talk to me about feeding/sleeping scheduling

ballygirl · December 2013

For those of you who have your LOs on feeding/sleeping schedules, when did you start doing this and how did you go about it? My girls are 2 months and they sort of eat and sleep on their own schedules - sometimes they are in synch, and sometimes they aren't. I know a lot of MOMs recommend getting them on a regular schedule for sanity's sake and I'm wondering if they are old enough to start this and how I would do it. I am quickly losing my sanity the way things are now. Any suggestions or good book/website recommendations?

Also - if your LOs are on a schedule and bottle fed, do you feed them at the same time or stagger their feedings? I would love to be able to tandem bottle feed but I have not found a good way to do this - their heads are still kind of floppy so its hard to prop them up. Whenever I've tried it, I make a huge mess and they end up gagging and screaming.

jessican08 · December 2013

They're not too young to be on a schedule. I think we started around 7 weeks before I went back to work.

It IS hard to tandem feed newborns, no question. The way I did it was to sit on the floor with their boppies in front of me, facing away and then sit behind them and hold their bottles and feed them that way. You could stagger their feedings if you had to though, just start one as soon as you finished with the other.

As far as sleeping goes, we did the EASY method: Eat, Activity, Sleep/Your Time. You want to try to keep them away for a while after a feeding. We were on a 3 hour feeding schedule in the beginning so I would feed them, play with them for a while (maybe 30 minutes - hour) and then they would nap for 45 minutes to an hour, then repeat until bedtime.

It's also not too early to start a bedtime routine. Feeding, bath/PJs, story/snuggles and then bed.

ETA: Not sure if you're pumping/nursing as well (we did a little bit of everything: tandem nursing, bottle fed formula and breast milk) but I was eventually able to pump while I was bottle feeding them which was a HUGE time saver.

carrotcake06 · December 2013

The only thing we do is one up, both up. I tandem bf, but when they get BM bottles, they are also fed at the same time in bouncers.

Everything really followed from that - I take their (collective lead) and log feedings and by 3mo or thereabouts, they built themselves their "schedule". We do EASY, but if they want to sleep after eating, whatever.

MissMarnee · December 2013

We started a schedule around 3 months, but could've done it sooner. It made my life just so much more livable, & I do bottle feed my girls at the same time--another life saver. I initially used 2 RnPs, my husband used Boppies, but my favorite is to use the double Breast friend, with Boppies on either side as landing docks, positioned on the couch --it's great, as everyone gets their snuggles this way, but I hear reflux issues make this way difficult for some.

We also use the EASY method, and just started getting our gals out by feeding them at the same time and the rest just fell into place. : )

solarflare · December 2013

Also followed EASY and changed the times as they grew older. You can start initiating a schedule now. It won't be easy at the beginning but then they will get the hang of it, you will get some consistency, and everyone will know what to expect (most of the time). Our babies definitely like their schedule. We still follow a modified EASY at this point.

I usually pumped after a feeding while they were having awake time, since I would usually nurse one and bottle feed the other. I did a bunch of crazy moves come to think of it. Double bottle feeding was hard - now it's only hard because they are so wiggly and distracted. But I used two of their chairs and sat on the ground with both of them coming out from a diagonal. Now, they are both on formula and bottle fed together in chairs every 4 hours. Do everything together - your sanity will come back I promise!

raraavis28 · December 2013

I think it was around 2 months that I started noticing their eating and sleeping patterns emerging and the routine sort of formed itself (I was also fairly lucky that my twins were pretty in sync with each other, though). I also followed the EASY pattern and made sure to just stick with the same intervals (not necessarily times)....like eat every 3 hours, sleep every 1.5 hrs, etc.

As for tandem feeding, I usually propped mine in the Boppies on the couch and sat in a chair in front, holding the bottles in their mouths. When they were little I used a blanket to prop them up better. A bouncy seat might also work. Like anything, it takes practice, but you will figure out something that works! GL!

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