Doing bedtime/night feedings alone w/older babies

My girls are 9 months (real age,not adjusted) and STILL not sleeping through the night. (that is the subject of another post!) Although, I have to say, a Small Miracle Happened Here last night: Tessa not only went NINE hours w/out feeding, but she was up at 12:30 and put herself back to sleep (I know this becuase DH forgot to put the monitor back on so it was a few minutes' before I woke to her crying; I got out of bed and it seemed like she was slowing down so i stayed outside the nursery and she went to sleep. Halleluliah!! (sp)

AND D slept 8 hours a few nights ago - of course she woke THREE times last night; she must not have received the Memo!

we need to do something about ending these night feedings, which have pretty much gone down to twice a night from three times but - that's still too much. And the 45 minute waking at an early a.m. feed is also unacceptable. They definitely haven't gottne the memo about that.

I keep hoping that, per Weissbluth, they will disappear after nine months and since they are just about 8 months that is starting to come together.

But DH and i are trying a new experiment for sharing the work (really it's a variation on an old experiment), which is that one of us gets to sleep through no matter what. In the basement so the sleeper is not constantly woken by the in and out of the bed of the waking parent.

The question is, what do you do if they both wake to feed in the middle of the night? I used ot be able to put them in car seats (heck, they SLEPT in car seat sfor months because of their reflux), but now they are so big and squirmy. But -it's the only thing i can imagine: maybe one in a car seat, one on my lap? It just feels like a nightmare waiting to happen....i can only hope they DON'T wake simultaneously.

Sorry if this is less than coherent; i am so overtired i can't really function any more.

 

When I have to feed my boys at the same time I put Evan in the boppie pillow beside me (he's much less squirmy than his brother) and I have James in my arms (he's a crazy wiggler). I prop Evan's bottle with a stuffed animal but I'm always within arm's reach to re-position it as necessary with my "spare" hand. I use #4 nipples so if a feeding goes well (James is a horrible eater much of the time) it only takes 5 minutes for them to drink a whole bottle each. I hope your night-time feedings disappear soon - I can't imagine how tired you must be. Good luck. Just a word of support - we had one poor sleeper and followed HSHHC's methods to get rid of night-time wakings at 9 months (he wasn't hungry, just waking frequently and for prolonged periods) and although it was TOUGH for a few nights, it really did work. Now that James is actually well rested he's crawling, cruising, clapping, and starting to wave and try to walk!! I think he just needed some real, restorative sleep. I don't regret the crying we had to endure - I can see it was for the best (even though it was very hard to endure). Good luck!

 

I still feed my two in their Fisher Price infant-to-toddler rockers, with the bars up so they don't rock -- I sit on the floor between them, with a bottle in each hand.

I absolutely love these things -- bought the "old" models on clearance at Target -- because they're meant to be used until 40 pounds, and can't really be flipped over by babies. Our regular bouncies are almost done, because the kiddos are starting to try to sit up in them....

Good luck with your experiment -- I can't imagine how you're functioning at this point!

 

Well, from what I understand 8 and 9 months olds are way old enough to go through the night without getting hungry, but they can develop snacking habits if it's made available to them. My girls have been going 6:30pm -7:00 am without eating since about 5/5-6 months, but with more frequent wakes for pacis/swaddle at that age of course. Now, they go to bed at 6:30 pm still, maybe as late as 7:00. They still wake anywhere b/w 5:00 and 6:30, but we just paci, sometimes swaddle, and pat, and leave the room. Then they are BTS until I get them at 7:30. They sometimes wake/talk as early as 6:45 but are happy in bed (at least that's what I dream they are when I am snuggling under the covers. DH says they are a bit more anxious to get up than I think!).

I've heard a trick to get them to stop feeding overnight pretty quick, although I never needed to try it myself. I don't know if you are bottle feeding or not, but if you are, give them plain water in their bottles (3 oz or so) for the night feedings. I've heard that they will soon "decide" that it is not worth getting up for for just water. Otherwise, I would try shortening/lessening the breast or bottle feeds, lay them right back down with a pat, and let them work it out. Then in a few nights, try just the paci and a pat and see what happens. You'll probably sacrifice one or two nights of getting up more frequently, but if it gives you more sleep in the future, it's worth it. I think the longer they have a habit the harder it is to break. I learned that when I rocked my first daughter all the way to sleep for her naps-ended up doing it until she was over 2! Big mistake.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Hope it helps.

 

To feed both of my eight month olds at the same time, I put two boppy pillows in one crib and lie each girl back in a boppy both facing me. Then I lean over the lowered crib rail and can hold both bottles at the same time. We actually do this for the last feeding of the day before they go to bed and it works really well. Then I just sit them up in their boppys to burp, so if one finishes before the other, she sits up and hangs out while the other finishes. Mine are not squirmers, though, so I'm not sure if this would work for everyone. Good luck!

 

Mine still eat at night, and the way that's worked out for us to handle it is have one parent assigned to each baby. It's just gotten way too difficult to try to feed two at once without them getting too awake/stimulated.

BUT - depending how often yours are awake, that might not work so well for you guys... I hope you can work something out soon! :hug99:

 

I don't know how to help you on the feeding alone thing... I fed mine on two boppies..one bf and the other bottle fed... I did this probably until 11 months or so. But honestly, at night when they were waking dh would help me by feeding the bottle fed one. Our bottle fed one started sleeping through the night on her own by 4 months. Our bf one needed to be trained to self-soothe...this training was done through CIO. I did it with my older dd around 5 months as well. Quite honestly, 9 months is plenty old enough to be fasting at night. we all fast at night...we all have sleep cycles and some babies need to be trained to help themselves fall back to sleep. If they were my babies I would be doing CIO. But I just got to the point with my non-sleepers where I was very frustrated and to let the CIO was better than to try to attend them while frustrated. My non-sleepers were up every 2 hours though...not just 3 times a night. I get a little nervous hearing about babies still waking up that much at 9 months...the closer you get to 12 months the harder it is to do CIO. It takes longer and they cry harder. And next thing you know you are at 18 months and still have babies that wake up a few times a night. IMHO a few nights or even weeks of crying is well worth looking at the next six months of beautiful sleep you'll be getting.