Babies eating every 2.5 hrs round the clock!

So my babies were born at 31 weeks August 14, and they spent just 3 weeks in the NICU and have been home a little over a month now. Their 40 week due date was October 14 so they are just now "full term". They are good size...My boy is 10lbs and my girl is 9lbs.

They eat approx 3.5 oz every 2.5 hours round the clock. Yesterday Ike ate 33 oz in 24 hours!! 20 of them during the day. Lucy took in 27 with 18 of them during the day.

They scream their heads off at night after only 2.5 hours of eating. That means that I am only getting about an hours sleep between feeds. They will not take a paci to try and stretch them another hour or so. They want FORMULA!!

I have a 2.5 yo DD whom I stay home with and she required ALOT of my attention during the day and my hubby works nights. I am so very very tired.

Would it be awful to turn my monitor off and just set my alarm to feed them avery 3.5 hours? This would mean that they may cry a bit. I give them lots of love and hold them plenty during the day. But night is for sleep. And it is important.I just cannot see lving in this state for another couple months...

All advice, opinions, or experiences are welcome Thanks

 

Congrats on having two preemies who are doing so well!! Unfortunately, at this age, all babies do is eat pretty much round the clock, so they are right on schedule for what is expected for a newborn. They are much to young for CIO and apparently not yet ready to STTN on their own. At that age, when they wake and scream, they are hungry and not feeding them is well, not really an option. I know it is really hard to be on that nonstop schedule round the clock. Really, really hard. But it is not forever.

It sounds like you need to get someone in there to help you out. Could DH help out more during the day so you could get some sleep? Do you have a relative who could come over and relieve you? Or a night nanny a couple days a week? Or could your older DD go visit a relative for a few days? Even a couple good nights of sleep for you will make a huge difference.

I promise this is not forever!!!!

 

Firstly congrats to you! I think maybe I would try ho up half an ounce in their bottles and see how long they wait. I you do not want to up al their botttles, hat about just one bottle b4 "bedtime" then maybe they will sleep a lil longer, mine were up around the clock for a little while but it does get easier. maybe see if you can skip a feed and have dh feed so u can get a lil more sleep or atleast one good stretch.

also my girls had troulble establishing night and dayfor a while they ate round the clock as well. but once we establshed a bedtime routine around 2 monthsa and stuck with it every night. they eventuaaly learned n ight time is for sleeping!

a lil too early for CIO, you can do it momma!


**sorry abpout typos im pumping and tryin to type with only one hand

 

Thank you ladies for a fast reply! Well, I suppose I wasnt meaning CIO to sleep train, just a little fussing in hopes they would go to sleep for another hour or so. I am wanting them to try and take 4 oz but they can't do it yet. Even if I go through the misery of trying to stretch them another 30 min or so!!
Yeah, I am a big talker, but here I am with them monitor ON listening to them fuss, and I JUST fed them, rocked them a bit, and swaddled them up! Oh well, let's be honest, life is HELL right now due to sleep deprivation.
My DH is wonderful and sends me off to bed at every chance. I DO have a hard time turning off my brain to sleep during the day. He ofen gets home in time for the 4;30 feeding.

My plan is to send the twins to my mom's next weekend to get a full nights rest. I am a bit of a control freak and am uncomfortable having alot of help. Although, at this point, I may have no choice. I am on the brink of insanity! My DD was a 29 weeker and was goign about 3.5 hours when she came hoome from NICU...that extra hour is a huge difference when it comes to sleep. I love my precious precious babies, but MAN they eat ALOT!!

 

At this age there's not much you can do but feed them all the time, I think but there is probably a few things you could do to maximize the time in between feeds. I would feed them at the same time, if you're not already. When one wakes, wake the other and prop them both up on a pillow to feed at once. I used to lay out the diapers I would need for the night ahead of time, pre-load them with diaper cream. Make sure all your formula is premade and bottles are ready to go. If your DH does get home for the 4:30 feed, let him do it and sleep on through. It is the hardest thing to let go of your control and get help (it was for me, anyway!), but at some point you just have to. See if someone can come in for a feeding in the evening or morning so you can go to bed early. Does DH have regular weekends? If so, can you let him take one of his weekend nights so you can sleep through once a week? I always found that if I could get one nights solid rest it made a huge difference. Good luck!

