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If you have twins and are struggling to get any consolidated sleep, you’re not alone and you’re certainly not doing anything wrong.

In this episode, Allison dives into the unique challenges of twin sleep and shares practical strategies to help you build rhythms that work for both babies and for you.

From syncing overnight feeds to navigating naps when your twins have completely different sleep temperaments, this episode walks you through the simple adjustments that can make twin sleep far more manageable.

Because while sleep advice for single babies often focuses on following each baby’s cues, parenting twins requires a different strategy, one that prioritizes synchronizing schedules so parents can actually get rest, too.

You’ll learn how to:
— Sync nighttime feedings so you aren’t awake all night
— Keep feeding schedules aligned in the early months
— Navigate naps when twins have different sleep abilities
— Build a simple bedtime routine that works for both babies
— Begin practicing drowsy but awake sleep skills
— Use white noise effectively when twins share a room

If you’re expecting twins or currently parenting newborn twins, this episode offers reassurance, realistic expectations, and practical tools to help you find your rhythm.

Mentioned in This Episode:
Episode 197: Drowsy But Awake: Your Key to Avoiding the 4-Month Sleep Regression
Episode 224. Your Child’s Sleep Puzzle: Why Some Kids Sleep Easily (and Others Don’t)
Yogasleep Dohm white noise machine (Allison’s favorite white noise machine)

Give your child the gift of better sleep. Allison’s free, age-specific guides show you exactly how many hours of rest kids need to grow, learn, and thrive—no matter their age. Get your free copy now: 0-2 Years Old or 3 to 10 years old

From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.

Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

231. How to Set Your Twins Up for Sleep Success
Allison Egidi: Before we dive in today, I want to give a quick shout out to one of our Apple podcast listeners. I’m always asking you all to take a moment to rate and review the podcast and Becky did it. So I want to take a second to share what she wrote. She said, I’ve been listening to this podcast for months and even did a sleep call with Allison’s team. Even though I didn’t end up using Sleep and Wellness Coach for personalized help, the resources provided via the podcast and the consult call were invaluable. I have many friends who said Sleep And Wellness Coach was an absolute lifeline for them. So fortunate to have this weekly connection and encouragement. Thank you so much, Becky. I’m really glad the podcast has been helpful to you. And I truly, truly appreciate you taking the time to leave a review. And to all of my other fantastic listeners, if you have not yet, would you please take just a minute to rate and review the show on whatever podcast app you’re listening to right now. It’s honestly one of the very best ways to support the podcast and help other parents find us. Thanks friends. Okay, on to today’s episode.

If you’ve been around for a while, you know that I am a big Peloton fan. And as I’ve listened to Selena Samuela talk about her new life as the mom of newborn twins, I realized that I’ve never actually done a podcast episode on twin sleep. So today we’re going to fix that. I’m going to be sharing practical tips for setting twins up for better sleep.

Hey there, Alison here. Welcome back to How Long ‘Til Bedtime. Today we’re talking about something that truly deserves its own category in the parenting Olympics, and that is sleep with twins. If you’re parenting twins and sleep feels like the difference between functioning and completely unraveling, I assure you that you are not alone. Parenting twins is no joke.

After welcoming my second daughter 18 months after my first, I used to joke that one plus one somehow equaled more than two when it came to babies and toddlers. But having two infants the same age, both who need to eat, be held, get all that support regulating at the same time is an entirely different level. So, hats off to you twin parents.

Okay, let’s talk about setting your sweet babies up for more consistent sleep. You’re probably not going to be surprised to hear that getting your babies on a similar schedule is a very big piece of this sleep puzzle. Today I’m going to talk you through how to get twins on the same sleep schedule, what to do about night wakings, how to simplify bedtime, and how to build healthy sleep habits early without losing your mind.

If you’ve heard me talk about newborn sleep before, you may have heard that I typically don’t recommend waking babies to feed them overnight. We want them to be encouraged to sleep for nice long stretches. And so what I typically recommend, assuming you have your pediatrician sign off, is that you just feed them when they naturally wake to feed.

But this advice does not apply when you have twins, particularly in the first few months. If one twin wakes to feed and you let the other keep sleeping, what often happens is that you get one baby back down and then you maybe get back in bed. If you’re lucky, you fall back to sleep. And then 30 minutes later, your other twin wakes up.

And now you’re doing this entire process again and again. And if that pattern repeats all night, you are going to end up up all night and you’re going to burn out very quickly. Even if kind of looked at independently, the babies are sleeping well, but if they’re not on the same schedule, it’s going to be rough. And I want to say this and emphasize it, that I think your health matters just as much as the health of your babies. So if staggered feedings mean that you never get consolidated sleep, that is not sustainable or good for you, your babies, your entire family unit.

In the early months in particular, the goal is kind of synchronization. When one twin wakes and it’s a feeding wake up, feed that twin, put them back down, and then wake the other twin and feed them. So yes, I want you to wake them. We’re aiming to sync their feeding schedules so that you can get longer stretches of sleep. Ideally, both of them kind of getting that longer stretch at the same time, so you’re also able to get a longer stretch of sleep at night. Continue feeding them at the same time during the night until around 12 to 16 weeks adjusted age.

