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I would do Ferber to try to stretch his first waking to 3:30 so he's on the same schedule as his sister (assuming you can tandem feed and handle having them both be awake at the same time.)

Tough situation since he is small and you must be exhausted with twins.

We sleep trained Charlie at 4.5 months and it was gloriously life changing. He was waking up like 10 times a night and it just wasn't sustainable. He was really easy to sleep train, and pretty much never woke up from post sleep training til after 1 year when we traveled.

But.... he was a big baby and could handle dropping the night time feedings. I don't think that age is too young to sleep train -- it really depends on the baby and some cry very little (like Charlie... less than 20 minutes off and on). So you could give it a try and maybe cap crying at a very low limit like 5-10 minutes to see how it goes? He may surprise you!

It is also harder to sleep train the second waking, so I would tackle the first one first.

I found the series on sleeping through the night at Troublesome Tots really useful. Part one is here http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/

It recommends waiting for CIO until around 6 months but has a lot of non-CIO solutions to work toward at younger ages. Like @SCG00387 said, the key at that age is to get them falling asleep on their own and they'll generally drop the night feedings on their own when they're ready.

I hope you get some rest soon. The 4-5 month period was brutal for us, I can't imagine it with twins.

i would try a million things before CIO. so my answer is #4. And then I would wait it out.

There are tons of questions I can ask, but instead I can tell you what I did. When L was around 8 months (because his sleep went to crap fro 5 - 8 months). We put an air conditioner in his room and still use it now on the fan setting for white noise. We put crib bumpers because he had been rolling into the sides of his crib (too soon for a 4.5 month old though). We got a better quality mattress - and his sleep drastically improved with that change alone. We stopped using sleep sacks (not really sure if this made a difference, but he sleeps fine without them). Can you try feeding him more before bed, like supplementing with a bit of pumped milk? I never tried that idea for a long time because I didn't want to keep up with the pumping. There are other methods outlined in the book "no cry sleep solution", but I haven't finished reading it yet! good luck with whatever you decide.

I'd pick option #1. We did Ferber around 3.5 months and DS slept through the night at 4 months (although not consistently). But DS was a hefty kid so I never had to worry that he was not eating enough. The dream feed never worked for us.

I know it's kind of controversial to sleep train so young but it worked for us. Everyone is going to have an opinion of what you should or should not do no matter what so do what works for you.

@Trailmix: now that i think about it, i'm not sure if i would sleep train because i couldn't do it myself the second time around. olive woke up a lot and didn't sleep through the night until 16 months! but she was a small preemie and i didn't have it in me to sleep train her until then even though it had been so easy with charlie, but he was a really big baby.

you know how i survived? i literally slept in the glider for months. i was so tired i would always pass out with her on the boppy! she never dropped the night wakings on her own and she knew how to put herself to sleep (she did it for naps), so we had to sleep train. but again she was easy to sleep train.

one thing to keep in mind is that a lot of babies' sleep improves after 6 months. if you can make it that long and he will be a little chubbier then, maybe you'd feel more comfortable with the idea of sleep training if his sleep doesn't improve?

i just can't imagine how tired you must be with twins!

@Trailmix: No advice, but just wanted to say- hang in there. Some babies, man. My kid is just a crappy sleeper. All the moms in our groups keep talking about sleeping 8 hours without waking up - I get excited for 5. I can't imagine doing it with two.

We went through a rough patch at about that time, too, babe. Two wake ups a night was rough but that was what i was willing to wait through. Once we hit 3, 4, 5 wake ups, i was like, WTF NO.

So he's waking 3 times to eat, but possibly out of habit. You never know unless you try, right? 3 times to eat seems like a lot to me (but i FF and I know that is different), so I'd try to change that. I'd work on cutting down the time he nurses and try to top him off GOOD before bed. I'd try a dream feed (sometimes E took to one, sometimes not). Does a pacifier help at all? At 5 months, we had transitioned E to a Merlin Sleep Suit and it was amazing. The 4.5 part made me want to die. But I'm not sure it would work for your situation.

We *just* sleep trained E (with some CIO and it wasn't massively traumatic) a little before she turned 6 months old. She took to it really, really well at this age.

You are at, literally, THE WORST PART OF IT. The good stuff is around the corner (I hope. I know for us it was)

@Modern Daisy: Eeek, he's only 7 weeks! His schedule is totally normal if not GOOD! We started getting our first 5-6 hrs stretches shortly after that and things got much better around 13 weeks.