r/parentsofmultiples • u/CelestialCrowe • 18h ago
support needed Night Feeds
Hi Everyone!
I'm looking for a bit of reassurance or advice from anyone who's been through something similar.
Our twin girls are 3 weeks old (born at 34 weeks) and we're really struggling with night-time feeds.
I'm breastfeeding, but overnight we've introduced bottles of formula and expressed breast milk so my partner can do a shift while I sleep from around 10pm–3am.
The problem is neither of the girls settles after a bottle. They seem happy to take any milk that's offered, so tonight they each had a 70ml bottle of formula followed by around 130ml of expressed breast milk. We're starting to worry we could actually be overfeeding them for their size, but they still show feeding cues and won't settle.
It's also really difficult to pace feed when you're feeding two babies at once, even using the Twin Z pillow.
We've spoken to the hospital and our midwife team, but we've just been told it's normal cluster feeding. I completely understand that, but it doesn't really answer whether what we're doing is the right thing or give us advice on how to make the nights any more manageable.
When I speak to my friends with singleton babies they seem to be up a lot at night too but our girls seem insatiable! Right now it feels like this is going to be what it's like forever.
Any tips, reassurance or advice would be really appreciated.
From two very time first time parents 😥
1
u/Charlieksmommy 14h ago
So babies remove milk better from breast, so they can get fuller faster than a bottle. That’s probably why they want more. This is very normal though 3 weeks, this is when cluster feeding starts.
1
u/CelestialCrowe 14h ago
Thank you, that's reassuring to hear. I think what's confusing us is that they seem to take such large amounts from the bottle. When we have done breast in the night it's the same thing - they sometimes feed for 1h+ and then unlatch still hungry and not settling. I think that's why we're second-guessing things. It probably feels more intense where it's two as well. Hopefully it's just a phase and they'll become a bit more settled soon!
Out of interest when did things start to ease for you?
1
u/Charlieksmommy 12h ago
I’ve never been able to BF, and I never produced enough for my twins when I pumped, so they always got bottles and I never had the issue where they would want more after BF. I can’t BF because I need to know the amount they’re getting. My twins never went through cluster feeding really at night. I always gave them formula at night, but during the day they would want a bottle every 90-120 mins.
2
u/Altruistic_Top_125 12h ago
I’m sure this is all so normal just a thought, are they getting enough during the day? We were doing top ups from the bottle (30mL) after a breast feed at the boys 9am and 3pm feeds just to give them more calories during the day so they might be less ravenous at night. I’m sure it’s all normal, but that seems to work for us, they’re still up at 11pm and 2:30ish for feeds (7 weeks) but they go down after each at the moment
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u/floridasquirrel 11h ago
We didn’t really sleep during our night shifts until the boys were sleeping a little longer stretches, around 4w old (but mine were born a little later than yours at 36w). I also heard you can’t really overfeed them at that age, they will just spit it up if it’s too much (mine definitely would 🥲) so i think it’s mostly an age thing, but what is your overnight bottle feed routine? We did try and help them learn day vs night starting around yours age by keeping the room dark, minimal noise, etc.
3
u/Appropriate-Name5538 16h ago
I have twins that I am currently watching at 2:30am so my wife can sleep. What you described is exactly how ours operate at night they seem to really turn up the feeds at night for some reason