how do schedules work?

I know a lot of you have your twins on schedules, and I do desire a bit of predictability, but am not entirely sure how to go about things. Right now they eat around every three hours basically on demand, but it's at constantly shifting times (since sometimes it's a little sooner or later)

My twins are 6 1/2 weeks (2 weeks adjusted). They eat approx every three hours (though the bigger twin can stretch it out a bit longer sometimes). We try to keep their feedings fairly close together, though sometimes they get separated a bit. They're exclusively on pumped breastmilk bottles at the moment, may need to start supplmenting with formula soon, though. Their waking and sleeping is pretty unpredictable. Most nights they're quite good about going to sleep after feedings, but during the day, sometimes they're awake totally between feedings, sometimes sleep fully between them, sometimes a mix.

If you have your babies in similar age on a schedule, how do you do it. If the baby is hungry a half hour early do you feed him? If the baby seems content, not hungry when it's time to eat, do you feed him anyway? How do you know when it's time to stretch the schedule out longer (from 3 hours to 4, for example).

Are the schedules for later? Or now? Or...?

 

I did schedules with all of my kids as soon as we got home from the hospital. The first two weeks I fed every three hours from whenever they woke first in the morning that was after 7am. (anything before 7 was treated as middle of the night) At the two week mark I started waking them at the same time every day. I'd been able to see from the few days before that what a good start time was based on when they had been eating last overnight. For my twins that start time was 7 am to allow me time to get them fed before taking my older ones to school. Then they ate again at 10, 1, 4, and 7 which was "bedtime". Until about 2 mos old, the time after the bedtime feeding they were in the swings in the living room with us, we just kept the lights low and the tv soft. Fed again at 10 pm and then let them wake us from there. No matter when they last ate in the early morning, I still got them up to eat about 7 to eat. If they'd eaten at 6, I might give them til 7:30ish but no more than that or it throws off establishing the schedule. Oh, and I never fed them more often than every three hours at night. It wasn't until about 8 weeks that I started getting a 5 hour stretch but they quickly went from one five hour stretch at 8 weeks to sleeping 11 hours at 12 weeks. It's all about day time calories and getting their bodies into a rhythm during the day. I aimed for sleep in between feedings of at least 90 min but before four months that sleep was in the bouncies/pnp/swings. Once good night time sleep was established we worked on naps in the cribs. I hope that helps...PM me if you'd like more details or have questions since I don't often pop in to first year.

 

I kept mine on a 3 hour schedule but was flexible up to 1/2 hour. So if it had been 2.5 hours since the last feeding and someone fussed then I fed her. But if it was only 2 hours then I would try other methods to calm her down first, like rocking or a pacifire. I would wake them up every 3 hours during the day to eat. The way I did it when they were newborns is like this:

6 am - get up and feed both. They each got 30 minutes to eat. So from 6 - 7 am I was feeding babies.
7 - 7:30 am was "play time" which meant they weren't swaddled. Sometimes they'd fall asleep but they weren't in their cribs or swaddled for awake time.
7:30 am they were re-swaddled and placed in cribs or bassinet or swing to sleep.
9 am - unswaddle first baby and start routine again.

We did 90 minutes awake/90 minutes asleep, all day long. We kept this up until they were able to go longer in between naps. During the night I did not wake anyone up to eat. After the 9 pm bottle there was no "play time" they went straight in their cribs and I went to bed.

 

At 6 weeks, mine were on a 4-hour routine and that was because they moved themselves onto that. I´d had them on a 3-hour routine. I FF.

Bascially I followed Tracy Hogg´s The Baby Whisperer routine of E.A.S.Y which means Eat, Activity, Sleep & You. I didnt ridgedly follow it and, to answer your question, I´d feed them after 3 hours or after 3.5 hours if they were fussy. I used to wake mine for feeds during the day but let them wake alone at nights. I also did a "dream feed" which meant waking htem for a bottle each around 11.30pm. Usually the dream feed is done when they are half asleep but that never worked for me so I´d wake them. I´d wake them, change their nappies and feed them. They´d both go back to bed no problem and sleep through to 7am.

If you´d like to know more, dont hesitate to ask. You can PM me.

 

I didn't necessarily have a schedule at 6.5 weeks, but I did start to implement a routine which was basically - Eat, Activity, Sleep, You (EASY). Prior to this I noticed that my girls weren't napping very well- after they ate, they would fall asleep but only for 20 minutes at a time. So after hearing about the EASY routine I kept them up and their awake time was usually no longer than an hour or so, and then when they started acting tired (rubbing eyes, acting fussy, etc...) I put them in their bed for their nap (before they slept wherever). This really worked and their naps lengthened a lot! I also bf'ed every three hours during the day, so this was a pretty steady routine every three hours. Sometimes they would wake early and the routine would change (activity, eat, sleep, you) but I've basically kept it up until now. I also made sure that they both started the day at the same time, which sometimes meant waking one up in the morning if the other one woke up first - that way they were on the same timeline.
Now that they are 6 months I'm attempting to start a schedule, but they still eat every three hours and nap 3-4 times a day.
At this point don't worry about a strict schedule, just try establishing a routine that can give some order to your day, and also give you some free time.

