Twin sleep & eat schedule

TRS48 · June 2014

Our twins will be arriving soon and I am starting to worry about how to schedule them sleeping, feeding, & playing/stimulation wise. I'm a FTM so everything is new to me. I've read books about scheduling twins but I'd rather hear what actually works for other twin moms. I do plan on breastfeeding & pumping and I also plan on waking when they need to eat so they are on the same schedule. I'd like to tandem feed if possible or at least feed them around the same time... Is that possible for you all? What is your schedule like?

hayleydeee · June 2014

We were lucky because the NICU nurses had them on a great schedule. We were able to keep it for a little while, but eventually it kind of went away. They were on a 3 hour rotation schedule. Basically I'd nurse baby A for half an hour, and then nurse baby B for half an hour. Then they'd sleep and I'd pump for half an hour. That left me about 1 to 1 1/2 hours before it would start all over again, since they needed to nurse every 3 hours.

Honestly, doing that round the clock was exhausting. But since they were premature it was necessary at first. I think the general rule of thumb if you want to schedule is: play, eat, sleep. You'll also hear a lot of people say to just watch your baby, not the clock. So there's really no wrong way to do it.

carrotcake06 · June 2014

There is no schedule for a while. I tandem feed, so whenever one showed hunger cues they both nursed. I would not let them go more than 3-4 hours during the day but would let them sleep as long as they wanted at night.

They were both in the NICU, but upon discharge they wanted me to feed half fortified bottles of BM and I preferred to nurse on demand bc pumping and bottle feeding is so much more time intensive than just whipping out a boob. I knew they didn't have any problems nursing effectively - I'd just have to do it more often. So I nursed and nursed and nursed. Plan on 8x-12x a day.

I logged all feeding for 4 months to look for patterns. I let them take the lead on creating their own schedule. Usually if they ate at the same time, they also slept at the same time. But not always.

Around 4 mo, the feeding schedule jelled. Their schedule seemed to need an adjustment every 2-3 mo throughout the first year as they dropped naps and started eating meals.

Don't force it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. There's a fine line between consistency and insanity. (I feel like I toe that line daily, haha!).

sasky · June 2014

Our babies are 3 weeks and we are not on any kind of strict schedule. They take the lead and typically let us know when they have to eat ever 3-4 hours. In between they sleep, look around, are held, etc. Not much they can do really! At night we do one-up-both-up, so in those cases we have to wake one if they are not up. But generally we have not had to wake them for Feedings. They let us know when it's time.

In the future I'll likely start tracking nap and feeding times, which I did with my singleton. But right now it's kinda pointless.

Full disclosure: they were never in the NICU or had any semblance of a schedule set by me or nurses.

ballygirl · June 2014

My girls took a while to schedule. The first couple months was just chaos in terms of eating and sleeping. We followed their cues. Their sleep and eating patters were really inconsistent for a long time. They didn't sleep through the night for a long time so I couldn't really implement one up both up because then they never would get any sleep (basically there was almost always one baby up every hour for a few months).

Around 5 months things started to settle and by 6 months their nap patterns were pretty solid and they were sleeping through the night, so that's when we started one up both up and really keeping a strict feeding together schedule.

Tracking their napping and feeding habits around 5 months helped us figure out their general patterns.

basil2 · June 2014

Don't worry about scheduling for a while ( it probably won't work at first). Ours are 6 wks, we tried one up both up at the beginning - it just worked out we were waking a sleeping baby who wasn't ready to eat but would still want to eat 30 min later anyway) - we'll try again soon since the nights are starting to get better.

If nursing is your goal, focus on nursing on demand- you may not leave your sofa for hours- but that's okay- it's how you get nursing established. Get as much help with their latch as you can before you leave the hospital (nursing 2 is uncomfortable the first week- it gets a lot better). Re tandem nursing- you'll decide what works for you- in the very beginning one at a time is easier so you can focus on getting the latch right (it really takes 2 hands at first).

Re the pump- if things are going well, don't pump for at least a few wks. Look for babies to swallow during nursing, wet/poopy diapers, weight to stabilize then go up. If your babies are doing well with nursing, there's no need to complicate things with pumping (at least not for a little while when you'll want to be able to leave and have something for them to eat when you're away.)

Good luck!

Rachiemoo · June 2014

I recommend the "eat, play, sleep" routine in the beginning as you will drive yourself crazy trying to get an actual schedule beyond that. Once they get to be 4 or 5 months old, then you will start to see patterns starting to happen as far as naps go and it will be much easier to get them into a real schedule.

TRS48 · June 2014

Thanks all, what were/are your schedules like in the beginning? I have heard about eat-play-sleep but how long do you do play and sleep for during the day? I assume at night it's just eat & sleep?

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