Still waking up to eat, several times a night?

My twins are 7 months. They are still waking up fairly frequently to eat during the night. At least once, sometimes two times and occasionally three times. DH and I are ready for some sleep! :lazy:

Is this normal? During the day they are still wanting bottles every 3 hours also. Even though they get breakfast, lunch and dinner baby food.

 

How much baby food and how many oz of milk do they intake a day? 7 months old babies should be go longer than 3 hours between feedings. Are they formula fed or breast fed ? If they are breast fed, than I think its ok.how many oz do they eat every 3 hours? I would add more (1/2-1 oz in each day time bottle), then they will start sleep better at night. Kids are different. Some need a lot of cals. Some don't. If you give them enough in the day, they won't wake up at night.

Another possibility is that they wake up by habit. Do they finish their bottles when they wake up for them? If they just drink 3-4oz, then I'd just add more oz in the day and reduce oz in night bottles and then completely cut out one night bottle. Give them 1-2 weeks, they will self adjust eat more in the day and sleep at night and go longer than 3 hrs between feedings. 7 months old babies usually have 4-5 bottles and 2-3 meals/day.

 

I would guess that at least one or two of those night feedings is out of habit, although they certainly might need to eat at least once a night for a couple of months yet.

You might want to start cutting out the third feeding.. when they wake let them fuss for a few minutes, go in give them their pacifier (if they'll take one), pat their back for a few minutes and leave. It won't take long before they get the hint.

If all else fails, set up a feeding schedule through the night where your husband takes over while you sleep and then trade the next night. And know that they'll sleep through eventually! It feels like it's going to last forever, but it doesn't

 

They are formula fed and take between 6 and 7 oz at a feeding. We offer them a 7 oz bottle but they don't always drink it all. They each eat one container of Gerber baby food at each mealtime, sometimes mixed with oatmeal and sometimes mixed with plain yogurt. They aren't incredibly skinny or incredibly chunky...just normal babies. About a month ago at their 6 month check up they weighed 16 lbs each and their doc said they are doing great.

We'll try making sure they get enough calories in during the day to see if that helps. Thanks!

 

One of the things we did to help with the night feedings was modified from "12 hour sleep by 12 weeks". I'll try to explain it...let's say night #1 they wake up for the first time to eat at 10pm, you feed them then and that becomes your earliest time for feed #1. The next night if they wake up before 10pm you let them cry. If they wake up later then 10pm, say 11pm, then that becomes your earliest first feeding time. We did this at each feeding and the times gradually got later (or earlier in the morning) and further apart until they were no longer eating at night (this was at 6.5 months). Did that make sense? I found it easier then doing CIO since I was always worried they were crying because they were hungry. This way you know you are going to feed them it just might not be right away.

You could also try a dream feed. I did this with DS until he was 18 months. If we didn't feed him at 10pm he always woke up hungry at 2am...probably out of habit but doing the feed at 10pm was much easier then having to do it at 2am! We tried it with the girls because it worked so well with DS but they just didn't get it, all babies are different!

 

Yes definitely give them more calories in the day. We give them 6.5oz bottle each feeding. If they don't finish it. We offer the rest again in within a hour, or we mix with baby food/oatmeal for breastast, lunch and dinner. You also spoon them milk when you give them solid. I usualy do spoon them 2 spoons of solid, 1 spoon of milk. They take like 1-2oz like that.I add milk in their baby food (2oz of milk wit 3tbs oatmeal for breastfast, 1/2oz with baby food stage 2; stage 2 is thicker so I can add more milk, I give them whole plaint yogurt mixed fruit and milk also)I hide milk in all of their food

You should aslo keep track of their food and milk intake for 1-2 weeks. Write down when they eat/drink and how much. Then you will see the pattern. For example: at 10pm if they intake 3 meals (8oz) and 25oz of milk, then they will sleep through night that night. If they intake less, then prepare for night feeding.

One method we used to stretch them from 3 to 4 hour feeding was that we we delayed 15 mins each feeding and added 1/2oz in each bottle (in your case you don't have to if they don't finish their bottles). Then we delayed 30mins....
One method our pedi suggested is that just offer food/bottles in strict schedule (like 6-10-2-6-10). If we give them bottles at 6, they don't finish fine we take it away and wait until 10 for next feeding. If they are hungry before 10 they have to wait.if last feeding of the day is 10, then that's it. If they wake up and cry, let them. They have to realize that they need to eat when the food is offered. And we don't make food available 24/7 for them. She promised itd work.but I never have a gut to do that to my kids lol
Another thing is that I realized your kids intake more cals than mine at 7 months. Mine are not chubby either. They are just normal and long lol. Your kids might just need more cals than other kids though. Some kids just eat a lot but don't get chubby though.some eat little but fat lol.good luck! I know feeding is confusing and so stressful.