And I want to make a quick note on the adjusted age since the vast majority of twins are coming prior to 40 weeks. If your twins were born before 38 weeks, use adjusted age when you’re thinking about sleep development, but I adjust from the 38 week mark. So if they arrived at 36 weeks, I would adjust their age by two weeks when we’re thinking about sleep milestones. So once they’re in that 12 to 16 week window, you can begin experimenting a little bit with their night’s sleep.

If one twin sleeps through their sibling’s waking and feeding, you can test out letting them continue to sleep and see how long they can extend their stretch. So if they then go another two hours, great. If you find no, they are definitely up within the next 30 minutes, then sync them back up. But in those first three to four months, I promise that syncing feeds is truly going to be your sleep friend.

Now, navigating naps can be trickier because the pull to sleep isn’t as strong during the day. And some babies will really struggle with their naps early on. And naps can feel particularly challenging with fraternal twins.

So one twin may have this easy 25 piece sleep puzzle. You guys have heard me talk about sleep puzzles. I’ll tell you a little bit more in a minute. And then the other may have one of those 1000 piece sleep puzzles. And if you haven’t heard me talk about sleep puzzles before, quick explanation on what I mean. Some babies are naturally more gifted in the sleep department than others. I compare it to athleticism. For some, it just simply comes more easily. With fraternal twins especially, you may have one baby with this simple chunky 25 piece puzzle. You line up a few of the pieces and the rest just kind of fall into place. But your other baby may have a 1000 piece sleep puzzle. They may be more sensitive. They may have more moving parts, more pieces that have to align in order for them to fall asleep easily and to stay asleep. And if you’re trying to solve both of these unique puzzles at the same time, naps can be tricky. So I want you to know that in the early months it is normal for one twin to maybe be a little trickier when it comes to naps and one may naturally sleep for longer stretches than the other. But even if their sleep abilities differ, feeding schedules should stay aligned with each other within about 15 or 20 minutes during those first few months.

That may mean that you’re having to wake one twin from a nap in order to feed them. So, a lot of times we are not waking our newborns from naps unless we hit a max of somewhere in the two to three hour mark. But with the twins, depending on how much their nap natural ability lines up, we may have to wake one. And I know that that can feel wrong, but feeding together protects your rhythm for the whole day. And rhythm is what protects your sanity when it comes to having two newborns.

Now let’s circle back to nights. When it comes to night sleep, implement a simple, consistent bedtime routine early on. An example might be fresh diapers, pajamas, feeding, singing a little song and into bed.

Baths do not need to happen at bedtime. If they’re soothing and enjoyable, wonderful. But if baths add stress to your evening or upset one or both of your babies, move them to earlier in the day. Ideally, when you have extra hands around and you’re not exhausted. Since one twin may be easier to get to sleep, don’t panic if the exact moment they fall asleep varies a little bit. But ideally they’re asleep at bedtime within about 15 to 20 minutes of each other, 30 minutes max, if you can help it. If one twin struggles more with daytime sleep and naps aren’t syncing very easily, one area where I would say you can focus on trying to line things up would be to have their final nap of the day end around the same time. That can help realign them for bedtime. So again, this might be an example where you need to wake one to line them up for a similar bedtime.

And just like with the singletons, I recommend beginning to practice drowsy but awake between six and eight weeks adjusted. And for most babies, the easiest time to practice this skill is that first nap of the day. If you have a baby who naps well, bedtime can also be a good opportunity to practice drowsy but awake, but don’t pick that battle if everyone is tired and over it at the end of the day. If you’re not sure what I mean by drowsy but awake, or if you’ve tried it without success, I want you to go back and listen to episode 197. It’s called Drowsy But Awake: Your Key to Avoiding the 4-Month Sleep Regression. And remember, it is all about practice. If one twin picks it up quickly and the other doesn’t, that’s okay. As one baby becomes more independent with their sleep, that just means you’ll naturally have more bandwidth to be able to gently support the other twin in strengthening that same skill set.

I also want to note that white noise can be particularly helpful with twins. I love white noise for all newborns, but for twins, especially if they’re room sharing, it can really help buffer all the small noises that they make when they’re sleeping. Some babies are noisy sleepers and it can help buffer when you’re having to come in the room and help one. And so I really strongly recommend solid white noise. My favorite white noise for truly buffering within a room is the YogaSleep original dome. I will link to that in the show notes for you guys as well. You want the white noise to fill the room so we are not trying to blast white noise in our baby’s ears. So try to keep the machine at least six feet from their heads and aim for a volume around 50 decibels.

Okay before I wrap up I want to encourage you to give yourself and your babies a lot of grace in these early months. You are managing two temperaments, two developing circadian rhythms, two feeding patterns, two nervous systems. You’re doing all of this at once. If this feels harder than what you experienced when you just had one baby or what your friends have described who just had one baby, it’s because it is harder. Not every day is going to feel smooth in the sleep department or the feeding department. And that is normal. Every day is simply another opportunity to gently move your babies towards syncing up their schedules. And if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, I’ve already found a rhythm that’s working well, for my family and it differs from what I have said here, you guys protect it. You know your babies and what is best for your family. But if you needed a little guidance, I hope this was helpful.

If you’re expecting or parenting twins right now, I really hope that an episode like this gave you some of the practical tips that you are looking for. And more importantly, that it gave you a little reassurance. No matter how sleep is going, I want to assure you that you are doing an incredible job. Thanks for being here and I hope you’ll come back again next week. Bye for now.