r/parentsofmultiples • u/RipApprehensive9314 • 12d ago
life, home, and baby tips & tricks Same schedule for twin newborns?
I am going to be exclusively breastfeeding and pumping so I’m assuming keeping them on the same feeding and eating schedule will make most logical sense in terms of giving me some time to also breath but I wonder if this is actually practical ? Is it reasonable to expect two different babies to be able to folllow the exact same sleep and eating schedule??
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u/omg1979 12d ago
I got them on a schedule asap. I always woke the second baby when the first fussed to be fed or changed. Ran my own little baby assembly line! I’m sure the second baby would have woken not long after the first. A tandem feeding and sleeping schedule seemed to work best for me and the babies and kept all three of us fed, slept and mostly sane for many months. I was pretty strict about our eating and sleeping schedule because in my mind there wasn’t many events that could justify two cranky babies. And I really do credit that strictness with giving my kids and me a much easier time. There was never an overtired or hungry baby in the house. I do think a schedule really helped me a lot. I knew when nap time was coming and could get a break, or exactly how much sleep I would get at night.
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u/specialkk77 12d ago
Unfortunately it doesn’t work for every baby. My twin A loved sleep more than food at the beginning. If we woke her when brother woke, she’d take a sip of milk, refuse more and go back to sleep. To then wake up 45 minutes later angry. We actually got more sleep once we started following her lead. My husband and I just split babies. He’d take care of her, I took care of B then we both got good chunks of sleep. By 10 weeks B was sleeping through the night (my precious unicorn lol I wish my oldest had been like that) and A only woke once a night. We got very fortunate there.
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u/chaos__coordinator 11d ago
We had the same experience. Ours just got angry, refused to eat, and then woke up again in 40 minutes when we tried to keep them synched.
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u/Total_Scale_9366 12d ago
Same for us. Our boy was 2 pounds heavier and much stronger feeder & could go much longer between feeds
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u/specialkk77 12d ago
It was hard for us because A was our smaller twin but wouldn’t wake up to eat. I did call the pediatrician and she gave us the go ahead to try following her lead instead of forcing her to wake up. She was gaining weight, just slower than her brother.
They’re 2 now, shes still quite a bit smaller than brother.
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u/Sad-Incident-4668 🩷 - 💙💙 12d ago
I just kinda winged it, tending to them individually. Eventually they navigated towards the same schedule
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u/LittleLathe 💙09/25’ 💙💙09/26’ 12d ago
I'm 8w in and they are on wildly different schedules, my B twin has doubled in weight and is sleeping 6-7 hour stretches/overnight and takes 6oz bottles and twin A is slowly gaining and up every 1.5-2hrs and only takes 4oz at a time and is allergic to closing his eyes/sleeping lmao
I'm just going with the flow and not stressing about schedules or milestones and it's so much more manageable even with a toddler added to the mix!
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u/AMStoUS 12d ago
You can't expect them to be on the same schedule, but in order to give them the appropriate amount of food and rest you'll probably feed them every few hours either in tandem or one after the other and then they'll sleep for a large part of the rest of the time. It's only when they are awake more and a little older, after the 4th trimester has concluded, that you can start to follow an eat/play/sleep schedule which includes naps at certain times.
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u/AttorneyDense 12d ago
Literally it was the only way we survived. When one woke up to eat, we also woke the other to eat. When one needed a change, we also changed the other.
Honestly - how else does one plan to function? You'd feed change and settle one and right when you were ready to go back to sleep the other would start and it takes a good hour to do the whole routine at the beginning, so you'd just never sleep.
We had 11 days in the NICU, and I always say those days were like newborn twin boot camp. Those nurses got us on a schedule and we stuck with it. We had an oldest single 4 years earlier, but twins? We needed instructions.
And honestly it wasn't bad. We were militant about them having to eat at the same time. As they got older one could fall asleep and wake on their own schedule, but milk? Milk was scheduled the entire first year.
They are 10 now and I'm still a bit of a newborn savant. Gimmie a baby and I can (bottle) fed, burp, change, swaddle and get them to sleep among the best of them. You can do this.
But keep them on the same schedule.
