August/September newborns--company, anyone?

[Linguaphile]

Just had our girls 3 weeks ago and am thinking it might be good to revive our old 31+4 thread as I could use some commiserative company whilst in the sleep-deprived throes of life with newborn twins.

What things are you finding hard at the moment? We just spent all night dealing with tag-teaming sleepers who will not, try and tandem feed as I might, stay on the same eating schedule. Sooooo tired these days! The never ending cycle of sleeping (or rather, not sleeping) and eating feels cruelly relentless. Anyone else in the same boat?

Hello! Glad it's not just me. This week I've been on my own with them for the first time. A man in Sainsbury's told me I deserved a medal yesterday and I nearly burst into tears!!

S and C, after three weeks of routine and not having to wake DH up in the night to help have developed what I think is colic or reflux and spend 7-12 in the evenings screaming. C won't go down and has been sleeping upright on me which means I can't feed S. Both of them are asleep at the moment sprawled across me. Too scared to move them.

Trying to get out with the buggy in the afternoons when they're unsettled and they sleep then. This afternoon we'll be taking in the GP to see what they say about their various digestive problems.

They're putting weight on well though. At 4w they've gone from 7lb13 to 9lb11 and 5lb5 to 7lb11.

Until the reflux/colic/whatever it is kicked in we were on 3 hourly feeds, going to 4-4.5 between 11/12 and the middle of the night one. It's just not being able to tandem feed with Velcro baby that's driving me insane - feel awful having to get DH up to help.

I am 8 weeks now (babies born 31 July so just outside August/September category but hope you let me in!). I brought infacol for the colic but has made NO difference, but think babies are slowly growing out of it now. From what I remember from my older two dcs, it goes by 12 wks and is just their gut developing, awful as it is at the time. We also have witching hour(s) from 5pm.

I have been persevering with a (vague) bedtime routine for a couple of weeks, take them up at 5.45, quick wash, feed them from 6pm and put them down around 6.45pm. If a baby has gone to sleep on the boob, they tend to stay awake til next feed (dream feed) at 10pm, but if awake, I put them down anyway and see if they nod off. If crying after a while, I go into room and take them downstairs to feed into sleep submission. Its hit and miss, but over last week have had a couple of lovely evenings to myself when they have gone down. Dinner in peace, wine and then sleep on sofa!

Hi, hope you don't mind if I join in. 6 week old ID girls, born at 33 weeks and been home from scbu for 2 weeks now. Can't believe how much they eat! Seem to be increasing feeds all the time! Beachesandbuckets I'm trying the feeding into sleep submission too! Hope they settle soon as they're really not keen on sleeping at night!

Glad I'm not the only one with this! Things have been a lot better the past few days, thankfully--someone recommended the Gina Ford twins book to us, and although it drives me nuts how prescriptive she is, the routines are actually working. Our witching hour has disappeared! Not being a routine loving person myself, I was pretty dead-set against her methods, but honestly it has made nights so much easier and the babies seem a lot happier. A little shocked, really! We'll see how it goes, though, as it's only our first week of trying it.

lingua funnily enough I had it delivered yesterday and my mum and I have been flicking through it today. How quickly did you see a benefit? Not sure whether to start straight away or wait until DH is off at half term in a couple of weeks. Would I be able to do it on my own?

One thing I wasn't sure about - is she advocating them having naps in the nursery but still sleeping in the parental room? We have one Cot in the lounge at the moment and one in our bedroom.

Hey Anda, we've only been doing it for 2 and a half days, so it might just be a fluke and stop working, but for now am enjoying the change! We started it halfway through the day on Monday with baths and the big feed before bed at 7. Also moved their cot into their nursery as we've got a guest bed in there that one of us can sleep on. Not sure about the recommendation, but it seemed a logical move as we'd already been having them sleeping in their pram in the lounge with one of us on the sofa next to them so that the other partner could get sleep! It was too hard for either of us to get sleep with them grunting and squeaking and fussing their way through the night in our bedroom. This way we take shifts and we both get about 6 hours of quality sleep each night. DH sleeps from 8-10 and then is on duty for the evening expressed milk bottle feed and settling until 2am, then I take over from 2-6:45, then he does the morning shift and feed (again with expressed milk, this time from when I expressed just before bed) so that I get an extra 2 hours of sleep before the day starts. He puts them down for their morning nap at 8:45 and then comes in to wake me up before going to work. Not a bad system. Hope it works for you guys!

Hmmm. Well, worth a go! I'm doing all the night time feeds at the moment plus the first morning one unless they wake before DH goes to school at 7.15 (like the GF 6.45 start for this reason!!).

How does your DH find bottle feeding them together? I'm hoping waking to feed might improve things and I can do one after the other because I'm really struggling to tandem bottle feed /burp when they wake at the same time and want feeding!

So you have them sleeping in their room all the time, presumably with a monitor in the day, and one of you sleeping in there at night?

Well, I guess it's always a bit of a balancing act getting both done, but it helps that, as you say, she has you only wake up one at a time. The book said to try a 15-20 minute feed first, then feed baby 2, then go back and finish them off if either one is still hungry. Means baby 2 at least isn't squeaking for the whole of baby 1's feed. DH usually just sets up camp with both bottles and puts whichever awake baby he's not feeding in the vibrating bouncy chair. We've also tried tandem bottle feeding with both babies in bouncers, which isn't too hard (though obviously you have to stop feeding if one needs a burp).

Yep, they're in their room all the time. I think it helps that they have their own space to associate with sleep as I try to have all of their 'awake' time with play gym, etc. out in the lounge.

Last night was less of a success, so to be honest I think it will probably take time to fully establish a routine! At the moment I think the major benefit is that I feel like I know what's going on and I've got time budgeted in for things like taking a shower, getting out, etc.