6 month old to twins breastfeeding for hours at night

[Jenniferb21]

Hi looking for some well needed advice /
Words of encouragement please

I have identical twin girls who are 6 months old. They generally go:
6am BF
8-9am BF
10am porridge potion as per instructions
11:30 BF
2pm BF
4pm main meal veg
6pm BF or sometimes
Formula bottle from hubby

8-9:30 is constant needing BF when dozing off

12pm BF
3am BF

I’ve given up putting them to bed at 8 ish because they just cry for me after 15 mins of being down so they stay with me for at least an hour feeding on and off until we can put them to bed once in a deep sleep

Apart from getting now us / me time I’m so tired and I have a toddler who isn’t getting much mummy time after 5pm which makes me sad I’m not doing bath and bed time with him

I BF my son only to 4 months so I’m
Unsure what to do now. I want to BF until they are about 1 but was expecting it to be less by now. They often don’t have much formula when given it btw and cry til I Bf them so I think most of it is comfort feeding. They don’t have dummies because my
Toddler has been a nightmare with his I didn’t want the hassle. They don’t have comforters because I’m worried about risks of this but they have a white noise sheep which sometimes settles them at night
When they wake.

I’d ideally like to tackle the long BF early evening and think they should be able to go longer than 3 hours now surely. Do I maybe up food and water intake yet ?

Any tips ????? X x

No tips but just want to say well done to you I gave up breastfeeding one baby at 6 months as it was relentless through the night

I didn’t breastfeed but how long have you been weaning for? Could you give them something like weatbix around 6/7? Might help fill them up a bit

I can understand you wanting to spend some time with your toddler. Is DH home in the evening? Could he take the DTs out for a walk or give them a bottle while you read to DC1?

Hiya :)

I’ve only started weaning three weeks ago they aren’t doing well with baby led like my little boy did it’s pretty much purée atm so couldn’t do weetabix just yet. I did think today maybe I could give them a little supper but when I was refreshing my memory on weaning it suggests 3 meals by 7/8 months but if it won’t harm I’m open to the idea of trying x

I'm sure my twins were similar, with more night waking too. But I didn't have a toddler too, so I really see your problem. You're doing amazingly well and in a few months time, they may be happy with porridge while they wait to be fed by you, so you can put your toddler to bed or do bath time. I'd try to give it a few more months if you can?

And you could try adding a little protein to their solids. Try a bit of cheese as a finger food along with their tea or a strip of meat like cooked chicken. Along with the porridge give them some white toast with smooth nut butter or some banana as a finger food on the side.

There’s some information on cluster feeding on kellymom which has some tips towards the end.

And there’s some more tips on askdrsears

I don't have any advice I just wanted to say I scrolled past your post and wow. You're a hero.
One is hard but two that's incredible. Look after yourself op

I think I'd be tempted to try more solids before bedtime
something like porridge

You recognise the BF is for comfort...

Can you and DH put a few weeks aside to do pick up put down whilst they go to sleep? Offer them bottles during the night if you think they are hungry and not feeding for comfort?

My twins were like this at around 6 nmonths too. By 8 months they had dropped the night feeds. There is a brilliant closed Facebook group called breastfeeding twins and triplets were you can post and get excellent advice so might be worth joining that and asking for suggestions.

You are doing so well. I don't know how you have kept that up for so long, you must be shattered.
When I weaned my little girl I quite quickly went up to 3 "meals" a day but when I say meals, it was just BLW snacks etc but 3 times throughout the day.
I think it helped her to see a routine of breakfast, lunch and tea even if she was only sucking the food and throwing it, and then she started to prefer the food to milk.
My friend's little girl didn't do well with weaning, she just wanted milk all the time and the HV advised her to try and make sure that she was actually getting hungry before you present them with a meal. So she tried to reduce the breast feeding before mealtime, obviously not starving her but just so she was ready and wanting the solid food. It worked for her after a few weeks!

I also agree with the previous poster who suggested trying DH doing the settling at bedtime.
I really hope you get some relief, you must be feeling stressed with it all, it's a lot of feeding.

Thank you all such kind comments and helpful advice. Will definitely keep the protein in mind thank you but they only manage purée atm I’ve tired them with soft veg and banana and they’re really gagging. My little boy really took to baby led weaning so it’s something I’m not used to really. But of course I could think about some protein being blended in now it’s been a few weeks.

I definitely will carry on BF I enjoy it as much as them really but just really would like the evenings to be better for me and expected them to feed a lot less than what they do by 6 months and especially when on 2 meals.

Any more tips would be really welcomed :)

Thank you x

I was told they get most of the feed in the first 5 mins so I would never let mine feed for very long! Any signs of them slowing down and they were off the boob! Mind you I only ever fed one at a time so I always had another baby crying so they just had to feed quickly.
The concept of letting your baby leisurely feed for hours was completely alien to me and when my friends who only had one baby told me they were doing this my mind would boggle!

Yes I understand your post. Day time feeds tend to be 15 mins max middle
Of the night feeds 5-15 rarely it’s 30 mins. It’s just this mid evening time that’s horrific. I don’t mind popping my finger in their mouth to take them off if they’re asleep or I can’t hear swallowing. I often do that at the middle of the night feeds. But again the middle evening feeding is like one long cluster if I take them off they go crazy and just wake up either right away or after 15 mins and nothing will
Settle them but boobie argh! Hopefully it won’t last much longer when they have more food.
Xxxx