My identical boys were born at 33wks, spent a month in ICU and i finally got to bring them home last week :)
In ICU they managed to be them onto a 4 hourly feed regime for me (2, 6, 10) and the boys had been really in sync with this. It seemed too good to be true and now I've found, it possibly is!!
I'm really struggling at night and I just don't know what to do... During the day they feed every 4hrs on cue, really in sync with each other which is amazing. It does take a while to do the feed and wind, about 45mins-1hr each, but it means I'm getting about an hour or two's break in between when they seem really nice and content.
Fast forward to midnight until 6am and all hell breaks loose!! After their 10pm feed I move them from their downstairs Moses baskets to top and tail in a cotbed in my bedroom and I can set my clock by it, at the stroke of midnight I have two screaming banshees. They are proper red faced, occasional breath holding unabated screaming at the top of their lungs and its both of them doing this. They are lifting their legs up, squirming around while continuously batting at their faces or balling their fists into their mouths.
I've tried giving a bit of water with milk or a small top up feed but they just vomit the extra back up and wail again. I've tried holding them but all they do is hunt for food then wail f they don't get any. I've tried a dummy which sates them for 5mins only, then they spit them out and wail. I try putting them to my breasts and they feed, but will stay there latched for literally hours and as soon as I pull them away they wail. Get to the 6am feed and it's as if someone has flicked the off-switch, they go to sleep like perfect little angels again.
What should I do?!?! They're showing me all the signs of being hungry, but any extra feed I give them they bring back up and I can't keep them on me breast feeding for 6 hours. I've spent the past week awake from 10pm right through until 8am after finishing the 6am feed and I'm totally exhausted. I try and nap in the hours between daytime feeds, but just an hours cat nap here and there isn't cutting it.
Any ideas? Pretty please with a cherry on the top! :)
*Formula feeding Nutriprem 2 currently (my milk volume never came in, I can only express enough to give them one feed of EBM per day each). One twin is on 75ml every 4hours, other is on 65ml every 4 hours
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Help needed for mine and my neighbours sanity's sake!
Bex174 · 05/07/2015 12:19
It might be because this is the time they would have been born if they were full term, thus behaving like newborns. Also their body clocks might be out of sync, ie, wanting to be up all night and sleeping in the day. Party animals 
my ds was like this and it's bloody hard trying to reset their circadian body clock.
I ff my twins, as my milk didn't come in properly, so never put them on the breast (mine were born 31.4). This seemed to work well and they were better at night than my singleton ds, although I know that bf is recommended. It's bloody hard work and you're doing a brilliant job 
Sounds simplistic, but have you tried taking their moses baskets upstairs? My daughter also got fed up of the Nutriprem and found it hard going after a while. What weights were they? Congratulations, btw. My triplets were born at 33+2 and have just celebrated their prom.
Oh this all sounds so familiar! My twins are 11 weeks now, born at 35+6.
When we first came home they were angelic during the day - fed every 3.5/4 hours, slept the rest of the day.
At night everything went to pot and we were up all night!
Gradually this stopped and they were awake more during the day and less so at night.
I'm EBFing and so I can't advise about bottles/amounts etc but it is very hot at the moment so they may need more milk?
I have a toddler as well but for the first 4 weeks he was still in crèche so everytime they slept I slept too, even those few minutes make a difference.
I found that after about 8 weeks the nights got a bit better. One of my twins will now do a 6 hour stretch most nights and then a 4 hour one.
It does sound like they're cluster feeding from 10 onwards. Mine tended to cluster feed from 5/6 until 11 or so. The cluster feeding has eased off loads now.
Can your OH help at night? If you hand him babies to cuddle in between feedings it might help.
In the early weeks what I did was I settled one twin on the c shaped cushion to help with reflux and then fed the other twin lying down beside me. Our bed is set up for safe co-sleeping. (DH is in the spare room with our toddler!)
It's really really hard and it's only when they recognise night and day a bit more that it gets a bit easier.
Good luck and congratulations
Madlizzy that must've cost you a small fortune! Triplets 
. I bet you were one proud mama
I think that we'll be eating beans on toast for the next 3 years, but yes, we're very proud.
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