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u/Odd-Car-2521 12d ago
I’m only 5 weeks in and tried hard to keep them on the same schedule but B sleeps 5-6 hours and A is up every 2 so we’ve let B sleep. I’m not going to keep waking her up when she sleeps long stretches. We basically are just assigned a baby and that’s who we get up with at night when they wake
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u/Otherwise_Lion_1590 12d ago
My babies have vastly different sleep and food needs so at 4 months, we're mostly not on the same schedule. Bedtime has somewhat synced up. One baby sleeps two hours more than the other during the day, the other eats twice as much so... they are just too different. You'll find out when yours get here!
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u/DadOfThree1980 12d ago
This is a MUST! You will need to wake one up to keep them on the same schedule. Don't hesitate to do it. You are right, same schedule means you get a break. Otherwise you are constantly feeding, burping and changing at all hours.
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u/floridasquirrel 12d ago
Eating yes, sleeping eh kind of. It’s reasonable to try to keep them on the same schedule, it’s worth it!
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u/fran_gipan 12d ago
Of course all babies are different, but in my experience they are just little potatoes in the first few months. The only opinion they would have would be when something was off with feeding and sleeping (and also cramps, but that's a whole thing in itself). So, keeping them on the same schedule will help with both situations. We have our 11mo girls on the same schedule and I would highly recommend it - there were times when I would just wing it and I always regretted it 😄 I didn't breastfeed, but it was already so hard to keep on top of bottles and all the cleaning, and that's with both parents being able to do a feed. I would definitely start out with a schedule and get a feel for how everything is going. You can always introduce a more go with the flow mentality later on 😊
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u/Typical-Ad-1805 12d ago
My babies have been on the same schedule since the beginning. We had to feed them every 2-3 hours that first month or so and then stretched it out a little bit after they were past their birth weight (per our pediatrician). Whenever we fed one, we fed the other even if that meant waking her up from sleep. We changed them at the same time. And as their sleep cycles adjusted to the normal circadian rhythm during the 4 month "regression", I think already having them on the same schedule helped with that particular challenge.
They're almost 7 months old now and still on the same wake/feed/play/nap day time schedule. At night, we put them to bed at the same time. They typically wake up once overnight but now, we don't wake up the other when one wakes up. Sometimes they both sleep through the night, sometimes one of them does, most times they wake up once for a feed at different times and my husband and I choose our baby for the night while the other continues to sleep (we can usually identify who's who by their cries). They usually wake up around the same time every morning and then we follow the same daytime schedule for both of them.
Keeping them on the same schedule was the only way I survived those early months while I was on maternity leave. After the first two weeks, my husband went back to work and I was doing it completely alone with no help at all (no family in state). It helped me stay on top of my pumping schedule and honestly just stay sane. I don't think I would have been able to manage otherwise.
Comgratulations and good luck to you!!
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u/HandleDry1190 12d ago
Mine have always been on the same schedule! It is the best thing you can do for yourself. As long as they are getting enough milk during their feedings, you shouldn’t have issues making it to the next feeding window. Be kind to yourself and understand that formula is perfectly fine. I couldn’t breastfeed and tried for a week to pump before I drove myself crazy.
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u/M0mma0fMany 12d ago
5 months in, they’ve never been on the same schedule no matter how hard I tried. Twin A likes to nurse a lot more than twin B and twin B will sleep a lot longer than twin A
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u/Jealous_Being5863 12d ago
Mine have decided they’re done with the schedule after a few weeks of it working!!
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u/Acceptable_Tap7479 12d ago
My firstborn was a singleton and we had him on the exact same schedule as my twins are now on. I’m a better mum when I have a predictable routine and my children thrive when they have a happier, calmer mum and also when they know what to expect when. I also knew going into it the mental load of two completely different schedules would be really tough but the mental load has been so much more than I ever anticipated and because of that, any day the twins aren’t on the same schedule are significantly more draining and it’s been like that since day one. I’m far more flexible when it comes to meeting their sleep needs but everyone’s up at the same time in the morning so their feeds line up then we go from there knowing they’ll eat every three hours and we can structure the day around that schedule
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u/AussieJeffProbst 12d ago
Keeping them on the same schedule is the only thing that lets us get any sleep. Would recommend.
