How Realistic is Sleep Shift for Parents with 6 Week Olds?

We have not yet really done the sleeping in shifts thing with getting up to feed and tend to our twins at night. DH and I are both at home all summer (he is a teacher) and we tend to both get up to feed them, one taking each. I have heard that sleeping in shifts is great, and sounds great, but how realistic is it to accomplish this on a consistent basis with 6 week old twins? Oh, and our twins were born at 33 weeks, so technically their "adjusted age" right now is negative 1 week old! They are pretty good feeders, but cacn be inconsistent with their ability to suck down a bottle.

 

Hmm...I'm going to say-go for it. You never know how it will work unless you try! We did sleep in shifts, but I know the boys were a bit older(when the lightbulb finally went off!). They were maybe 2 months +. We did shifts even while dh was working. I slept from 8p-2a and dh slept from 2a-8a and then woke to get ready for work.

You could always give it a shot, or wait another two weeks or so. Maybe pay attention to their sleep at night. I know they are still really little and scheduling isn't a possibility now. If I were you, I might try dh feeding them at say 8pm. You go to bed. They wake again at 10. DH feeds them. DH goes to bed(or he does one more feed). Then you take the next feed. I'm not sure how often they are eating, I'm guessing pretty frequently.

Good luck! You'll get there! :hug:

 

I went back to teaching when the girls were 6 weeks and taking shifts was the only way we survived, although we still didn't get much sleep. My DH worked 2nd shift, so it was just me until midnight, when he got home, then he would get them if they woke up anytime between 12 and 3, then I would take from then until I needed to leave and go to work which was around 6:30. We were still sleep devprived, but at least we got a few hours of solid sleep...my girls were 35 weekers.

 

I think if you are already working to feed them at the same time, it's definitely worth a try because mama (and daddy) need some sleep!

We lost our fulltime help (my MIL) right around 6 weeks so it was time to figure something like that out. Our schedule looked something like this:

7pm - Feed both together
7:30pm - I went to bed (or at least tried to since we have an older child)
10pm - DH fed both by himself using the bouncy seats
1am - I got up and we both fed them together

After this feeding, DH went to bed, and I tried to snooze until their next feeding

4am - I fed both by myself
7am - DH and I fed both together and then DH went to work

 

My husband is a night owl, so we did the shift thing pretty early on, like 4-6 weeks

Fed together at 9pm/10pm
DH fed around 1am/2am
I fed around 4 am/5am

Dh slept a bit on the couch with the boys waiting for his feeding. He also works from home, so he doesn't usually get up until 9:30/10 am anyway, it worked for us.

It was the greatest thing to have that much sleep in a row. I don't know what we would have done if we couldn't pull it off.

 

We did it, but it meant we had to sleep in separate rooms. DH took the first shift. I went to bed after the 9 pm feeding, and DH did the midnight and 3 am feedings. Then after the 3 am feeding he opened my bedroom door/turned on the baby monitor, and went to bed in the spare room, shutting his door. I got up and did the 6 am feeding, and he slept in til 1 or 2 pm! This went on for a few months.

 

We somewhat do a shift schedule when the girls allow us to. We both feed them around the 8-9pm feed then I go to bed by 9pm. DH feeds the girls at the 10-11pm feed and then I do the rest of the feeds starting at 1-2am so DH can sleep (he is working full time and gets up at 7am). This gives us 4-5 hours of straight sleep which seems to be enough most of the time for us. The only time this doesn't work is when the girls cry at the SAME time for food, which is pretty rare because they are about 30 minutes apart in their schedule which we did that on purpose. It takes longer to feed them like that (about an hour to get both changed, fed and back to sleep) but it is also hard when they are both awake for their bottles at the same time becuase of the burping and getting them to sleep so it still end up taking us nearly an hour. It is also difficult sometimes because one of the girls doesn't always want to go BACK to sleep after and then I spend my inbetween nap time consoling an awake baby trying to get her to go back to sleep (usually end up napping with me holding her to get her to sleep). I do what I can to get any kind of sleep!!

 

For the first three months, I fed my twins together. So if one woke up, I fed that one and then woke the other one up and fed the second one. Once I got the hang of tandem bottle feeding, I changed to exclusive pumping so I could get them both up and put them in their carseats (still in their swaddles!) and feed them both at the same time. It worked out great. I actually had more sleep problems from 3-6 months when we started feeding them separately and unswaddled them.

 

We didn't do shifts, we did full nights.

 

Has anyone done anything like this while BFing? I was thinking they could get one bottle a night from DH, but then again I may have to pump, so it may not work...

 

I would try and figure out when you want them to start STTN and work toward that. Discuss the routine you want and your limits for CIO and stuff like that because it comes so fast. my boys are almost 6 months old and I can't believe it.

