How to wean off night feedings (with preemies)

[judimma]

Hi! Our girls are now 4 months actual, 9 weeks adjusted, and I’m starting to think about the process of getting longer stretches of sleep.
We feed them on a 3 hour schedule.

After 80 days in the NICU, one of the biggest areas of confusion as parents is feeding. Always worried if we are feeding them enough, what’s enough to keep them growing well.

They are obviously small, but even somewhat smaller (18%) for their adjusted age. Both girls around a little over 10 lbs. Right now sometimes they take 120 ml, sometimes they take 80 ml. Every once in a while they cry for a snack and we give it to them. With the idea to add their night calories to their day feeds, I’m not sure I’d be able to get them to consistently get them to drink 140 ml and I’d worry I’d be underfeeding them.

What age did you start removing a day feed?
What was your process, for example did you remove one feed first and wait a few weeks then remove the second feed?

 

[littlelisama]

@judimma When my twins had bulked up enough for us and the dr to feel comfortable dropping night feeds the first thing I did was stop waking the second baby up if the one woke in the night. I'd see if they would stay asleep. This got us to longer stretches of night sleep for a few weeks--longer stretches for the babies. There were a few nights where things didn't synchronize so I ended up with less sleep but the goal of course was ultimately to get more so I powered through. We managed to get them down to one night feed around 7/8 months actual (4/5 months adjusted) but on slightly off kilter schedules as we relied strictly on their own waking up.

Dropping night feeds did require bulking up during the day and I definitely noticed if we had distracted eaters or a busy on the go day the night wakings were more frequent. We tried to keep all meals full but particularly at evening time we did a a lot of cluster feeding to tank up before bed.

But my little nicu babies were not cleared for moving past the 3 hour mark for many months!

 

[judimma]

@littlelisama That’s what I was thinking too! that we’d probably need to be cleared by the doctors before attempting it. I just felt so stupid we were waiting for clearance on increasing feeds or even changing nipples last time and they were surprised we hadn’t done it on our own.

 

[justiceformyfoot]

@judimma 12 weeks (8 adjusted) no NICU here. Just kinda hoping they get there on their own since there's been longer stretches naturally. Most nights are still 3 feeds. When one is up and won't be easily settled, we wake other and feed both. Looking forward to more responses here.

 

[newhistoricalprotestant]

@judimma Dream feeding. Feed them while they are partially asleep and do this right before you go to bed!

 

[sandy2357]

@judimma Most experts will tell you babies aren’t ready to drop a night feed until they’re about 12 pounds. I would not wake them to feed. It’s likely that naturally they’ll start to go longer stretches. Typically they drop the earlier night feeds first. My twins are 5 months actual, 4 adjusted. They sometimes eat around 10pm, then almost always around 3am or so.
Just make sure there is no feed-to-sleep association. We never tried to night wean my daughter. She dropped it on her own around 8 months.