 

Are you EBFing? If not, it's definitely time to turn a shift over to DH. That was a LIFE saver for us. We would both do the 7pm feed and then I'd go directly to bed (well, after getting our older son to bed first). He'd do the 10pm feed (with formula or EBM) and then we'd both do the 1am feed. That way I got a good 5 or 6 hours of sleep in there. And he'd be in bed by 1:30am or so and I'd do the 4am feed by myself after catching a few extra winks in between. We'd both do the 7am feed and he'd go to work.

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

 

i felt about 10 million times better after they spent a weekend at my mom's!!! i think you will too. And turning off your brain to take a nap is so hard when you have no idea when they will be waking next.

I don't think at this age they will go back to sleep on their own. They are just so young, but a few more weeks and they will be stretching out their feeds a bit. So hang in there!

 

Congrats on your babies! Unfortunatly I don't have any adivce but I understand what you're going through. Mine did this until about 2 months, except at night it was every 1.5 hours. We would just get them settled and back in bed and they would be up again! I thought there was no way they could possibly be hungry AGAIN but they were!

I also had a 2.5 year old so I feel your pain...it really does suck, but it does get better! When they were about 2 months old they started stretching to about every 2.5-3 hours during the day and closer to 3 hours at night. I found when they started cluster feeding in the evening that their actual night sleep got better. I think they were around 6 weeks old when this started to happen. They would eat almost constantly from 4pm until about 8pm and then have a good sleep until 11 or 12. If there's any way you can get DH to do a feed during the day so you could sleep try to work it out. I know my DH had to help and go without sleep with the twins much more than he ever did with DS...it's a different game with 2 babies and a toddler to take care of! Hang in there!

 

You ladies are all so awesome witht the advice! Just to heat u all say that it DOES get better is reassuring! We are trying to have DH take from 4am til 7:30 when my 2.5 yo wakes up. Cross fingers

 

Yeah, that is pretty normal It doesn't make it any better though to know when you are sooooo tired!! My hubby and I got into a good routine where I could nap from about 7pm-1am.)We fed every 3 hrs, the girls were on that from the NICU and it sort of stuck.) It took me 1 1/2 hrs to feed, change and soothe everyone (one had some feeding issues-turned blue and would stop breathing) Then I pumped for a 1/2 hr and then tried to lay down for 45 min between during the night. What madness, how did I survive it! A solid stretch of sleep makes such a difference. I'm a control freak too, but some things I had to surrender. Hang in there :grouphug: it will get better.

 

Mine were every 1.5 hours!!! I cracked after 3 months of that and hired a night nanny...worth every penny...And at 4 months they slept 12 hours...there is light at the end!

 

I had my boys Sept 12 and brought them home with me right away. They were eating about 2 ounces every two hours for the first couple weeks but now they eat 3 ounces and sleep for three hours at night. I do remember waking up every 2 hours and it taking about 45 minutes to an hour to finish a feeding so we were getting very little sleep, about an hour at a time. I know that 3 hours is a lot of sleep compared to that but I still can't wait for them to sleep through the night! I have found it takes a lot longer for me to feed two babies by myself, change them, and put them down so when I do that it is more of a treat for my hubby, and he does it for me once in awhile so we can sleep a little more. It only takes us about 30 minutes when me and hubby do it together so we bought "rock and play sleepers" from target for $45/each and the bambinos sleep next to the bed. They are the BEST investment I have made so far, we can move the babies around the house, even without waking them!

They eat at 11:30ish, 2:30,5:30, and around 8am. We are already awake for the 11:30 feeding and ready to wake at 8am so we really are only waking up 2 times a night. Also the boys only drink about 2.5oz during the day and wake every 2 and a half hours but they take 3oz at night..
What kind of formula are they on? We have ours on Neosure to help them grow.

My babies sometimes want to stay awake all day and get fussy and I tried turning on my blowdryer on low.. asleep in 10 minutes!! Also bought a CD from target called "rain and thunder" and it basically sounds like a thunderstorm... this also soothes them to sleep.

Good luck and keep us updated on other problems you are having I'm sure we are too!

 

They WILL start sleeping for longer stretches at night. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it does happen. My guess is they still NEED to eat that often at this point. Just make sure you really stimulate them in the morning and don't let them sleep more than 3 hours at a stretch during the day (and definitely feed every 3 hours during the day). It will happen!