DH went back to work three weeks after my boys were born and I took care of them all of the nights alone unless I needed help. I'd say that two nights a week I needed help. The one thing I did differently with my boys than I did with my DD was that I woke up the other baby to feed even if he was asleep to keep them on the same schedule. Even if he ate just a little bit, it topped him off and they adjusted pretty quickly.


I would sleep with one baby on my chest and put the other one in the baby papsan swing and then switch them out after eash feeding. I am really comfortable with a baby sleeping on my chest though. At 7 weeks old they started going to bed in their crib at 8:00pm, swaddled, together and after the first feeding I would do the same baby with me/swing routine until morning. Then at 9 weeks, they started just sleeping all night in their cribs together, swaddled until Nathan didn't like being swaddles at 3 months old.

At 3.5 months old, Nathan was consistantly STTN and Michael started STTN at 4 months old. It was amazing to get 8 hours of sleep.

Yes, take shifts, I think it's totally realistic. It will make you feel so much better.

 

My post above, I BF'ed them until 4 months old. We gave them probably 6 oz of formula a day though so I could have a break and they could stay used to a bottle since i knew I was going back to work. I tandem fed them at night. I would sit up, get them situtated and then close my eyes while they nursed.

 

Shifts were the only way we made it. DH took from bedtime until 2am and I took 2am until. DH was a night owl anyway so that worked the best for us. Good Luck!

 

Browneyedgirl: I think it is doable one of two ways. Either you pick the same time every night that you bottle feed and your body adjusts or occasionally you decide to sleep through but pick up nursing the next night. I did the latter and it worked fine for me. The other thing that helped was we did a dream feed before we went to bed and that cut the number of times we had to get up at night. I tandemed at bedtime but not in the middle of the night because they tended to stay asleep and settle better if I did it one at a time. I found I could doze while nursing and if one of them was not settling, then I would have hubby rock one while I fed the other.

 

I think we started when my 34weekers were about 7 weeks old. They had a pretty good schedule and DH and I felt comfortable going solo. I went to bed after the 8pm feeding, and DH kept the girls in the living room until after the 11ish feeding. After that feeding he'd bring the girls into our bedroom (we had them in a pnp for the first 4 months), and I'd wake up for the 2ish feeding. I usually did the 5am solo too, and when I went back to work at 8 weeks, I'd just get up for the day after feeding them. Then DH was solo for all the morning stuff. This worked well because we each got a good block of uninterrupted sleep. GL figuring out something that works for you.

 

Haven't read the other replies, but I personally think it is a marriage saver. My DH and I did it for the first two years.

I was breastfeeding and giving one bottle of formula around that age, so I got up with them all night, and he took over around 6AM when they woke up. I would sleep from their last feeding usually around 3-4AM (so I went back to sleep around 4:30-5AM), wake briefly when they got up for the day at 6AM; then go right back to sleep until 6 to 9AM.

There's no reason for both of you to be that sleep deprived.

 

Thank you! I feed them seperately at night too, they seem more satisfied that way.

 

We did shifts from the beginning because I would not have survived. I nursed in the beginning but skipped the 3am. We did:

6pm both of us feed them
8pm--hubby go to bed/relax, fall asleep around 9pm
9pm--I fed them solo
Midnight--I fed them, solo
3am--Hubby fed them
6am--me again.

That lasted for the first month then we went to feedings at 6pm, 11pm, 3am, and 7am. Just before 3 months, we started doing a dreamfeed at 10pm and they started lasting to 3am on their own so we switched off who got to go to bed early each night.

 

What is a "dream feeding" ?

 

It's something we never did. I could never figure it out, and figured it would back fire on me! :laughing:

Essentially, you feed the baby(ies) and put them to bed. Then when you go to bed, or right before, you go and feed them, but never really waking them up, and then put them right back to sleep. So essentially-a dream feed. Maybe others who have done so will chime in!

 

As she said, basically you initiate the feed before they are awake and screaming for it. Some babies will stay asleep, some will stir but the idea is to keep lights off, not talk to baby; just scoop, feed, then right back to bed. For us bedtime was 7 and the dreamfeed was 10 or 11, basically right before we went to bed.

 

I have 7 week olds and we have been sleeping in shifts since week 2. The pediatrician was adamant that we do this--specifically, let each other get 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep every 24 hours. We took her advice to heart and it has been a life saver.

Also a life saver: getting used to tandem bottle feeding. I hated it at first, but I would much rather tandem feed than feed one baby while the other one cries and cries.

 

We did this until the girls were almost 9 months old!

 

Sleeping in shifts was hands down the absolute best advice I have gotten so far on this site in all my almost 3years!! Saved me, my sanity, my marriage.
I was so tired that I was seriously losing my mind.
I say go for it!!