twin girl Liana slept through the night at 4 months - one time thing?

my little girl turned 4 months today on July 4th, and she slept from 8:30pm last night until 6:30am today...usually they go until about 2 or 3 am with that one middle of the night feeding, Kaden, her brother, is usually the one waking up and we just kept waking her.

it could have been because she missed 2 naps yesterday, but she missed naps before and did not sleep through the night, so not sure if that was just a one timer, I'm a bit scared of letting her go at night...she might then wake up after her bro and we'll be up again.

they usually nap around 9am, then around noon or 1pm and then again around 4pm....sometimes it's earlier and they still have a 4th nap, a short one.

oh, and I wanted to ask, how bad is it really to feed babies to sleep? especially for later on? ours will only take a couple oz. after waking up and then just play and be awake and eat 1 oz now and there, but they really like to down 2-3 more oz. at the end before sleeping, any info?

thanks
alexa

 

QUOTE(alexafaeh @ Jul 4 2008, 10:48 PM) [snapback]860683[/snapback]
oh, and I wanted to ask, how bad is it really to feed babies to sleep? especially for later on? ours will only take a couple oz. after waking up and then just play and be awake and eat 1 oz now and there, but they really like to down 2-3 more oz. at the end before sleeping, any info?


Alexa, I don't think it is a bad thing for them to eat before they go to sleep. My two always did the wake/play/eat/sleep combo. I wanted their belly full for naps so they would sleep better, and that seemed to work for my two. :good: They still eat before they go to bed. Lunch is before their nap and dinner before bed. I think if it's working out well for you and the kids and it's what they seem to want, then go for it.

I hope Lianas' sleeping through the night was no fluke and she continues to do it! :Clap:

 

My girls were the same way around that age. They were getting close to STTN but would wake up for those 3am feedings. It was usually the same DD each time that would wake up and I would always feed my other DD as well even if she didn't wake up on her own, but that's just me. I was too paranoid that she would wake up an hour later and then I would feel like I didn't get any sleep! It was amazing once they both didn't wake up for that feeding. Congrats! One down, and one to go! As for the order we've done the wake/eat/play/sleep order but I think whatever works is good

Good luck with your munchkins

Melissa J.

 

That is great she slept through Hope it continues to happen

Dianna

 

Yeah for STTN! I have no idea if its a one time thing- my two didn't STTN until 8 months old. And I don't think its bad to feed to sleep. We followed eat-sleep-play for a long time and neither of my girls has a problem sleeping now that they are older and don't have bottles. GL with the sleeping!

 

I'm so glad she STTN! :yahoo: We still do eat/play/sleep b/c it works out so well. I agree with pp, feeding to sleep should be fine.

 

I did the same thing of waking the second baby when the first one woke up for a nighttime feeding, for the same reason, up until about 4 months 1 week. It was my daughter who was doing all of the wakings at that point. About three weeks ago they dropped the midnight feeding so we were down to just a 3 or 4:00 feeding. That's when I decided I would let my son sleep if she hadn't woken him up with her crying. I figured that if he woke up at 5 it wouldn't be the end of the world since it was almost morning. But he never did! I do feed him still if she wakes him up but if he's sleeping, I don't, and he doesn't wake until about 6:30. Well, actually he often wakes up at 5 and 'talks' but never cries, and then falls back to sleep eventually. I turn white noise on in my room when I hear them chatting since I know they're okay and I want to sleep a little longer. It is scary to let the one sleep in the beginning, but it's worth experimenting for a couple nights just to see what the other baby can do. I figured I didn't want to keep waking him if he didn't want to wake up, not something I wanted to reinforce.

Regarding feeding them to sleep, I think it's only a problem if you think they can't fall asleep without being fed. If they can, then it's probably not a problem at all. The idea behind not feeding to sleep is that when they wake during the night (which they will, babies go through numerous sleep cycles during the night) they need to be able to fall back to sleep on their own.

 

thanks for all the replies....my babies are ususally able to fall asleep when they wake up during the night, if it's not for the feeding, but we never hear much, they sleep pretty good.

Liana is back to waking up after a 6 hour stretch of sleep, but we're not sure if it's because Kaden's noise wake her, she's usually still sleeping, so I think we'll start letting her sleep if she wants to.

for us, the "feed/sleep/play" works, they won't do anything else, well it's more a "eat 2oz./play/eat 3 or 4 more/sleep" schedule, they never finish a bottle in one sitting and need lots of burping and just most of the time won't eat if they are not ready.

should I be more: "I'm the boss and tell when it's time to eat?" kinda hard with babies that little.....

we do follow pretty much "healthy sleep habits" from weissbluth, works for sure well for the naps.....so far.

alexa