I have 16 week old b/g twins (they were 3 weeks early) and we had one blissful week of sleeping through (bed at 8, DF at 11, wake at 6:30/7). However, my DS is really perplexing me and we just don't know what to do. My DD is an angel/textbook baby and she sleeps straight through with no problems. Here are the few issues with my DS that I'm hoping someone can guide me on:
1. He almost never naps straight through. At the 45 min. mark he stirs and grunts. I was going in there to anticipate it, but I think that made it worse. We're trying to let him work it out and not just pop his paci in. I'd say half the time he settles himself down, the other half I do the shush/pat and he goes back to sleep for another 45 min, sometimes longer. But, how do we get him to be better at self-soothing?
2. Before bedtime we usually do a topper at 7:30 or so. While my DD will take a full feed even though it's only been two hours since last feeding, Jacob will only eat an ounce or two. However, at bedtime he does not settle down and the past three nights he's needed to be fed a few more oz. We let him cry and fuss a little bit. I've put a 10 min. limit on it and sometimes he settles himself down, but if he cries beyond that we know he's hungry. But, how do we teach him to eat when it's eating time? I'm afraid he might be developing a habit of using the bottle as a prop at bedtime!
3. The past three nights he has been waking and we can't send him back to sleep. He's woken every night for a week at 1, but with a reswaddle and a few pats, he's back to sleep. However the past three nights he woke at 3, 2:30 and 3:30 and had to be fed. The three days prior he slept straight through, so I know he CAN do it, but I guess I wonder if/when he'll do it consistently.
My thoughts are this: is he ready for the 4-hour? They've been doing a 3.5 hour EASY and they're usually pretty hungry by then, but maybe he needs to work gradually to a 4-hour EASY. Any thoughts? They are eating EBM for all feeds but two when I give formula. I know he might be going through a spurt, but he's not really eating more frequently or more oz. during the day...
Thanks for any thoughts/suggestions. I know this is a really long post, but I feel like he's not learning how to sleep well and never getting any true rest. I'd be so exhausted if I were him. And, frankly, I AM exhausted running in for every sleep to help him with no end in sight!
And really, is there anything worse than three nights of uninterrupted sleep only to revert back to the middle of the night feed?
Thanks for reading this!
