I am relatively new to the this site and have never posted before, but now that my girls are here, I am hoping that I can get more information from all of you experienced parents than I can on other sites and from the singleton books I am reading.

My girls are currently eating pumped BM on a 4 hour schedule (12, 4, 8, 12, 4, 8). They are all offered 3.5 ounces and usually take between 2 and 3.5 at each feeding. Over the past few days, we have been waking them up for the 12 am and 4 am feedings and I am wondering if it would be OK to let them go for 5 hours between those two feedings? Also if we did 5 hours between nighttime feedings could we still keep the same day schedule of 8, 12, 4 and 8 without messing them up? My pedi thought that they were OK to go 5 hours, but the one night we did it, we did not have very good results. Now I think they are in a different place and it might work better for them (and us...LOL).

My girls were born on 2/1/12 and are 1m1w5d actual and will reach their due date this Saturday (they are 39w3d gestational age). I know we might be pushing it with the 5 hours at night since they are still so young and not even "0" adjusted, but just wanted to get some input.

Any information on how your schedules were at this early stage would be greatly appreciated. My three girls couldn't be anymore different in terms of food and sleep needs, but they all seem to do pretty well at night, which I am grateful for.

Candice & Mike
GGG Triplets Born 2/1/12 @ 33 weeks 4 days
4 lbs 10.6 oz; 4 lbs 12 oz; & 4 lbs 13 oz

As long as your pedi gave you the go ahead (which assumes they are gaining weight) you can always try! Since they are on a 4 hour schedule during the day though don't expect too much. They need to drink the same amount of milk in less feedings so will have to get more during the day to compensate. We were on a 3 hour schedule at the point you are at, but after bedtime let them wake up on their own to eat. Once one got up we fed everyone. It took time but eventually they consolidated to one middle of the night feeding. Then your first morning feeding (8 AM) needs to start at the same time no matter what so they stay on track.

Ours didn't read the books and actually dropped their 5 AM feeding before their middle of the night feeding. We also found that they were more than happy to eat earlier for bedtime feeding (maybe try pushing back to 7 PM) to get them to bed earlier and then they slept better.

Hope that helps... Nothing will work overnight but they will get there!

Lara
Mom to GGG born at 25+4 on 12/25/09

Stop waking them up to eat at night. Make 8pm your bedtime feeding. When the first baby wakes up at or after normal feeding time, feed everyone. Let them sleep as long as they want until the next feeding. Once again, when the first baby wakes up, feed everyone. You can start your day at 8am no matter what happened at night. If the last feeding was less than 4 hours from wake up they may eat less at the breakfast feeding, but that is ok. Eventually they will stretch out their night feedings until you are only doing one, then eventually drop that one too.

The general rule of thumb is that babies are biologically capable of sleeping longer stretches around 8 weeks adjusted, so it is unlikely that they will be stretching their night feeding times out by too much yet. However, every little bit counts. If my kids wanted to give me 15 minutes of extra sleep between feedings it was appreciated!

Lori

http://yesidohavemyhandsfull.blogspot.com/

We stuck to the 3 hour schedule for a while however, ours were only 29 weekers so they needed to gain the extra weight...I agree with the others though - you could try to stretch them. When we started dropping night feeds, we did as Lori suggested, once they were put to bed, we chose to let them decide when they would wake up -- when one woke, we woke them all and fed them all. It took a while, however eventually they began extending their sleep. You'll have to adjust their day feeds to account for the feed that get skipped.

Good luck! Congratulations!

Janet
G - 12/07 35 weeks
GGG-04/10 30 weeks

Thanks so much everyone! I appreciate all of the advice and suggestions. Last night we got an extra half hour for each night feeding which is definitely better than nothing!

Candice & Mike
GGG Triplets Born 2/1/12 @ 33 weeks 4 days
4 lbs 10.6 oz; 4 lbs 12 oz; & 4 lbs 13 oz