The Twin Sleep Journey — An Honest Guide
Sleep is the number one anxiety for every new parent. For twin parents it is amplified beyond anything a singleton parent can imagine. This is our honest sleep journey — from newborn to three — including everything that didn't work as well as everything that did.
The short version
Wake both for every feed so they stay on the same schedule.
Keep them close, following The Lullaby Trust's safer sleep advice: on their backs, clear cot, no hats indoors.
Progress isn't linear. For us, sleep only felt reliable approaching three, and it does come.
Please note: this is our personal experience, not medical advice. For safe sleep, always follow the latest guidance from The Lullaby Trust and your health visitor, especially if your babies were premature.
The newborn stage — what it's really like
People will tell you newborn twins sleep a lot. And they do — in between feeds, during changes, sometimes during both.
What people don't tell you is what mum is doing during those sleeping hours. She is expressing or preparing formula. She is sterilising bottles. She is washing babygrows. She is trying to shower, drink a hot coffee before it goes cold, or simply sit down for five uninterrupted minutes. She is certainly not relaxing.
There is no easy phase of twin motherhood. There is just a different kind of hard at every stage.
For those of us with premature twins, those early weeks carry an extra layer of anxiety. Premature babies cannot regulate their own body temperature — they have very little body fat, which means they lose heat rapidly and can become dangerously cold very quickly.
What this means practically:
Premature babies can find it hard to keep warm. The Lullaby Trust advises a room temperature of 16–20°C. If your babies are small or were very early, ask your neonatal team or health visitor what’s right for them.
Always check temperature at the back of the neck or tummy — not the hands or feet, which will naturally feel cooler.
Because they were premature, keeping them at the right temperature was a constant worry — their tiny bodies genuinely struggled to stay warm. I checked them constantly. The anxiety of it never fully left me until they were bigger and stronger.
Always use breathable fabrics and follow safe sleep guidelines for your babies' age and weight. Never use a hot water bottle or place babies near a direct heat source. The Lullaby Trust — lullabytrust.org.uk — is the UK's leading safe sleep charity and an excellent resource for up to date guidance.
Always wake both for feeds
From the very start I woke both boys for every feed at the same time. I know some people say this is cruel. It isn't. It is the only way to maintain a schedule with twins — and maintaining a schedule is survival.
My boys have stayed on the same schedule ever since. It is one of the best things I ever did.
Things got significantly easier once weaning started and the bottle feeds began to reduce — and with fewer night feeds came longer stretches of sleep. If you are in the depths of the bottle feeding stage right now, hold on. Weaning is a genuine turning point for twin sleep.
The overnight prep system that saved my sanity
Before I went to sleep every single night I set up the following in the nursery:
— 6 sterilised bottles
— 6 nappies
— Wipes
— 2 babygrows
— A basket for dirty bottles — so there was never any confusion between clean and used
I also kept a mini fridge and bottle warmer in my bedroom. Getting up and down the stairs at 1am with two screaming babies is not just exhausting — it is a safety risk when you are running on no sleep.
In that mini fridge alongside the milk I kept a lucozade and brazil nuts in dark chocolate.
This is important and nobody talks about it. Expressing milk is hard physical work. Your body is producing food for two babies around the clock. You need to fuel yourself to fuel them. At 3am when you are exhausted and running on empty, having something to hand that gives you an energy boost and some nutrition isn't self-indulgence. It is necessity.
Look after yourself. Your babies need you to.
On expressed breast milk storage:
Follow the storage advice your neonatal unit or health visitor gives you. For premature babies it’s often stricter than the usual guidance, so I refrigerated straight away and warmed as needed. A bedside mini fridge is not a luxury for twin mums. It is essential.
On breast pump accessories:
If you are expressing with a double breast pump — buy two full sets of accessories. Use one set for one night express, the second set for the next, and sterilise everything together in the morning. Nobody wants to be sterilising pump parts at 3am. Nobody.
Safe sleep
Current UK advice from The Lullaby Trust: always put babies on their back to sleep, on a firm, flat, waterproof mattress, in a clear cot with no pillows, duvets or bumpers. Use feet-to-foot with firmly tucked blankets or a well-fitting baby sleeping bag, keep the room around 16–20°C, and no hats indoors while they sleep. If your babies were premature, ask your neonatal team or health visitor how to keep them warm safely.
I later moved to sleeping bags which were brilliant — until they learned to climb out of them, at which point all bets were off.
Congestion and sleep
Congestion was a big reason my boys woke in the night — they were simply struggling to breathe. Saline drops with a nasal aspirator helped the most. Please don't raise the cot or use a wedge: babies should always sleep flat on their back. If your baby is struggling to breathe, call NHS 111 or 999 in an emergency.
For the full congestion toolkit see the Tips & Tricks page.
Illuminated dummies
Buy them. Just buy them. Finding a dummy in a dark room at 3am with two babies is its own very special kind of chaos. The ones that glow mean you can find them instantly. This is not a luxury. This is survival.
