on the verge of sleeping through the night

Our girls are on the verge of sleeping through the night, and I think we're getting less sleep now than we have in weeks! Anyone else have this experience? They used to go down at 7/7:30pm, eat at 1am and 5am, then get up for the day around 6:30am. They dropped the 5am feeding at least a week ago (I don't recall exactly when) and changed to eating at 2:30am. Two nights ago they went until 5am without eating, and last night we ended up feeding them at 4am and again at 6:30am. It really seems like they're pushing out that last nighttime feeding.

The problem is that they're not actually ASLEEP the rest of the time. The night they went until 5am they were up fussing at midnight, 2am, and 4am. Not hungry, just gassy/grunty -- the 4am fuss session went all the way until they got hungry at 5. Last night they were up at 2am, 3am, and at 4am I said let's feed and see if they'll calm down enough for us to sleep another hour, but they pretty much fussed with their eyes closed from 3am until they got up at 6:30.

I'm all for them not needing a nighttime feed, but sleeping through the night means SLEEPING through the night, right? I almost wish they'd go back to eating at 2 and then actually sleeping until 6:30.

 

How old are your twins? You might want to feed them at the 230 time so they can sleep until 630 instead of them fussying every hr until 5.
Once they are sleeping from bedtime till 230 and from then till 630 I would try to extend the first chunk of sleep before feeding them to 3 am. Once they consistently wake up at that time then push it by a half hr.
I would also work on lowering their BF time or bottle amount so that they don't need to fall back asleep on a full tummy.

No I don't know if all that will work for you since its only sort of working for me. My 7 mo olds sleep from 7 pm till midnight or 1230 and then I feed them and DS sleeps until we wake up for the day while DD continues to wake up every 2 hrs until wake up time at which point I quickly BF her each time

 

They are almost 11 weeks adjusted. After I posted this they've gone through a bit of a regression, and are eating at 2am again now. We have a lot of trouble with their bedtime feeding lately and I think they're not eating enough at bedtime to sleep longer. We ended up increasing the amount of their 2am feeding so that they'd fall asleep sooner and sleep until 6:30am again. Not sure if this is growth spurt-related, or a nursing strike, or what, but it sure is frustrating! I'm okay with them getting up at 2 to eat, but the nighttime screaming feed is really killing me. Last night I attempted to nurse, then had to pump because one girl only nursed 2 minutes and then started screaming, then after I pumped she drank the bottle right down, and the girl who DID nurse was hungry again and had to nurse some more and get the rest of my pumped milk. Sigh.

 

At 11 weeks nighttime feeds are expected still. I wouldn't cut feeds or decrease feeds until much later. Dr weissbluth does mention nighttime feeds can still occur as late as 9 months of age. He also mentions that sleep happens in the brain not the stomach. Dr Ferber also mentions that a full stomach causes an increase of digestive activities which makes your body unsettled. I still feed my babies a big bottle at bedtime but it's a lot less then a month ago. So who knossos if all that is true?

You could also try dream feeds in which you feeds them before they get up but I never tried that.

 

We're not trying to sleep train them yet, just letting them do whatever it is they want to do naturally. If they want to sleep we let them sleep, and if they want to eat we feed them. I was just curious if anyone else had this behavior where they don't want to eat most of the night but are awake fussing. They don't eat well and the puke a lot if we try to feed them when they're not really hungry, so dream feeds and early feeds are pretty much a no-go.

In any case they seem to be back to eating at 2am, so the status quo is restored. For now!

 

Glad things seem to be settling back down.

If they continue to be fussy at night and unwilling to eat it could be acid reflux. Sometimes it is worse at night when they are laying flat for longer periods of time.

If you think this could be a cause you can try putting the bed on a slight incline (head up).

Also, something to think about.. I had a period where i had to teach myself to wait for them to wake-up and not respond to every little noise. I found I was disturbing them by being to quick to check on them.

Just food for thought..
Glad you had a better night.

 

How's the night time sleep/feeds going now? Mine are 17w adjusted and our current issue is similar to yours...they go to bed after a 530/6pm feed, sleep great (only 1-2 re pacis) til 1130/12, have a quick BF, and go right back down. Then it's trouble on/off from 3-5am. They're not really awake or need to eat, but just scream in their sleep on/off. It's exhausting. So you'd expect them to be ravenous at 5am and start their day then right? Nope! Then they're in a heavy sleep from 5am til sometimes close to 8am. I can't figure it out but don't want to add a wee hour feed back in since we've been several weeks without it. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

Joy, we're having nighttime problems again now although it's been a while since I posted this thread.  I think our current issue is that they need to get off of the swaddle -- they bust out of it and wake themselves up.  We go back and forth between a great night where they sleep almost all night and then being up every hour other nights.  Last night C was up every hour from 8-12 and A was up every hour from 1-3:30, then wouldn't really go back to sleep after 3:30.  Sigh.  We're going to sleep train soon though, just waiting for A to gain a little more weight.

 

We saw some improvement w sleep in general when we switched to the Woombie sleep sacks several weeks ago--our halos are so stretched out by kids 3&4! But prior to that we had all sorts of escaping/tangling/crying. What do yours weigh? Mine were 12-4 at our 4mo check 2 weeks ago. Not sure what the magic weight is and some say it's more developmental than actual weight. Our pedi wasn't impressed with our 5 hour stretches at night and seemed to think we could push them a bit longer. At that point I said I would take 5hours of solid sleep between feeds than 7-8 hours with multiple wakings!

 

They're somewhere between 13-8 and 14 (C is on the high end, A on the low end) at 7 months/5 adjusted.  Some people say 15 is the magic weight so we'll see.  Last night they slept great from 6:30pm-3:30am (we got them up for a dream feed at 1:30), then were kind of a mess from 3:30-6:00 when we got them up.  This seems to be a new pattern with them, either they're up all night long or they're up at 3:30.