sleep scheduling for little babies

Discussion in 'The First Year' started by paperclippy, Aug 7, 2013.

  1. paperclippy

    paperclippy Well-Known Member

    So I read a bunch of books about sleep training, and the common thing all of them tell me is that my babies are still too small to do any kind of sleep training. Their adjusted age will be 6 weeks on Friday. I'm wondering if there's any sort of techniques that are okay to use on younger babies? They have pretty much gotten themselves onto a regular schedule for feedings at this point: 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm, ~1am, 5am. I'm pretty satisfied with that schedule and it does give them a couple long chunks overnight. The problem is that while they reliably sleep between the 1am and 5am feeding, they sometimes sleep between 8pm and 1am and sometimes are awake from 8-11 and then only sleep 11-1. I'm going back to work tomorrow and I'm not going to be able to go back to bed after their 5am feed anymore, but I can't function on that little sleep.

    Here's what they do reliably:
    8am feeding, then sleep until 11am (occasionally have to be woken to eat at 11)
    11am-8pm anyone's guess who will be sleeping when; sometimes they both sleep after their 5pm feeding. If they do this they're unlikely to go to sleep after their 8pm feeding.
    asleep 11pm-1am
    asleep after 1am feeding - 5am
    asleep after 5am feeding until 7am, then they reliably wake up but aren't hungry until 8am.

    A lot of the time overnight one of them will wake up an hour before they want to eat and cry, but be settled with a pacifier and sleep another hour. Also, the process of going to sleep after feeding takes at least half an hour during which they grunt and groan and spit up (and have to be moved to a clean spot in their cribs).

    Anyway I could use some help or advice. I know they'll sleep better when they're a little older, but since they're preemies I've been up all hours of the night feeding them or pumping for months already and it seems like it's never going to end. I don't need them to sleep through the night, I just need them to sleep between feedings at night!
     
  2. rrodman

    rrodman Well-Known Member

    Try an earlier bedtime. That first chunk of night sleep should settle in before the second chunk. Try putting them down at 6 or 7 and seeing if they settle in well until the first night feeding.
     
  3. paperclippy

    paperclippy Well-Known Member

    If I put them down at 6 or 7, when do I feed them? Still at 5 and 8? (I had been planning to get home from work at 5 and BF when I get home, then BF again when they go to bed.)
     
  4. cheezewhiz24

    cheezewhiz24 Well-Known Member TS Moderator

    Looks good to me- you may be able to feed at 5; then feed again to sleep at 6/7 and move up the whole schedule for a bit.
     
  5. rrodman

    rrodman Well-Known Member

    I'd try to feed right before putting them down. Then either see how they do (they might sleep to the same time for the next feeding) or experiment with a dream feed before you to to bed. Don't get too set in your current feeding times because everything is in flux at this age anyway.
     
  6. paperclippy

    paperclippy Well-Known Member

    So three days down of earlier bedtime. Day 1 fed at 7:30 then put to bed, and they slept really well. Day 2 fed at 7:00 and they slept really well. Day 3 fed at 7:30 and they had a bad night and woke up an hour early and got entirely off of their previous schedule. No idea what's going to happen tonight. I think their Zantac dosage needs to be adjusted since they've seemed really refluxy the past couple days -- they have a ped appt on Monday.
     
  7. rrodman

    rrodman Well-Known Member

    The two good days are a good sign. Some nights are just rough for whatever reason. What is their adjusted age now? At six weeks (mine were term basically), mine started reliably going to sleep around 8 and waking up at 1:00 and 4:00 to eat. By 8-10 weeks, we discovered the early bedtime and they'd go down around 6:00 or 6:30 and wake at 12/1 and 4. We then started weaning them off the first feeding, and they'd wake around 2/3/4. By 12 weeks, my DD (my good sleeper) was STTN. DS was generally waking once a night to eat. I can't remember when he stopped eating overnight. Until he was 7 months, he'd wake around 12 and we'd put him in the swing to sleep the rest of the night. :) But he wasn't eating when he woke except for random growth spurt things.
     
  8. paperclippy

    paperclippy Well-Known Member

    Well, we're still having a little bit of mixed results as to whether they'll actually go to sleep right after their 7:00 feeding or whether they'll be awake for a while, but after having their Zantac dosage adjusted they're certainly sleeping better overall. Thanks to whoever it was who commented on my other thread about the dosage being weight-dependent -- when we went in to the doctor for a weight check she DOUBLED their Zantac dose. They slept soooooo much better that night than the previous night. ;)

    So now the girls are 7 weeks adjusted (as of tomorrow). Cecilia is 9lb 7oz and Allison is 9lb 1oz. Allison reliably wakes up between 12:30-2:00 (sometimes she'll wake up, cry, take pacifier, and sleep another hour). Cecilia pretty much we just wake up whenever Allison is ready to eat, but she's usually asleep still. Once she's awake she typically eats more than Allison does. Then both of them will wake up at either 5:00 or 6:00. Two nights ago they slept super well, woke up to eat at 2:30 without any advance fussing, then slept until 6:00 so I counted that as only one "night" feeding and 6:00 as their first morning feeding. Tonight they were back to 1:30 and 5:00 though. I consider 5:00 still a "night" feed because they will go right back to sleep afterward, then want to get up around 6:30.

    I'm wondering if we should keep waking Cecilia up when Allison wants to eat in the middle of the night. On the one hand, once she's awake she eats well, so if she didn't eat I'm afraid she'd just wake up an hour after we fed Allison and then we'd get no sleep. On the other hand, if she's ready to sleep through the night I don't want to stop her. What do you think? They're identical so in general most of their habits and schedules are the same -- I think the difference is mostly due to Cecilia being almost half a pound heavier. (Also not sure how that happened -- she just eats better than Allison I guess, or pukes less. :unknw: )
     
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