Help needed with twins - things getting worse pg 22

[babybarr]

So we have two problems really, the first being that they're still waking fairly early in the night for a feed (before being in hospital they never really woke till 3am onwards) and the other problem is EWs the other day it was 4.30am... yawn

Our basic routine which is slightly hit and miss with naps but is what we aim for.  This is what they did yesterday

5.30am wake
6.45am 7oz milk
8am solids
8.30/45am sleep till 10.15ish (this nap usually is the better of the two, mostly is 1.5hrs sometimes a little longer) they never go to bed before 8.30am no matter what time they wake just because of school run etc.
11.15am milk and solids
1pm - 2.30pm nap yesterday this was 1.5hrs again fairly standard sort of time for them, rarely longer and occasionally shorter
2.30pm milk
4.30pm solids
6.15pm milk & bed H was asleep by 6.30pm and J it was 7pm (we've just stopped the catnap due to settling problems at bedtime and so sometimes they are asleep slightly earlier.  It can't be much earlier as DH doesn't get home till 6pm

both woke about 1.30am and took a full feed

This morning they were both awake by 5am and although H would resettle for a bit he'd then just wake, J was more reluctant to settle although did try.

Sometimes I'm up in the night to resettle one or other of them.  They both have a dummy which has massively helped with the naps.

Any help much appreciated as we can't carry on like this!

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

Hi Laura, it looks to me like their a time in the mornings is fairly short and longer before bedtime. And I think even 8:30 is probably too early for the first nap. I started off with it at 9, and it's only now, with the first nap not before 9:30, that I think I'm starting to see improvement in her ew. So if you said 6 am is get out of bed time, then 3h a time, first nap is 9 am. I'm not sure how much sleep h and j need, but Medi doesn't need much and if I let her sleep 1.5 h in the morning she'd be awake tomorrow at 4:30. The afternoon one can be a bit longer, hopefully if they have a shorter sleep in the morning, they'll be more tired by the afternoon. But - What time is your afternoon school run?  Something tells me it's 3 pm. Am I right?  Because really, to get to bt at 6:30-7, they should be napping till 3 or 3:30.  I'm very lucky, dh will sit by the baby monitor for ten minutes while I fetch Enfys from school so Medi can have her nap. I don't know if that's possible.
Anyway. I'm rambling on now .
This is roughly how our days go
Wu 6-6:30 (I don't get her up till 6, just the last few days she's started sleeping till 6:30)
Nap 9:30-10:30 if she ew, 10-10:45 if not
Nap 1:45-3:30
Bt 7

We're down to one nf now (hurrah!); anytime from 2-3:30.

Does that help at all?

[babybarr]

It does help but can you post where you do your feeds too pls? Yes I would need to leave house just before 3pm so that makes things tricky.

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

I thought I remembered you had to fetch o at 3. Maybe then you could do long am nap and then short pm cat nap when you get home?  Idk. I tried similar with Medi and it was ok. 
I'm still breast feeding her and she has five feeds during the day at 6, 8:30, 12:30, 3:30 and 6:30. Solids at 7 and 11ish.  Haven't done solids at tea time yet.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

We have pick up at 3 too so E was doing a long am nap and a short pm nap (always had to ap that one though). Her morning A time when she had two naps was 3.5/4 hrs. She is mostly formula fed now and has a bottle at 7:30/11:30/3:30/7 & one in the motn (have been watering that one down) and bf's a couple of times whenever she asks. Solids we do breakfast of oatmeal and blw otherwise when the rest of us are having a meal.

[babybarr]

Heidi is she only on one nap now? What were your nap times at two naps? I'm thinking long am and short pm happy to do 6.30 to 6.30  routine  so could you draft some ideas for me? My brain doesn't work anymore. Also we've had to drop the 11ish btl cos they were really overeating and then puking.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Argh my phone keeps wrecking my posts!!!

Yup she is on one nap (we have been going back and forth, finally bit the bullet and went with it a couple of days ago). We were getting some crazy long nw's before, they are getting better now.

How many bottle feeds & solids meals are they having? Then I can map something out for you! When you say you dropped the 11:00 feed do you mean am or pm?

[babybarr]

Oh my one nap at just under 8 months! Mind you I think my boys may be similar. They have 3 full milk feeds in the day and 3 solids they have sum milk in a beaker with 'lunch' see routine above. It's the 11am feed we dropped. They still have a night feed but no df.

Thanks.

[cuckoochick]

G went to 1 nap by 8mos too! was working really well until teething and illness struck!
Before dropping to 1 nap we were doing long AM/short PM. Really once G started napping longer than 45mins I had to push those As because the days were getting ridiculously long.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

^^^same here with longer naps....some nights she went to bed an hour after her sisters did!

Laura, are the 3 bottle 7 oz each? If the aim is to cut out night feeds I would def consider knocking back solids in favour of a milk feed at this age as it packs way more of a caloric punch. E hardly has much solids now that she wants to do it herself, just tastes of our food really besides her morning oatmeal.

Hmm would this work:
6:30 up
10:00 nap (2hrs?)
3:30 nap (30 min maybe?)
6:30 bed

Do they do better with a longer A to bed or not?

[babybarr]

The bottles are now 8oz but I'm happy to put the btl back in I was just confused cos they're supposed to be on 3 proper meals a day. I couldn't guarantee the boys would sleep anywhere near 2hrs plus where would the feed times be?

Yes they need longer a till bed

[ZacsMumme]

What about fixed naps at 9 and 1.30 assuming the pm nap won't go on for a full 1.5 hrs. Start with a 6-6 then once they're ok on that you can prob start capping that pm and moving the day iykwim? (I only say this as the ew will prob take some time to move plus this gives them two good naps and a long A to BT.)

Three big meals a day is a lot for 6 mths. Are they good on the solids? If so I'd do milk at WU, after am nap and BT with solids an hour after the morning and lunch bottle then early dinner approx 4.30

*Sorry I missed your milk in a beaker with lunch...so ignore my milk times

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

The rec here is to be on 3 meals much later (8 months or so?) but not to the exclusion of bm/formula until after a year old.

We had to get creative with feeds...I was bf more at that age but we did a feed on waking and right before the nap and kind of did solids as and when it was convenient (which is why bfast is the only reg meal!!). Our naps were kind of at set times but feeds were kind of all over the place.

How long does the school run take? Just wondering if the 2nd nap can be any earlier if the first nap is more likely to be shorter (though I have to say E surprised me and started doing 2hr naps when I pushed her A out that far).

[babybarr]

They barely take any milk from the tcup. Here we're told to do 3 meals a day at 6mths. They're quite good on the solids but I feel like they 'miss' their milk as sometimes at meals they really cry. I don't wanna spend all day feeding though yk? So I'm thinking I could cut out lunch and stick in a bottle and stick with bfast and some sort of tea? Or do the extra bottle and offer small amount of solids after?

[ZacsMumme]

What about moving the solids so all are 45 mins after the bottles? Or at least not 'before' the bottle so the milk 'fills them up first' too much solids too late in the day certainly caused more unsettled nights from both my boys before 8 mths....and I had big baby boys YK? Are they having only fruit and veg mainly?