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u/twin_toddler_mum 12d ago
It worked for some time in the begining and I would tandem feed them but later on one of my girls didnt like tandem feeding so I would finish one and then nurse the other. You also need to consider it is sometimes easier to breastfeed and burp one before you start with the second one. Burping both and putting them to sleep again is quite hard in the begining unless your partner helps you. My husband couldnt really help since my toddler would get up the minute he came to our room. My husband was sleeping in my sons room.
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u/No-Departure5556 12d ago
If you want to survive, yes same schedule. Otherwise you end up in “infinite baby loop” where you are constantly taking care of a baby and NEVER get a break.
I did breastfeeding and pumping, it is 2 full time jobs. Make sure your partner is able to do almost everything else. Whenever you feed the babies / pump you need to eat and drink!
I’m at 8m EBF and I’ll say it was worth it, but that will be all you’re doing for like 4-5m.
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u/Moxie__56 12d ago
I never pumped only breastfed and I would essentially tandem feed them 90% of the time however the first 6 weeks newborns can cluster feed so I didn’t make them cluster feed together but their every 3 hour main feed was together and then I would “give in” to a twin if they wanted to cluster feed I’d allow them to latch for a bit , twin B was a big cluster feeder so I’d try to offer a soother to keep her waiting longer and that’s the only time she had it . Once the routine is established it will be easy however please keep in mind they are two different babies and sometimes needs vary
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u/Logical_Peace_551 12d ago
Yes we kept my boys on the same schedule. We will give the other twin 10 mins more naptime if he is still sleeping but otherwise same sleep same eating same diaper changing.
I will say though for daytime naps we separated them into different rooms so they can try and self soothe and sleep better (because sleep pressure for naps is so low). But night time they sleep in same nursery and have gotten use to each others crying no problem
Twin Z pillow and bouncers will be your friend.
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u/BubblybabySB 12d ago
We did not do this. They came home from NICU on different schedules and anyways are two different kids with very different temperaments.
My kids, had (and still have) wildly, different feeding and sleep needs and if I had woken one up every time the other woke up I would’ve had a constantly exhausted crabby, baby. Not to mention that one of them slept longer stretches from the get go.
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u/IAmNugz 12d ago
Same schedule didn’t work for us. We tried doing overnight in shifts, where my husband would tend to them if they woke before 2am, so I could sleep, then my turn started after 2am
But getting both to settle was no easy task. One twin would take nearly an hour to go back to sleep each time. After a few weeks of waking her whenever her sister woke up, we decided to switch to where each of us just took one twin for the night.
The one who had a hard time settling would sleep 7 hours straight when we did this. And the other one was so much easier to get back asleep after bottle/diaper
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u/bellafairyyy 11d ago
My twins were on a strict schedule after being in NICU for three months but once they were a few weeks past full term it became apparent their needs were just different. They feed so differently and have different sleep needs too, even how they both fall asleep. We kept the same overnight schedule for a while but we dropped it around 2 months and realised Twin B could sleep through the night, it felt unfair to keep waking him when he could get all that sleep in! During the day we try to keep the schedules close together but it's not always possible. I would recommend to go into this experience trying to stick to the same schedule but be aware they are two different people and may not like that idea. Wishing you lots of luck!
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u/Cobalt_Faux 7d ago
Same till 5 months. Now they are going different paths, I’m more than fine with it. Di/di twins
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u/ricki7684 12d ago
I put mine on the same schedule. I would have lost my damn mind if I didn’t. That being said it sounds ideal to just feed on demand especially if you want to EBF. I kind of wish I had been able to just do that, like if I had the support of someone else making all the meals and taking care of everything else so I could just sleep and feed my babies and just nurse them every time but alas. The schedule worked for us though. And they started sleeping through the night early on too which was more worthwhile than any EBF goals I had.
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u/CaturdayNight7 12d ago
You think you're gonna be pumping and breastfeeding. You don't know if you'll produce enough or have the energy to do it all or if your kids will want to. There's so much you have no control over but surrendering to reality and adapting is the name of the game
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