Should I wake them to feed?

[KellyW88]

Mother to 13 month old twins here and a bit unsure of what to do.

DD and DS are low weight as they were born two months prematurely - as such their corrected age is 11 months. They usually feed up a storm, mainly formula based as they’re only just getting to grips with solids (great with finger foods but dislike being fed by spoon) but today they have only had two bottles and slept a lot otherwise.

They did have breakfast cereal with mashed banana for breakfast and ate a fair bit.

Then two bottles of 210-250 mls in the day at four hours apart. Tried a bit of mashed sweet potato and cauliflower cheese this afternoon, most ended up on the floor...

They’re not ill but have been overtired a lot due to teething issues and a neighbour who likes to cause trouble by standing outside and yelling threats and anybody/anything at random times in the night which inevitably wakes them...

They are sound asleep for the first time in weeks before midnight (it’s been a rough stretch!) so I just can’t bear the thought of waking them to feed them, but they’ve never had so little during the day.

When they have been awake they have been active and chatty and happy within themselves so I don’t think it’s health related, I just think they’re exhausted and so not sure what to do...

Any advice on whether to wake them now and feed them in the hopes they’ll go back to sleep pretty quick (unlikely) or to wait until they wake naturally and decide it’s time for feeding, which will probably be in the early hours of tomorrow morning?

I would let them sleep - their appetites fluctuate so will probably compensate tomorrow for the smaller intake today.

If their appetite doesn't pick up after a few days I would think about seeing the health visitor or GP.

Leave them... if they're hungry they'll wake anyway.
In my experience, if they aren't keen on the mashed stuff, ditch it and stick with the finger food, even if it means they get most of their calories from milk for a while longer. My three were 33 weekers - all on 2nd centipede at birth, 5 weeks in neonatal. One was on 98th centile coming out , the other two were on 4th and have stayed very skinny but despite having all sorts of problems getting them to take milk and eat when they were babies, they're very healthy now, food wise.

Mine had a really nasty chest infection at about 12 months (lucky not to be hospitalised) and for a couple of weeks after I couldn't get them to eat anything - it was like having to wean them all over again!

At 13 months I’d let them sleep.

Let them sleep!!! If they're hungry they'll wake up. If they're not hungry maybe they'll sleep through. My twins appetites have fluctuated constantly! They're now 2 and still have days where they will eat loads and other days not much at all. If you want them to eat more food, maybe slowly reduce the amount of milk - drop a feed and offer a snack instead? They might not be eating much food because they're just not hungry. Do you give them milk at bedtime?

Thankfully my DD who is the smaller has woken on her own to feed... now I just need to convince her to go back to sleep :’)

Thank you for the advice all, I think the weight situation has me in a tizzy sometimes- DD was 880g at birth and DS 920g, so I think I’ve gotten a little obsessive on how much they have per day after the 4 month stay in NICU where everything was noted carefully haha

Have stuck mainly to finger foods and have tried weaning them off the milk for a good number of weeks but they’re still reliant on their formula- they do sometimes still want a pre-sleep bottle, but this isn’t every day. I know we’ll get there eventually x

The obsessiveness of recording every ml of milk intake in neonatal was a huge issue for me and led to all sorts of control issues when we were home that I swear, contributed to pnd! It really does make you paranoid about whether they're getting enough. Mine are 11 now and I'm only just managing to not worry if they don't have breakfast if they sleep in on a weekend 😂

My boy was bit at birth but after 3 months slipped down the centiles and is naturally v skinny but fed very frequently and since 6 months eats everything in sight. It was like he just never had that baby chub. Some days they just dont eat as much and that's ok, its just like us as adults. The few times that I've pretty much forced something down by trying everything in the cupboard he has brought it all right back up and I should have listened to him in the first place!

I agree with biddybid that their appetites fluctuate. I shouldn't wake it up because by the time that they are hungry they will cry.

Up to 12 months I have read food is more as a taster. With adjusted time your twins are still in that zone. I know this thread is about waking your dcs but that’s now resolved. Will they feed themselves with their fingers? Eg give them some spag Bol (made with small pasta) and let them get on with it. Dd was a food thrower and we had a very happy dog. I used to make dd composite things like frittata, mini chicken/ bean patties - etc Annabel karmel stuff and similar.