Need help with STTN

Ok, the girls will be 6 weeks old on Wednesday, and I know it's too young for them to STTN. However, when I go back to work they will be almost 10 weeks old. Right now we feed them at 1, 4, 7, 10, repeat. Obviously the night feedings I really don't have a problem with now, but I will when I go back to work I will. So, my question is one that I'm sure has been asked many times- when can I start trying to get them to sttn? Any tips on how to work up to that point? Anything will really help!

 

Ours started gradually stretching out their night feedings. By the time they were 10 weeks old (and still now) they were down to 1 or 2 nighttime feedings (though sometimes they are restless and wake up a lot then from around 4 a.m. on for some reason ...) Hopefully yours will do the same!

 

Both of my girls dropped one feeding in the night by 12 or 13 weeks. This has also been the case of a lot of babies that I know especially if they are formula fed. I also remember getting very scared because when they are making that transition sometimes they would go 4 or 5 hours and I would wake up and look at the clock and run in their room to make sure they were okay! I bet within the next month they will drop the 1am or 4 am.

 

QUOTE(SC_Amy @ Apr 12 2009, 09:10 PM) [snapback]1270137[/snapback]
Ours started gradually stretching out their night feedings. By the time they were 10 weeks old (and still now) they were down to 1 or 2 nighttime feedings (though sometimes they are restless and wake up a lot then from around 4 a.m. on for some reason ...) Hopefully yours will do the same!


Ok, but how do I know they can stretch their feedings if we wake them every 3 hours to eat? Should I just let them wake up when they're hungry?
...Also, if you let them wake up when hungry- if only one wakes up do you wake the other at that time?

 

My girls came home on a 4 hour schedule from the NICU; however, they were sleeping through the night at about 8 weeks adjusted age. I would always feed them their late nighttime feeding, say around 10 pm, and then let them wake me up for the other 2 night feedings. I would set my alarm for 3 am, hoping that I would get 5 hours of sleep, and if they woke up earlier, I'd feed them. If my alarm woke me up, I'd feed them. Then, I would reset my alarm for 6 or 7, depending on when they woke up. By 8 weeks, they would sleep from about 9 pm to 6 am with one dream feed at 10 pm. Once them get to about 8 weeks, I would just start letting them wake you up when they want to eat during the night. Hope that helps!

 

swaddle! that's my suggestion! We started swaddling again at 5 1/2 weeks and they started sleeping through their 2am feeding. By 8 wks they were sleeping from 11p to 7a... not always consistant, but it was often enough for me to remember.

I would suggest 3 books:

Baby Whisperer (sleep at 7p w/dreamfeed at 11p)
The Happiest Baby on the Block (swaddle, shushing, swinging, sucking etc.)
and Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby (more sleep begets sleep... at some point you don't let nap after 3pm but that might be for later... not early babies... I think I read this book when they were 5 months old so that's what I remember... but really they suggest that good daytime naps help the babies be rested to get good nighttime sleep)

It is possible... with swaddling, we really had to keep their arms down and INSIDE the swaddle... that helped them to sleep.

good luck. I would start now and hopefully by 8-10 wks you'll be getting great sleep...

 

I'm trying to figure out the same thing - we are feeding on a four hour schedule since they came home from the NICU, and they are currently eating at 7pm 11pm, 3am, 7am, etc. We have tried increasing the amounts during the day, we are swaddling them and letting them wake us up for the 3 am (they have slept all the way to 4 am before, but no later). A couple of times they were wanting to sleeping through 11 pm feeding, but I'm so concerned about getting them totally off schedule that I woke them up to feed them. I am sooooo looking forward to them STTN!!!!!

 

QUOTE(maybell @ Apr 12 2009, 10:15 PM) [snapback]1270216[/snapback]
swaddle! that's my suggestion! We started swaddling again at 5 1/2 weeks and they started sleeping through their 2am feeding. By 8 wks they were sleeping from 11p to 7a... not always consistant, but it was often enough for me to remember.

I would suggest 3 books:

Baby Whisperer (sleep at 7p w/dreamfeed at 11p)
The Happiest Baby on the Block (swaddle, shushing, swinging, sucking etc.)
and Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby (more sleep begets sleep... at some point you don't let nap after 3pm but that might be for later... not early babies... I think I read this book when they were 5 months old so that's what I remember... but really they suggest that good daytime naps help the babies be rested to get good nighttime sleep)

It is possible... with swaddling, we really had to keep their arms down and INSIDE the swaddle... that helped them to sleep.

good luck. I would start now and hopefully by 8-10 wks you'll be getting great sleep...


