I was reading everyone's posts on the night time sleeping....Well, my trio is 8 weeks old and takes bottles every 3 hours. In between, one of them is always up for some reason or another. I have given up sleeping at night when I'm "on-duty". I do have help several nights a week. At what point did y'all stop waking your babies up to feed them every 3 hours? If I don't wake them up to feed them, they will start stirring and eventually wake up to eat. Should I be doing something different??? How do I get them to sleep longer and more soundly? Are they still too young for that?

Mine started sleeping through at about 2.5mos. At first we put them to bed later at like 10pm and they'd sleep until like 7am. We put a little cereal in the bottle right before bed and it helped. Once they started sleeping 12hours we adjusted and now put them to bed around 8pm and they sleep until like 8-9am. Hopefully you are almost there. We also didn't wake them to feed. If one woke up we'd wake the others up to feed but never initiated the whole thing. The cereal really helps IMO. Also if they are just stirring I'd try a paci(if you are using them) and see they'll just settle back down w/out eating. Good luck.

Sarah

Mom to:
Rylee 7-28-04

36 weekers

Kenzi Adilyn 2-19-08 (6lbs 6oz)
Devyn Elizabeth 2-19-08 (4lbs 12oz)
Caden Jackson 2-19-08 (5lbs 9oz)

My trio is 6weeks (born at 32weeks). We eat every three hours during the day...for us daytime is 8am to 11pm...*normally*....we are flexible with our timing. We feed last bottle at 11...then they sleep all night til about 8-815am. The 11 bottle we give 4oz. During the day they get 3oz. Our pediatrician says to not wake them at night to feed. They need rest as much as eating. I was waking them up all the time....till he gave me the ok to quit...at our 2week check up post NICU release.
Maybe try increasing daytime amounts to make up for night time..and they will rest better. Also at night..(when they occasionally wake up...we change and feed. No talking or cooing...minimum lights.) If they wake up, before feeding, we offer Binky...etc to calm them...rather than rushing to get a bottle.
I was afraid they would quit gaining weight..but so far...still gaining...and more awake during day now that they are sleeping all night.
They have been sleeping all night now for about a week and a half. Knock on wood.

~Ashley~
Mommy to the six K's!
Keegan, Kyler, Kenzington and our trio Kaden,Kali and Kobe

At that point, we weren't waking them to eat anymore (they were 33 weekers, not sure how old yours are, adjusted) but they'd wake up about every four hours to eat at night. they'd eat every 3 hours or so (maybe more) during the day to make up for the more spaced out feedings at night.

Pam
Identical BBB triplets born 12/4/07 at 33w2d
http://www.pyjammy.com
New Orleans triplets: http://www.nolatripletsandmore.com/

I used the book, "The Baby Sleep Solution" by Suzy Giordano. It was designed for mothers of multiples, to get their babies onto night and day time sleep, nap, and feeding schedules. It worked great and I reccomend everyone at least give it a look. It is fairly regimented, and there is a lot of CIO involved, so if you aren't one of the people who can handle that this program is probably not for you. The book basically teaches you to break your day into 2 12-hour segments, one when your day starts, and one for the night. You then work on stretching your kids onto a 4-hour feeding schedule and continue feeding one or two bottles at night, as needed. You then start to feed them more during the day and gradually wean out the nightime bottles until they are only feeding during the day. Then you use basic CIO and non-picking-up calming techniques to get them through the rough parts of the night while you are sleep training them. After they are sleeping at night and feeding only during the day, the book helps you establish a day time nap routine. A lot of it can be modified to fit your schedule and your comfort level as far as letting your baby CIO and when to start the different levels of training, as we did. We started when our kids were 12 weeks (ith triplets you can not start until your babies are at least 12 weeks old and 9 pounds each - thank God mine were 9 lbs at 12 weeks! LOL)and 2 1/2 weeks later they were sleeping through the night (8pm-5am).

I also have to say that I remember those first few months (barely) and it was so awful not being able to sleep, and very frustrating because there is no "napping when the baby naps" when you have triplets - someone is always up! I totally feel for you and your situation, so I wanted to say don't lose hope. It will get better. Now the time flies and I can barely remember anything from those first 6 months, let alone yesterday. Take lots of pictures!

Mandie

Mom to:

and spontaneous GGB:


http://www.morethanweexpected.com/
http://mandiemonium.blogspot.com/

Yep, nights until they were about 10 wks old were difficult b/c of the exact situation you are in now. Things should be getting ready to change though. At 8 wks, my trio started going 4 hrs between bottles between 8pm & 8am. Then about 10 wks old, they went back to the 3 hr schedule BUT they dropped the 11pm feed, sleeping through from 8pm to 2am. Finally at 12 wks, they dropped the 2am feeding. We never had to sleep train them as this was self-motivated. Just when you think you can't take any more, things change. Hopefully your trio will switch to a 4 hr night schedule soon so you can get some sleep!

Astrid
GGB born at 33.6 on 3-31-08
Sofia Genevieve ~ 4.9 oz, 10 days NICU
Gabriella Marie ~ 4.4, 10 days NICU
Ian Giovanni ~ 4.1, 14 days NICU

http://survivingtriplets.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/scbyastrid
http://scbyastrid.etsy.com

At 8 wks we would feed them every three if they woke but let them sleep for 5 hrs at a time before waking them if they were asleep. The doc said to not let them go longer than 5 hours because they are preemies. I used the cio method to get all my boys to sleep every night and they only cried for about 3 days and now they don't even cry when they go down at night 8:30. Things do get better; now they sleep from 8:30 to 06:30 without waking.

Reta

Kipras, Kajus, Rokas born 7/4/ 2008