Weaning/weight loss question

Hello! My name is Jessica and I am a newbie 🙂

A month ago a homeless man walked into the clinic I work at and pulled out two newborn kittens from his coat pockets and handed them over to us. He said he saw their mother get hit by a car, and when he went to her nest he found three babies. Unfortunately it had snowed that night and one of them was already dead, but the other two were ok.

I offered to take them home and raise them, I have fostered over 40 cats and kittens for a local cat rescue in town previously (but never newborns without a mom!!). They have been doing very well and will be 5 weeks old on Tuesday. I have my own personal zoo at home (husband included in that ;)) and work full time as a CVT at my clinic, so I was very excited to begin the weaning process (more sleep for me!!).

I started by mixing in wet food with their KMR last week. They continued to gain weight nicely until about 2 days ago when I switched them over to only wet food. They were around 1 lb 6 oz but have both lost around 2 ounces. I caved in and had to go out and buy more KMR today (of course work is closed and I can’t get the good discount on it!). They both refused to drink the KMR/wet food mixture out of a syringe or bottle as before. They get too frantic and bite at it and claw me. I wound up having to put it in their dish and let them eat it as they have been just normal wet food. Now that I have the KMR, I plan on mixing it with their wet food for a few more weeks so they will hopefully gain more weight.

Sorry for the long post, it has been a crazy ride these past few weeks but seeing them hop and play has been worth it! My questions for the more experienced kitten raisers out there are: is it normal to see a slight decrease in weight gain or even slight weight loss during weaning time? also, what is a reasonable feeding schedule to keep these little ones on during weaning time? They have free access to Royal Canin BabyCat kibble in their playpen where they spend the night, I offer wet food every 3 hours or so when I am home and not working, except for when I sleep at night (every 6 hours) and when I am at work they have to go every 4-6 hours between feedings.

Thanks guys! I will try to post pics of the babies 🙂