be the first one to demand food in another three hours, so we didn't worry too much about it. Feeding that is.

But as for sleeping, well, this loose "schedule" was the best we could do in the middle of the night, sleeping in between yelps for food.

Though there's no magic to getting newborn twins to sleep—any more than there is no one solution to get a single baby to slumber through the night—a variety of authors offer parents of twins specific tips on coping with the task of getting two babies to sleep at the same time. Here are a few of the best suggestions: