weaning twins, and general daytime routine

[beachesandbuckets]

Babies are 6 months old this week and have just started weaning them. found the whole weaning process tedious with the older two, and its taking forever to feed two. Any sanity/time saving advice out there? Also whilst they are good at night (ish), daytime routine is still all over the place (not helped by various school/pre-school runs etc) so not getting the fat lunchtime nap that would allow me to recharge batteries. Any tips here gratefully received!

[Twicethehugs]

We started finger food at the same time as purees and didn't do purees for long as they soon preferred to feed themselves. This was so much easier as could just put food on their trays while I ate my meal/washed up etc and it meant less cooking of different things for babies. Can't help with sleep, mine haven't been brilliant sleepers - often only have 30 min naps, but seem fine on this and will sleep longer at times when they need to. Can't be easy with older children too though, hope they sleep more soon - mine did get better around 8 months when the amount they ate took off.

[HighVoltage]

Hi beachesandbuckets hope all is going well.

I second the ditching the purée ASAP and getting onto finger foods so they can feed themselves - I loved making up the purées for DS but this time I'm much happier dishing up food for all three - tonight was white fish, tenderstem broccoli and roast potatoes for 3 year old and two nearly 8 month olds. The mess was a bit intimidating on pasta with tomato sauce day, I will confess.

Sleep wise we had a break through day and night by putting them in separate rooms at about 6.5 months - we had them in one cot with us before. We will put them back in the same room when we move house (v soon) but a twin mum friend told me it was the first thing the sleep trainers did for hers. I also stopped feeding them to sleep (so much ).

[Cornwall73]

Hi BnB, wow weaning - I remember when you had your babies and I knew I was next. Mine are 5.5 mths old now.

No tips as I am behind you and very overwhelmed by the whole weaning thing, they have been in a bottle fed routine since 8wks and the days are mostly predictable (with a few disasters thrown in of course). My big thing is how to wean with knocking everything out of kilter!!

Wishing you luck and keeping an eye on the thread!

[beachesandbuckets]

Cornwall - lovely to hear from you. Yes it has set things off kilter a bit, I found the breast feeding easy, just sat on sofa eating biscuits, reading the occasional book and watching peppa pig with my kids, everything very predictable weaning means having to fit an extra hour for each meal for the babies into the day, which has made things a bit tight trying to everything else in, including getting to school and back, and our dinner.

I have tried to offer the babies finger food but they are too little still, and just drop it. On the plus point, I have been shovelling the food in, and they haven't rejected any food types yet. I think this is more to my 'must get on with it, have a thousand other things to do' attitude.

I have been using jars and pouches to date. Was dreading the cost, but Aldi is my new friend, and their Ella kitchen style pouches are cheap and not full of rubbish. I spent a day doing a big cookathon/blending/putting into ice cube trays and it nearly killed me, not sure I can do it again.

Are you babies sleeping through? Mine still wake up once a night (my older two slept at 12wks so am finding it mentally hard to be still doing night feeds half a year in) and was hoping weaning would fix this but uit has made squat all difference...

[beachesandbuckets]

High voltage - if you've managed to cut down on feeding to sleep (ish!) what do you do when a baby wakes up in the night? Mine don't cry but do fully wake up and am worried about them waking my older kids so just stick them on the boob quickly. What other technique is there that isn't too painful? I am still in the spare room with them in seperate Moses baskets next to me..

[Cornwall73]

Hi, beaches! Mine have sort of slept through since 16wks. At 12wks they dropped their 3am bottle and at 16wks the 11pm dream feed. Mind you they are bottle fed and like their bottles during the day so they have 'tanked up' their milk by the time they go to bed at 7pm.

If they wake in the night we give them their dummy and put on white noise and they soon drift back to sleep. I must admit that they have been in their bedroom besides ours since 10wks. First in their Moses baskets, then sharing a cot bed and now each in their own cotbeds in the same room. It has a black out blind and lined dark curtains which really helps. We have the monitor on but I find I hear them before the monitor picks up any rumblings!!

The only time they wake up now is if they have lost a dummy (DD I'm looking at you!!!!!) and they really need it. Tonight I was unlucky and she woke at 4:50! Not crying, just chattering but she went straight back to sleep when I gave it to her but I didn't drop back off. DS generally sleeps straight through.

I can only imagine how much weaning disrupts the day but DS suffers from reflux so I'm looking forward to the stomach having something different that will hopefully not come up!

[HighVoltage]

Ah sorry I actually meant for naps and before bedtime - I'm in the same position as you re one wake up per night each (although more at the moment due to sickness) and in the night they tend to drop off when feeding.

I was feeding them to sleep for lunchtime naps as well (morning nap in buggy on way to nursery) and stopped that first then started putting them to bed in the evening awake (I'll put them in a bouncy chair after feeding, see to DS in bath then go back to them and put them into bed). They do cry a tiny bit before sleeping about half the time but it's for less than 30 secs (I'll go in otherwise).

And if you can/want to then splitting them into separate rooms meant less quick boob to quieten them - which meant they have settled themselves a bit more (one started sleeping through before recent viruses).

Incidentally am so impressed with how you handled feeding them so calmly in the early days - I was a wreck!

[Linguaphile]

Following! I'm taking a weaning class tomorrow as am terrified of starting next month. Our twins sound similar, Cornwall. 5 months on Wednesday (how are they already so old?!), and their routine is almost the same. Ours also dropped their 3am feed at 12 weeks, though we haven't yet tried dropping the 11pm. Maybe we should... Their schedule got all messed around when we went to Bali for a month over Christmas, and since we came back they've been out of sorts with a virus and also what I assume to be teething (sooooo much drool, red cheeks, biting everything, fussy all the time). A bit scared to try dropping it for fear of the 3am again!

Can you just start straight off giving them finger food? What sorts of things do you give them? Don't think mine are ready yet, tbh, as they still have their tongue reflex thingy. Really curious to read what others are doing and scrape together some tips.

[HighVoltage]

I reckon you can start with finger food straight away if they're six months when you start - I did give ours food before then but stuck to purées.

Finger foods can be pretty simple - most breads and crackers are fine, Kallo do some nice thin unsalted rice cakes. Most root veg well cooked into batons, tenderstem broccoli. Fruit - soft ones like mango, pineapple and then pear and apple cooked (ripe pear doesn't need to be). You have to be ready for them gagging a bit though - read up on baby led weaning for more info.

Our babies favourite - and first - finger food was thin wholewheat pancakes - we make them most weeks for breakfast for our three year old and they LOVE them (obv didn't put the lemon and sugar on!).

Now they're a bit older and I'm more confident of their chewing I'm getting a bit more ambitious with things like pasta in sauce - v messy. This recipe for courgette balls from River Cottage was a big hit this week - www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/courgette-polpette-recipe

[feesh]

I did baby led weaning with mine and only offered them one meal a day at six months. We went up to two meals a day at 7ish months and three meals a day by 9 months.

They were still on three naps a day at six months: 8-10am, 12-1pm and 3.30pm-4pm. I think I dropped the later nap at around 7 months.

They were bottle fed so slightly different, but at 6 months I think they were fed at 6am, 10am, 12pm, 3pm and 6pm. We dropped the 10am bottle once they started having two meals a day (breakfast and lunch).

[FreeButtonBee]

I was the same as feesh re number of meals. One meal (which might be a crust of toast and a piece of peach) a day at 6 months. Normally lunch as it worked best from a timing perspective. Then 2 meals around 7 months and 3 meals regularly at 9 months (occasionally before then if they seemed hungry). Meal time totally flexible. I avoided breakfast for as long as possible as I couldn't be arsed with it!

It gets v tedious around 9 months as you still need to give tons of milk but gradually that reduces down.

[beachesandbuckets]

Think I may be overfeeding my two based on this! B/feed at 7am, porridge for breakfast, lunch at 11.30 (main and dessert - Greek yoghurt and fruit puree), b/feed at 2ish, dinner at 4.30 (again, main and a dessert) and b/feed at 6pm, 10pm and 3am! They are 6mths old today.
With my older two I did it very gradually, building up spoons and meals etc, but just shovelling it in this time round. Twin 1 has slept through the last 3 nights so hopefully this is working to end the night feeds. Mine both slept through at 3mths but at 3 and a half months started waking up again. Fear I missed the window to leave sharing their bedroom.

[Cornwall73]

Well, I've been brave and started too! DS has much worse reflux than DD but he just doesn't want to know about food. I have tried them separately on banana, carrot and butternut squash this past week. DD will at least try it and opens her mouth for food but DS still has the tongue reflex and pushes the spoon out. I have tried dipping his hand in the food and letting him lick instead and he is really not keen. He downs his bottles but food does not seem to be to his liking! We are only doing food once a day and I normally mix it with 1oz of formula so it is very wet. I either do it at 8am (milk at 7am), an hour after the 10am bottle if we have not gone out or an hour after the 2pm feed.

Will try pear next, see how that goes down.

How liquid or wet is your food? I don't know if I should just do purée or carry on with the milk. I thought it would be good to have a familiar taste to help things along.

[FreeButtonBee]

How old? Any chance you would tryg BLW? I started with raspberries aamnd peach and strawberries.

If he's not interested, then leave it for a week or so and try again. Maybe just put him in the high chair - they soon let you know if they think they are missing something! My DD didn't eat much for about 3 weeks and them started to have a go but would frequently not bother eating for 3/4 days