Transitioning to cots — the nightmare phase
Here is where I want to be completely honest. Because nobody warned me.
When I transferred the boys into individual cots it was a nightmare. Neither would settle. Both would scream. It would sometimes take three hours to get them down. I felt like I was drowning — I simply could not be there for both of them simultaneously.
I tried the crying it out method. It didn't work. For any of us. One would always set the other off and I was a mess. As a single mum of twins I simply cannot soothe two screaming babies at once — particularly when they each want to be walked around. That is a physical impossibility.
Co-sleeping — and why it wasn't the answer for us
At my most desperate I co-slept with both boys. It was better for them. I got zero sleep. Something had to change.
If you ever bring your babies into your bed, please read The Lullaby Trust's co-sleeping guidance first — it's written for exactly those desperate nights.
The DIY double cot — the game changer
Then I had an idea. What if I joined their cots together?
I created a DIY double cot solution — and it changed everything. They started sleeping significantly better almost immediately. The closeness they'd shared in the womb was comforting to them both — and now they had the space to grow into it.
A safety note: newborn twins can share one cot, side by side on their backs, but once they can roll they need separate sleep spaces. If you push or join cots together, make sure they are securely fixed with no gap where an arm, leg or head could get trapped, and each cot meets the safety standard.
If there is one piece of advice I could give every twin mum setting up a nursery it is this: find a way to keep them together for as long as possible. The womb was their first home. Closeness is comfort.
Holding hands through the bars
Getting them down was still tricky — most babies struggle to self-soothe, which is completely understandable. And as a single mum of two I couldn't physically soothe both at once.
So I taught them that they could have one arm each through the bars of the cot. Once they got used to that, they would hold a hand each as they fell asleep.
Two tiny boys, one arm each through the cot bars, holding their mum's hands as they drifted off. It was one of the most beautiful and exhausting things I have ever experienced simultaneously. But please don’t copy this one: safe sleep advice is to keep anything that could trap a baby’s arm or leg out of the cot, and little limbs can get stuck between cot bars. Sitting beside the cot with a hand on their tummy is the safer way to do it.
The cruel reality of twin sleep progress
Just when you think you're making progress — one gets ill. Then the other. And you are back to square one.
Twin sleep progress is not linear. It is two steps forward, one step back, repeatedly, for a very long time. It is a thankless task and I want to say that plainly because nobody did.
Be kind to yourself on the nights it falls apart. It always comes back together.
Transitioning to toddler beds
At around two and a half we moved to toddler beds. Initially I pushed them together — which worked beautifully and felt like a natural extension of the cot setup they were used to.
They are now slightly separated — with just enough space in the middle for me to sit between them when needed.
Because sometimes, at three, you still need to sit between them in the dark. And that is completely fine.
When one wakes the other
As babies if one woke it was usually for a feed — which was fine because I wanted the other one awake too. As they got older something remarkable happened — they became quite astute about each other's sleep. If one woke for something minor the other would stay completely asleep. Even now if one wakes up and needs his duvet put back on the other doesn't even stir.
Twins surprise you. They really do.
When does it get better?
Honestly? For us only a couple of months ago did sleep feel truly reliable. The nights had been improving for some time — but there was always something. One always woke for something.
The biggest shift came when I could reason with them. When they reached the point of understanding nighttime and morning time.
Now I hear through the monitor:
"Mummy, it's morning time."
"Mummy, I'm awake. Me want to cuddle my mummy."
Every single hard night was worth it for those words.
Twin sleep — what worked for us
Sleep:
— Always wake both for feeds — same schedule is everything
— On their back, clear cot, no hats indoors — follow The Lullaby Trust
— Sleeping bags once old enough — until they escape them
— Keep them close: same room, and side by side in one cot only while The Lullaby Trust says it’s safe
— Holding hands as they fall asleep (but not through the cot bars, see above)
— Illuminated dummies — non-negotiable
— Toddler beds pushed together for the transition
— Stay with them until they're asleep — crying it out didn't work for us
— Accept that illness will set you back — and that it always comes back together
— Saline drops for congestion (never raise the cot) — see Tips & Tricks for full detail
Nights:
— Mini fridge and bottle warmer in the bedroom — essential not optional
— Lucozade and brazil nuts in dark chocolate in the mini fridge — fuel yourself to fuel them
— Two sets of breast pump accessories — sterilise in the morning not at 3am
— Six sterilised bottles ready each night — plus nappies, wipes, babygrows
— A basket for dirty bottles — no confusion at 3am
A final thought
Twin sleep is hard. Harder than anyone who hasn't done it can fully understand. There will be nights that break you. Nights where you genuinely don't know how you'll get through tomorrow.
You will get through tomorrow. And one day — sooner than it feels right now — you will hear a little voice through the monitor saying it's morning time.
Hold on for that. 💛
— Rebekah
