Self-settling failure or just hungry? (7.5mo)

[Twinningiswinning]

After some advice please - my twins are 7.5 months and now that we’re finally through the f%#£ing 4 month sleep regression, we had one week of better sleep (4-8 hour stretches rather than 30-90min stretches) but now back to square one with DT2 who is waking every 2 hours or more, and gets hysterical unless I BF her. She goes down for naps and bedtime awake without any rocking or patting etc., and without anyone in the room so I think that means she can self settle? Lots of the sleep training advice I’ve read seems to be directed at babies who need feeding/rocking/parent present to get to sleep, which doesn’t fit with DT2, yet I can’t cope with much more of the frequent night wakings and so would like to reduce them down to 1 or 2 wakings if possible? Has anyone been in a similar situation?
I should add that they both are eating decent amounts of solids 3x a day and having 3-4 BFs a day too, so I don’t see how she can be hungry though it is possible I guess?

Also, when I do feed her at night she never feeds to sleep - I burp her and then put her down awake in her cot, and she falls asleep after I’ve left the room

Perhaps she's just got a sore throat, tummy ache or something like that? Or perhaps she just wants to be near you. Either way, it's really hard. Hope you get some more sleep soon.

It's not unusual for babies to need a little extra help to get to sleep when their sleep pressure is low. Sleep pressure is the natural pressure her body places on her your go to sleep.

Night wake ups wake ups have less sleep pressure then bedtime of nap time, because baby has just been asleep. So even though you know it's not enough sleep, it's at least some and that reduces the pressure the body is under to go to sleep.

At times when sleep pressure is low, you could do with developing a way to help her get back to sleep. At the moment that is feeding, which isn't ideal. How about a dummy? Or standing by the cot and patting her?

It’s not unusual for a 7 month old to still need night feeds and also it’s DEFINITELY not unusual for a 7 month old to not be able to self settle.

crazy
It is unusual and unnecessary for a 7 month old to need two hourly night feeds imo.
Yes night feeds but one or maybe two

@Ricottapancakes Thanks - you’re right it could be teething or illness I guess, in which case I’m hoping it might improve in a few days!

@FATEdestiny That makes sense - helpful to know, thank you. She does take a dummy to go to sleep but won’t take it when she wakes up, likewise patting or rocking don’t work sadly, she just gets more and more worked up until she’s fed.

@crazycatlady5 Yes I’m aware that there’s a wide spectrum of ‘normal’ behaviour for babies, but if you read my original post I said that I think she can actually self settle, so was more after advice on other suggestions of how to minimise the wake ups in light of her proven ability to self settle. I agree with @icantdothis2017 that 1-2 hourly wake ups at her age is unusual, and whilst I am generally all for baby led tactics and would not expect them to be STTN, I have a limit of how little sleep I can get by on before I’ll start to lose the plot! I also have another baby of the same age who wakes herself up by screaming in her sleep so it is a bit challenging at the moment. I do appreciate that you’re trying to reassure me by saying that the behaviour is not unusual, but in this instance I’m actually hoping for some practical tips to improve things.

3-4 breast feeds a day is pretty low, so she probably needs another 2 at night. I would set 11pm and 3am as night feed times, and send dad in to resettle, maybe with a cup of water, for any wakes in between.

Some babies need milk for longer. It sounds like it’s hunger if she takes a feed and then self settles after. Would she take an expressed bottle from someone else to give you a break?

Also all 3 of my (breastfed) DC have slept lots better after an 11pm bottle of formula, plus dad can do it so you can go to bed at 9 and sleep til next breastfeed at 3.

@icantdothis2017 it’s really not unusual - they go through loads of leaps and growth spurts in the first year. I’ve spoken, in person and virtually, to loads of mums who have babies who wake every 1-2 hours at night at certain point (leaps and spurts) in the first year.

@Marcine @Rotorevolution Yes I agree a bottle could help in the evenings, even if just to give me a little break. She used to take a (MAM) bottle of EBM but started to refuse it around 4 months and we haven’t been able to get her back on it. We’ve tried various different bottles, plus a free-flowing sippy cup, doidy cup and a MAM trainer bottle but she just chews on the bottles and spits out the EBM! Going to try a medela Calma teat tonight in case by some miracle she might accept that!

Have you tried giving a bottle in her sleep?

@Marcine no I haven’t tried that yet so will give it a go, thank you!

Do you use white noise? I've found that really helps my twins, especially if it's possible that your screamy twin is disturbing your 2 hourly waking twin... it'll drown out some of the noise and she might stay asleep.

Mine are 11 months now and we have by no means cracked the sleeping through the night thing.... not to the same extent I feel we would have if they were singletons anyway... so I don't have a lot of advice but do have lots of sympathy and coffee

Twins are hard. It's not like you can just leave them awake to see if they settle.

It can help to move the milk to earlier on in the routine, even if they’re not feeding to sleep it can still form an association. Ideally I’d go for pjs, milk, teeth, gro bag, book then bed - wide awake. If it’s milk in room then putting down it’s still quite close.

They might also benefit from you waiting for 5 minutes before you respond at night. I’d only be feeding a maximum of once at night (between 7-7) unless they weren’t taking anything solid