I thought swaddling would help too, but they hate it. We stopped about two weeks ago because they break out of it (I've even bought the special blamkets that hold their arms inside) and even when I was successful at holding their arms in, they would SCREAM their heads off until we un-swaddled them!

 

QUOTE(Kaie05 @ Apr 12 2009, 09:30 PM) [snapback]1270169[/snapback]
Ok, but how do I know they can stretch their feedings if we wake them every 3 hours to eat? Should I just let them wake up when they're hungry?
...Also, if you let them wake up when hungry- if only one wakes up do you wake the other at that time?


I always let mine wake up when they were hungry.. I never had to worry cause during the night they'd wake every two hours anyway, lol. I'd say right around 12 wks old mine started waking twice/night. Then right around 4 months old they woke up once per night and that's pretty much where they're still at now.

If one woke up, I wouldn't wake the other unless she was shuffling around and I knew she'd wake up soon. Otherwise, I let their body tell them when they needed to wake up.. even if I was awake an hr later. I wanted them to learn good habits - to eat when their hungry, not by the clock. Probably cause during the day they fed every 1.5 hrs [4.5 oz] until around 4.5 mos old :lol: That was so tiring for me.

 

I would confirm with your pedi that it's ok to stop feeding them every 3 hours. Once we got the ok, we started letting them sleep as long as they could. At first, when one woke up to feed we would always wake up the other twin to eat. But at our 4 month appt, our pedi told us we should really let each one set their own schedule. It sucked at first because we were doing twice as many feeds at night. But slowly they got better. They would sleep from 6:30pm to 5:30am and wake up twice to eat (around 11pm and 3am). Then about a month ago they started sleeping 6:30pm to 6:30am and only waking up once to eat (2-3am). We did CIO with DS when he turned 6 months. But haven't done it (yet) with DD.

 

My boys just turned 12 weeks last Thursday. Starting at about 9 or 10 weeks, they boys started sleeping much longer during the night. We usually get them down around 8 or 9pm, and they'll sleep until about 7-8am with either 1,2 or 3 feedings at night. For the most part it's 2 feedings in that time period. Last night they slept from 8:30p-7:30a, with their only feeding at 5pm. It definitely gets better as time goes on!

I let the boys feed on demand at night, just going by their hunger cues. Usually when one wakes up, the other does as well. There really wasn't much that I did to get the boys to sleep through the night, other than just making sure they had dry diapers and full bellies and went down to sleep in the evening in a dark room. We have a humidifier going too, providing some great white noise.

Good luck! You can probably expect longer stretches of sleep in the coming weeks. Check with your pedi, and make sure that it's safe to let them sleep unless they wake up hungry. It's hard to sleep through the night when you're the one initiating the wakeups. If you get the go-ahead, they might surprise you and sleep longer stretches really soon!

 

I saw that you said that yours hate swaddling... they are still young enough that I think they will get used to it... in the beginning we did the swaddle, and sideline holding, sushing in their ears, jiggling them .. all at the same time... eventually they really settled down with the swaddle... I know that not every baby will react to it... but it truly was our lifesaver... you might try again.

I took it a little to the extreme... but I made blankets to hold their arms down... it always seemed that they woke early when they got their arms out... their little arms needed to be down by their sides...

anyway, that's my 2 cents... good luck. I hope you get some sleep soon!

 

Once I got the okay from the pediatrician to feed them on demand through the night, we could stretch the feedings out longer then every 3 hours. All babies STTN at different ages. What worked for us was the swaddle and establishing a bedtime routine (which they did not get right away but we kept it up). I would make sure that it's okay with your pedi to feed on demand through the night and see how long they go. For ours it was gradual, they went to every 4 hours, then 5.5, 8 and then they would go 11 hours without waking overnight. Hang in there Momma!

 

Yeah, by this age I would not wake them for night feedings (though as pp said it's probably wise to get the OK from your ped first just in case; ours gained really fast the first 10 weeks so that wasn't an issue). Though I would go ahead and wake the second baby to feed if the first one wakes; otherwise you will be up and down all night!

 

I should also mention the following:

My boys started coming up with their preferred evening schedule on their own... by 7:30 they wanted their final feeding, and would normally go to bed shortly thereafter.

Also, they didn't like their arms swaddled. I'd watch them fight it about 4 minutes after I swaddled them and put them down to sleep. So what works for us is swaddling them from under their arms down to their feet, and it's a happy compromise for them.