advice on night feeds

Re: advice on night feeds

• Rose.9.6.03 member

  January 2009

  Are they preemies or having trouble with weight gain?

  If not, I'd just feed on demand at this point.  Most 3 month olds have the capability to go longer than 4 hours between feedings and many can STTN. 

   

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• lajolla09.30.06

  January 2009

  I definitely wouldn't wake them.  Right at their 3 month birthday ours started sleeping 8 hours at a time, they dropped one or two night feeds (can't remember exactly what the schedule was before) and started sleeping 7pm to 3 or 4 am and then going back to sleep until 7.  They were born at 34 weeks.
  

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• jd0614

  January 2009

  Unless your dr. tells you differently, I would feed them only when they wake at this point, they may surprise you.  BUT, if one wakes, I would wake the other, otherwise you could be up for hours!    My boys were STTN right about that age.

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• regenab member

  January 2009

  At 3 months I was sleep training my girls to sttn 12 hours without waking for feedings. The first step was to push their feedings to 4 hours during the day, this made them eat more that those feedings, requiring less at night. The second step was to start dropping feedings at night and then once the feedings were completely gone, we worked on them not getting up in the middle of night for no reason. It took about 5 weeks to completely train them, but it did work.

  If you are not into doing a formal sleep training, my suggestion is at this age they really can start to go longer between feedings at night. At 12 weeks old (8 weeks adjusted) we stopped waking the second baby to eat when the first one got up, but I also had help, my DH got up to feed with me. So we were each assigned a baby each night and when your baby woke up to feed you took care of your baby. We would alternate babies each night, because once we stopped waking the bigger twin she was going like 7 hours before waking for her first night feeding, so that parent got to sleep longer. In this regard I really felt that at this age we needed to allow the one twin to develop the longer sleeping period that she wanted to, since they are two seperate babies with seperate wants and needs. When they are young of course feeding at the same time is necessary. Again all of this was with the help of my DH, if you are doing the feedings on your own you might still want to wake them at the same time, but I would not wake them per se, let them go as long as possible before the first one wakes, then wake the second. Like PP said they might really surprise you with how long they will go.

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• MelZull

  January 2009

  As others have already said, let them sleep and wake up on their own to eat at night and wake the other so they eat at the same time. Our pedi told us at our 1 week appt that it was ok to do this as long as they dont go more then 6 hours between feedings at night at that point. Most nights our girls will go about 4 hours between feedings, sometimes 5 if we are lucky. Good luck and get some sleep tonight!

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• dreamcometrueX2

  January 2009

  regenab:

  At 3 months I was sleep training my girls to sttn 12 hours without waking for feedings. The first step was to push their feedings to 4 hours during the day, this made them eat more that those feedings, requiring less at night. The second step was to start dropping feedings at night and then once the feedings were completely gone, we worked on them not getting up in the middle of night for no reason. It took about 5 weeks to completely train them, but it did work.

  I'm planning on starting to formally sleep train at about three months as well, and I've always wondered...how do you drop a feeding at night??? When they wake do you just try to get them back to sleep??? Are there any tricks to this?

  TIA!

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