 

If you can make a schedule work at this point, it will be great, but don't think that if you don't do it now, you won't ever be able to. We were a little bit all over the place for the first several weeks (ok...months!) but eventually everything fell into place. I definitely agree with the pp's recommending eat/activity/sleep plan. Congratulations!

 

I put my boys on 3 hours schedule (with 1/2 hour flexibile time) after they were 1 month old. I also implement the EASY routine (eat, activities, sleep and your time). Their awake time was usually no longer than 1 hour 15 min, by then they started acting tired (rubbing eyes, acting fussy, etc...). During the daytime if one is hungry I'll wake the other one up to eat as well. They eventually will get hungry about the same time. At night I never wake them up to eat, but..if one cried for food than I'll wake the other one too. Until they were 3 mos. old I started to notice that Michael always still asleep when Matthew woke up, so I stop waking him up to eat. And he's been STTN since and Matthew followed 2 or 3 weeks after (OMG I hope I don't jinx myself). They didn't change into a 4 hours schedule until the past month and I think it's because they starting to eat solid. To me, scheduling is the only thing that keeps my sanity. Good luck!

 

My boys were in the NICU for a month and they had them on a 3 hr feeding routine. That was all they knew so when they came home we kept that up for a month. I couldn't tell you any kind of sleep or play routine that early, but around 3 months actual they were able to eat/sleep/play. I tried to learn their ques for sleep and would try and get them to sleep before they got over tired. Some days that was only an hour others it was 1.5hrs. We didn't have a solid, concrete schedule until 5/6 months and then we added solid food with made us adjust the schedule even more.

 

The only "schedule" I have is to keep them eating at the same time. Right around 3 months they are finally starting to get into a predictable schedule of eating and naps, but before that...if one woke to eat, I woke the other one up. I wasn't too worried about how many hours in between as I was following their cues. If rocking/snuggling/paci didn't work, then they were truly hungry and ready to eat.

I guess I'm more laid back about it, maybe it's because I have 2 kids already and keeping babies flexible helps with dealing with 2 other kids schedules too. When baseball is at 5:15 one night, and 6:45 one night, I needed to be able to tweak the babies feeding schedules so they either ate before, or during ball games, and not during driving time there or back!

As I said we're just now getting into more of a schedule.
7-9am ~ First bottle
Back to bed until 10-11am
11-11:30 ~ Second bottle
Playtime in bouncy seats while mom cooks/eats/feeds older kids
1pm or so ~ nap time
2:30-3 ~ Third bottle
Playtime on couch or floor mat until they act sleepy
4 ~ Naptime
6-7 ~ Fourth bottle
Awake/play time, usually in highchair or pnp while we eat.
8 ~ nap time
11pm ~ Fifth bottle
12am ~ Bedtime

 

We really didn't have much of a schdule at that point. We were doing on demand feeding, ususally about every 4 hours. Our pair started STTN at 7-8 weeks. Once they did it got alot easier and we kinda had a bit more predictible flow, but not really a schedule.

Now we are in bit of a more predictiable schedule. This schedule is really flexible for us and I usually let them guide me, but usually this is how our day plays out. It really started to come out over the last 3 weeks or so...

I let them wake me up in the morning ususally around 8:30
then they eat and proped up for 30min,
play for an hour,
mini-nap for about 45min to an hour
12 pm bottle and propped up
Nap for 2- 2 1/2 hours
3:30 Bottle
play/nap
6:00p Bottle
play/nap (usually when we get to run our errands)
9:00 bottle
bath
bed





I would try to keep them on the same schedule tho. It will make it alot easier. If one is hungry i would feed the other too.

 

A schedule is definitely doable at their age, but it may be a little more flexible than when they get older. First, pick with what time you want to wake up everyday and go from there. Mine came home on a 4 hr. schedule from the NICU, but due to milk supply issues, I had to change them to a 3 hour and we stuck with that until they were about 3.5 months adjusted age. We started our day at 7 am, but if they woke at 6:30 we just adjusted slightly as the day went on. We added 10-15 minutes until we were back on schedule.

Schedules/routines provide so much predictability and babies need that consistency. They like knowing what to expect! When they are off schedule, it's also a clue that something might be up. My daughters have been STTN for about 4 months now and Kate woke up twice in the middle of the night the other night. Extremely not normal for her, but I noticed the next day that she had a fever.