I've read lots of posts and I cant find a situation quite like mine. I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep per night for the last 3 weeks and i'm about to lose it! Please help us! I have twin girls, they are almost 20 weeks old, but only 13 weeks old adjusted. (they were 7 weeks early!) They both weigh close to 11lbs. My bigger girl is eating 5 oz pretty consistently, every 4 hours. My smaller girl eats about 4.5 consistently but will eat more on occasion. She has a big problem of only eating 2-3 oz and then just stops. She will cry becuase you put it in her mouth, but then she will cry when she doesnt have it. You put it back in and she takes 3-4 sucks, spits it out and cries. We repeat this process for the last oz or until we both get tired. I use the dr. brown bottles and we use level 2 nipples. We also use a thickened rice formula (Enfamil AR) it already has the added rice starch that makes it thicker. They definitely do better on the level 2 nipples with this formula. Anyway, so this is problem 1. Problem 2 is that the girls have been TERRIBLE with naps, and sleeping at night. I do work full time so they are with a babysitter. We also have the bad habit that they wont fall asleep unless they are rocked by me. So my girls are not sleeping much during the day. THEY ARE SO OVERTIRED by the time I get home. Then they wake every 2-4 hours all through the night. Its a mess. No one is getting any sleep. So I am going to start a schedule. I wanted your advice on how many hours they should be awake between sleep, eat, activity. The girls seem to be good with eating every 4 hours. BUT with my smaller girl, it often takes an hour to feed her- or we will just stop let her play and then let her finish her bottle after being swaddled and relaxing in my arms, she will take it then. I just dont know how to incorporate that into our schedule and break our bad habits. Should I just stop all together and let her eat what she wants and not force the extra oz or two? She weighs less then her sister and has been slower to gain weight so its important to me that she finishes at least 4 oz, preferably more. Please, any advice you can give us, or a sample schedule anything would be helpful. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!! Oh, and both my girls have reflux and are on medicine. They also dont sleep in crib, they sleep in rock in play sleepers by fisher price, and they do get swaddle with each nap. (or else they DONT sleep)
Sincerely,
a desperate sleep deprived mommy and daddy
