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Routine help....please!!

Hi ladies,I'm really hoping you can help. The boys are now 5 1/2 weeks old and we just can't get a routine. They both feed every 3 hours still,but at different times (we tried forcing the other awake etc but no joy),they are really good in the day,they have their milk,play for an hour then go to sleep in their bouncers. But.....as soon as we do the "last feed" (around 7pm ish) and put their sleeping bags on in the cot they start. 90% of the time at night they want to play after feeds and refuse to go back to sleep. We've tried everything and I refuse to actually let them play at 4am so I don't know what to do! Me and hubby are soooo tired,we've lived on 3 hours sleep a night or less since they were born and we spend every night ateach others throats because we're shattered. We can't even catch up with sleep in the day as we have 2 older ones. Any ideas please girls?

A v frazzled K and boys! x

Replies

  • Sorry this wont be much help, but i ALWAYS fed them together from day 1 and never changed this. I can see you say you have tried this, but it might be worth persisiting with it! x
  • Would a later last feel help? 7pm might be too early?? Its just a thought...might make them settle later if they are really tired.
    Good luck x
  • Could you pop them in their cot under the mobile after the 7pm feed and after night feeds? They should soon learn that night time is not for playing but it may help them let off enough steam to go back to sleep?
    Have you tried dreamfeeding? We feed the girls at 6.30/7, put them to bed and then dreamfeed them at 10.30. This feed pushes them through till 6am. When they were littler it would push them to at least 3am, sometimes 4 or 5.
    I know exactly what you mean about lack of sleep. In the early days, the girls were feeding at 9pm,12am ,3am and 6am. Hubby and I used to do "shifts". I would go to bed at 8pm, he would do the 9pm and midnight feeds and then sleep. I'd get up for the 3am feed and then do the 6am feed. Any sleep in between the two feeds was a bonus (and didn't often happen as my girls were such slow feeders). This way, at least both of us got at least 5 hours unbroken sleep.

    All I will say (and it won't help at the moment) is that it does get better. Hang in there and try and devise a system that allows you to get by for the moment. In a couple of weeks, things will have changed and you'll hardly remember how hard these times were! XX
  • Trying4babym,we always put them back in the cot with the mobile at bed time/every other night feed but at the moment it's a nasty circle of one fighting sleep and crying,waking up the other etc. It took us 2 hours to put them to bed last night as they were both fighting it despite being v tired!

    What is dream feeding? Weirdly,although they both still wake every 3 hours during the night they won't take more than 1oz between 11-6. I don't think they're hungry,just want to be awake! x
  • Dreamfeeding is where you lift them out of their cots and feed them while they are still asleep. We do it about 10/10.30pm. It takes them a few minutes to realise the bottle is there but once they do, they take a pretty good feed (usually a full feed or leave 1oz). As our girls are bigger, this tops them up enough to last till morning. As your boys are smaller, it may not do that yet but might cut out (or push back) the 1am feed a bit for you. We did try it when they were small and it didn't work (they just treated it like an extra feed and still woke anyway) but we tried again a couple of weeks later and it worked.

    Not sure what else to suggest hun. Do they share a cot or is it just them being in the same room that disturbs them?

    What helps us is when one of the girls wakes, I whip them straight out of our room and into the nursery and close the door. This way. I can feed them without disturbing the other one. I then put them in the cot to settle and transfer them back to bed when I know they're settled enough not to wake the other. It was hard but now I only have one of them waking once in the night, it's not so bad. At 15 weeks old, we have only just started giving them their bedtime feed in the same room as each other as one always goes wild at some point. Now, the other one just ignores them

    You're right, it doesn't sound like they are waking due to hunger but are needing food to settle themselves. Just keep things are quiet, dark and boring as possible in the night and I'm sure it'll pass.

    I'm sure you've tried all of this but thought I'd mention it anyway. x
  • I've always fed mine together too. I found that if one wouldn't wake if I changed her nappy and put a wet wipe on her bum (even if she didn't need changing) that would wake her enough to feed.

    When they are small they will pretty much fall asleep when they want to anyway, but as they get older it's been easier for us to keep our girls awake when we want them awake.

    They are awake more in the day and have their last feed around 9pm. If they won't wake properly they usually will dream feed but won't take as much - BUT they will sleep right through the night no matter how much milk they have had on the last feed.

    Hopefully as they get a bit bigger it will get easier for you hun.... in the mean time hang in there!! xx
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