My little ones are 11 weeks old today! So not quite 3 months yet, but this has been our schedule for about 2 weekish now (10 days or so)? It started with sleep training... and then the boys naturally pushed their feeding time back to every 4 hours vs everything 3 hours! That wasn't even part of the plan, but it really has made life a lot calmer around here and has helped us get out in to the real world more and more!
I never posted a two month schedule and this is because it is mainly a mix of the one month schedule and this since it was such a transition phase.
We started full out sleep training after the little twins 2 month check up where the doctor told us, we no longer had to wake the twins to feed them during the night because their weight gain was no longer a concern. Our littles are preemies and to ensure that they gained weighed we had to feed them everything 3 hours because newborn preemies do not always cry when they are hungry.
Our littles ate everything 3 hours on the following schedule. 6,9,3,12,3,6,9, 12.
So the first night of sleep training we feed the babies their last bottle at 12, and we did not wake them at 3am to feed, instead we let them wake on their own. They woke at 4am, and again at 6ish. This happened a couple of times over the first few nights of sleep training they would wake between 4am and 5am and again between 6am and 7am. When one woke we would wake the other and feed them both. The times would vary but it was usually between 4 and 5 and again between 6 and 7am. This happened for probably about 5 nights. To keep them on schedule during the day we would always offer their 9am bottle, but they rarely finished it.
These 5 nights or so were hard because it seemed like we were getting less sleep than when we had them on a 3 hour feed schedule.
By night 6/7/8 they were waking around 5/5:30 and were not waking again until 9. This was nice! But not the goal we were working towards.
After a few more nights they started waiting closer to 6am and I was waking them at 9am to feed them and keep them on our day schedule. Again nice but not the goal we were working towards.
I then noticed that they were sleeping until 6ish, and I was having to wake them up to feed at 9am, they were not eating well at 9am and I was force feeding them. The same thing was happening when I tried to feed them at 12,3, etc everything 3 hours. I thought how are they sleeping more at night and eating/less/refusing to eat during the day. I was force feeding them everything 3 hours and my non spitting up babies were starting to spit up.
After a few days (hindsight is always 20/20), I thought maybe they are ready to be feed every four hours. Sure enough that was the missing puzzle piece. The first day I switched their schedule to every four hours, I was no longer force feeding them, they were finishing their bottles, and they were not spitting up. I was also able to get them to drink 4 ounces instead of the 3 ounces I was trying to force feed them at the every 3 hour time frame.
That night we feed them for the last time at 11pm instead of 12am and they slept until 6:45. Their have been a handful of nights that they have woken earlier (4:30/5:00/5:30) where I have only soothe them instead of feeding them. I do not want them to get in the habit of waking earlier and getting fed earlier. At the time it would be much easier to feed and go back to bed... but that only helps in the moment and doesn't help the big picture.
So as I said a handful of nights a baby cries and wakes me up, I go in their room, give them their paci and turn on their sleep sheep (white noise). My babies are already swaddled and can rarely break the swaddle because I use
swaddle pods. This will calm them...but it doesn't mean I didn't or don't have to do the same thing again 30-45 minutes later. Like I said there has only been a handful of nights were I have had to do this and their have been more nights when I haven't had to do it.
If I'd offer them a bottle to make it easier on me at the time... then I am convinced I would be doing that on a regular basis.
I think the key to sleep training is knowing that once you know baby can make X amount of hours, do not let them start to move backwards.
Here is our little twins 3 month old schedule
M and E 3 month Schedule
7am: wake if not already and feed they are usually waking right at or a few minutes before 7am feed each a 4oz bottle of breast milk forfeited with formula for calorie enhancement (this is only because they were preemies)
7:30 - 11am: swings, bouncers, play mat, tummy time nap time.
11am - feed 4 oz bottle
11:30 - 3: swings, bouncers, play mat, tummy time nap time.
3pm - feed 4 oz bottle
3:30 - 7pm: swings, bouncers, play mat, tummy time nap time.
7pm - feed 4 oz bottle
8pm - bath every other night/snuggle time with mommy and daddy, and then we put in swing or lay down in sleeper.
11pm - feed 4 oz and then put to bed for night.
And that is our schedule at the moment. We are still working towards the goal! The goal is 12 hours of sleep with 3 hours of nap time during the nap (most likely 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon). So now that we have them sleeping a nice long chuck of time 11 - 7 (8 hours) we are working on scheduling nap times and dropping the 11pm bottle. The only reason our twins are still getting fed at 11pm is because without this fed they are not drinking enough milk a day. Some days it is hard to get them to finish the four ounces and I know if I added more (because I have tried) two things happen... they don't finish and it gets wasted or I overfill their stomachs and they spit it up... meaning they actually drink less milk.
So the goal over the next month or so is to get them to be able to take more during each feed, to drop the 11pm feed and to get them on scheduled naps. 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. I have been trying to pay close attention to when they are naturally napping in the swings or bouncers and I think our nap time is going to be around 9:30/10 to 10:30/11 and 1-3.
Looking back on P and N's schedule they were not doing this until 4 months and at this age they were still eating every 3 hours. So M and E are on track and are even moving a little faster than P and N were!
Also with P and N as soon as we were getting them to drink enough during the day we dropped the last feed and with in a couple of nights they were sleeping the 12 hour stretch and the naps fell in place. Hoping for the same with these two!
A couple other tips I wanted to point out about how we sleep trained that I have not already mentioned.
Before we started sleep training we were feeding every 3 hours. We were waking the babies to feed. We turned on the lights and changed diapers before feeding to help them wake up. We made sure they finished their entire bottle. When sleep training and feeding during the night you do not want them to fully wake up!
When we starting demand feed during the night, we stopped turning on the lights and stopped changing their diapers and stopped forcing them to eat their entire bottle. The reason for this, is you DO NOT want them to wake all the way up. Also have the bottle ready, do not make them wait for it, this will keep them from fully waking up. I also kept them swaddled in their swaddle pods.
A tip that I read said something like this... during the night start to cut back the amount of ounces you offer in a bottle or the amount of time you let them nurse. Since this is a feed you are trying to eliminate don't let the baby overeat during this time or they will want to keep this time as a normal feed.
In my personal sleep training experience I never got to a point where I had to offer less because by not letting them wake up fully they were only drinking about half of their bottle before falling back to sleep.
By nights 6/7/8 ish (I wish I would have wrote down what happened each day but hey I was running on little sleep) they were sleeping a little longer as mentioned above. Around this time if only one twin was waking to eat we did not wake the other to feed.
This is what worked for me and I hope that it can in someway help someone else out there!
This sleeping training advice is only based on my personal experience and a couple of sleep training books I read. My favorite and the biggest helper that I recommend you read is 12 hours of Sleep by 12 weeks. Here is a post I wrote about the book after reading when sleep training P and N.
My littles will not be getting a full 12 hours by next Tuesday when they turn 12 weeks... but 8 hours is great! Also we are preemies! So adjusted they are only 5 weeks old! Can't complain.
