Sleep questions

Ruby_Tuesday

We are coming up on 12 weeks tomorrow.  The boys are currently going down at 7pm after a bottle and then waking at 12am & 4am to be fed.  Then we get up at 7am and by the time they get their bottle it's 7:30-7:45.  It would be really nice to drop one of those feedings.  Is it too soon to hope for that?

I see a lot of people have a final feeding at 9 or 10pm.  Would there be any benefit to waking my boys to get a feed in then? Do you think it would help them STTN?

I also see that someone below said that one of her twins STTN and the other one doesn't.  I have always woken all of mine when one wakes.  I think there's a chance that one of them would STTN if I didn't wake him.  Do you think I should try it or am I just asking for trouble and screaming babies off of schedule with each other?

I think I may just need to be patient and they will get there, maybe closer to 4 months, but I wanted to get some opinions.  Thanks!

blondek8

I don't have any advice for you, sorry! I'm curious to see what responses you get though. My guys are 14 weeks this week and they get up at least once a night to eat still, sometimes twice. They STTN for a couple days but not lately. I still consider myself lucky, but more sleep would be nice for sure! We put them down around 7-8pm after a bottle and wake both to eat around 10-11pm. They still get up around 2 or 3 to eat again. Sometimes it's just one that needs to eat and sometimes it's both. They did that when we didn't do the 10-11pm feed as well. Ugh. Nighttime feeding and sleep is my biggest source of stress and anxiety right now!

kafunder

If I were you, I'd try to drop the midnigt feeding and see if you can move the 4am feeding a bit later. I'm not sure if you plan on going back to work yet, but what we have done since about 1 month is wake the babies to feed at 5am (actually, they wake themselves...they are always hungry at that time). After DH and I do the 5am feeding, we put them back down to sleep around 5:30am, and then we use that time to get ready for work, eat breakfast, exercise (when we get our treadmill next week). We then wake the babies for the day at 7am and bring them to daycare and b/c it's been less than 3 hours, they don't need to be fed again unti lthey are at daycare. When I was on leave, I woke the babies for the day at 8am. This has worked out AWESOME for us. It's allowed both of us to get ready, take showers, and have some peace and quiet in the morning, so we're more organized and refreshed when the babies wake up.

monkski

We put ours down between 6:30pm and 7:00pm for the night, but we do wake them at 8:30pm to eat before we go to bed. That has always worked for us. They did continue to have one night feeding around 2-3am, but dropped that around 4 months.  We have always woken them both up if one woke. I do think that DD would've slept through the night earlier, but I wasn't willing to take the chance that she wouldn't just wake up an hour after feeding DS. They always went right back down and I tandem feed anyways, so it never really mattered if I woke the other up. Your situation is a little different with 3 though. Not sure what I would do in your shoes.

anyalee

I think 7:00 is a little too early for a last feeding if you want them STTN at this point.  I would try a dreamfeed.  We did a dreamfeed at 11 for a while.  Eventually they would only eat for like 5 minutes and then I knew it was time to drop the dreamfeed.  When we dropped the dreamfeed I rearragned their feedings at little so I could get that 5th feeding in.  They nurse at 6pm and then again at 8 so they can be down by 8:30.  That 8:00 is kinda like dessert.  I always wake one if I need to.  There is no way I want them on different schedules! Any you have 3...keep them on the same schedule!!!  That's always my #1 advice to MoMs.  Also, have you tried not feeding them when they wake up at 4am?  Maybe they just want binkies?  Just a thought. Good luck!  p.s. we need a pic of them

anyalee

Sorry...I'm a little slow this morning!  The pic is there now   I didn't realize you feed them at 12 AND 4 am.  I would first try to cut the 4am out!!!  See if they'll go back down with just binkies, even crying for a few minutes. 

caden

I kept a dream feed at 11:30 (then 11, then 10:45 as they got better at sleeping) and didn't drop it until last week. So almost 4 months. I would definitely see if an earlier dream feed will get you to 1 feeding a night. GL!

floridakat

We don't keep our girls on exactly the same schedule, which is why one started sleeping through the night earlier than the other. (We FF.) I have to say, I'm glad we at least tried it. It was so much easier to just feed one at night rather than both of them, and one of our girls was just naturally a good sleeper from about eight weeks on.

mbjmaybebaby

We used to feed the babies at 8pm and then wake them at 12am whether they were awake or not.  Just recently we started feeding them about 8 or 9 pm and then just putting them down in their cribs and waiting until they woke us up.  Last night they slept from 9:30 PM- 7:30 am!!  THis is the latest they have slept but for the last 2 weeks they have dropped the 12am feeding and just done the 4am.  You need to keep them on schedule though so once one wakes up (no matter what time) you need to get the others up after you're done with that one feeding. 

Hope this helps...

TwinMama83

We started to notice a pattern in that it was our DD who kept waking up every night to be fed and we were waking DS up to eat at the same time.  Once we noticed that she was the only one waking up consistently, we decided that DH and I would assign ourselves a baby for one night.  If "your baby" woke up, you'd feed it.  If not, you got to sleep.  Then we switched babies each night.  Every night it was only DD that would wake up, and DS STTN for weeks from about 12 weeks on.  (Later he woke up over and over for a paci to be replaced, but that's a whole other story!) At 4mo we did Ferber, and now they STTN 6pm-7am.