Expert: Susan M. Heim - 5/21/2009

Question
Being new parents, my wife picked up and read quite a few parenting books, and one mentioned "topping off" around 9 or 10 at night.  Since I have been home on paternity leave, I have jumped into a number of the books as well.
My question is this:  Everything I have read leads me to believe that waking them up to feed at 9:30 is just interrupting their overnight sleep and we may be doing more harm than good.
the twins are 4 months old and were delivered about 2 weeks early.  Our evening schedule has them getting baths, eating, and going to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 PM.  We then wake them for a 9:30 feeding.  they are now regularly waking at 2:30 (they actually were sleeping through for the first 2 weeks of the last month), and are starting to wake earlier and earlier in the mornings (we were getting up close to 7, now it is more like 5:30).

Answer
Hi Neil,
I've always been guided by the principle of "Don't wake sleeping twins!" If one's awake and you want to try to get them both on the same schedule, then maybe... But to wake them both to feed them at 9:30? I wouldn't do it. They might be right in the middle of a good deep sleep, and they're being disturbed. Let them sleep and see how it goes. They're young, so you're still most likely going to have a middle-of-the-night feeding, but let their bodies dictate when that's going to happen and try to coordinate that. But I wouldn't wake them at 9:30.

Warm wishes,
Susan Heim
www.twinstalk.com