With most pairs the hen does all the baby care during the night and the cock does nothing, except maybe standing guard outside the nest. If he wants to stay in the big cage with the older babies that's OK. Sometimes it seems like the cock doesn't want to be close to the nest at night, and I can see how this makes sense. If he isn't near the nest, a predator won't find the nest by coming close to him.

Waffles usually aren't a high-nutrition food unless it's some kind of special "health food" waffle. It's better not to give ordinary waffles. A small amount of the multigrain or sweet potato tortilla chips might be good. Breeding birds need more sodium and the chips could help fill this need.

It's not likely that they will eat only millet and seeds. If you think they're eating too much seed you can provide less of it and lots of the other more desirable foods. But you'll need to watch carefully to be sure they're feeding the chicks properly. Sometimes parent birds won't feed the chicks if they don't have the kind of food they want.

There's no need for long nights at this point, so if you make the nights shorter the hen will be able to take a break sooner. If it's not practical to do this she can manage a 14 hour shift, but it will be less stressful for her if she doesn't have to wait that long.

Would she have enough regurgitated food to feed all the chicks maybe every 2 hours during a whole night? The hen goes to the nest at about 8pm or so, means she ate last time at 7.30pm, then she won't have any food or drink til the morning, which is at least 8am in my house (I will make it earlier because of the chicks). She has food and water in the cage but she never leaves the box.
How long can they store the food they ate?

I don't actually know how much food the adults can store and how long they can hold it. If it makes you feel more confident you can have the male sleep in the breeding cage and leave a dim night light on so the adults can see well enough to get some food and feed it to the babies if they need to. If all the eggs hatch there will be a LOT of babies to feed, but as the babies get older they won't need to be fed as often. You might need to do some assist feeding if there are so many babies that the parents can't take care of them all.

thanks. The chick is doing fine - yellow fluffy one, she seems larger today but still tiny. I finally managed to remove half of her shell, didn't see another one, probably dad was sitting on it. He attacks when I put my hand in.

He went straight to eating bread first thing in the morning, and not just the seed part of the crust but actually the soft part, and he ate a lot of it! He ate some chips too, I didn't see him eating any seeds. Mom ate some thawed peas and corn that she never did before!!! I saw her eating ZuPreem natural pellets (I have them as a replacement for colored Fruit Blend). I really should start to serve pellets separately from the seeds (I used to put pellets on top of the seeds in the bowl)

A problem is that I don't know if putting cock in the cage with her at night won't cause a problem. In the past, with the first clutch, they had a battle when it was time to switch shifts - everyone was thinking chicks were HIS/HER OWN chicks. Or maybe the battle was about eggs, I can't remember. But then it changed to the proper order. So far, they act like good parents, except for a few things that were due to lack of experience.
I wonder how soon the other eggs going to hatch. I hope not all 8 will hatch. I don't want to assist feeding tiny chicks. But if I have to, I have to.

Last time I had a lot of stress about so-called soft food (for picky eaters) because people even told me "they won't make it eating like they did". I offered cooked oatmeal, noodles, cooked rice, baked sweet potato, boiled egg, corn and peas, moistened pellets and so on, and so on..... none if this list was accepted. They basically made it thru eating bread, waffles, green veggies, and hen ate some pellets.

DO you think I should combine everybody in the new large cage? I probably wouldn't mount the nestbox up above at this time using screws, having somebody alive inside. But how about transferring nest box to the floor of the new cage? Would parents accept the change?

the second chick is born and for some reasons both parents were NOT in the box when I looked in and saw him born! I don't know why.... Cuddles was playing on the floor, and Trillie... got possibly tired? He was the one on duty before this moment... I put Cuddles in, and she looked surprised but she accepted it
Both chicks were moving on top of the eggs but there were silent...
I am just concerned that I need to leave home from time to time, so I won't monitor how well they babysit.

If there are so many babies that you need to assist feed, you can feed the older chicks so they won't be very hungry and the parents can concentrate on feeding the smaller ones.

If both parents are familiar with the bigger cage you can probably move the nest into it successfully. My nestboxes are designed to hang on the outside of the cage, and I attach the nestbox to one of the high side doors. Cockatiels usually prefer a high nest over a low one so they might like this arrangement better than the one they have now. The older babies might help take care of the new chicks but don't expect them to do too much of the work. They're too young and immature to be very helpful.

It sounds like your birds are doing better this time! Cockatiels are often better parents the second time around because they learned a lot from the first clutch.

Good quality whole grain bread is an excellent baby food and my parent birds feed a lot of it to their chicks. They need other nutritious foods to supply nutrients that aren't in the bread, but eating pellets will go a long way toward supplying that need.

Strange - I was out from 3 to 6 and when I came home, both parents were in the box. Then Trillie left at about 8, briefly ate some seeds (no bread this time) and I put everybody to sleep around 9. Cuddles never came out to eat before setting for the night, which means she ate last time between 3 and 6. I left her some pellets and greens in the cage. But still, I will wake them up at 7, I think. I wonder why she didn't get out to eat before night. Usually she was getting into the box at 8, after she ate. I hope she is not starving the chicks. Would they cry if hungry and not fed?

We already have 3 chicks.

I let the cock out at 7.15 and he flew straight to the kitchen. I didn't see that he did, I thought all of them still sitting in the large cage in the living room. Then I heard somebody's demanding PIP next to me. I was busy getting food out. Then he made another PIP and landed on the table. Finally I saw him, demanding for bread. He could enjoy it alone, without crowd of chicks competing for bread.

I gave them some oatmeal today and left to take daughter to school. When I came back, several birds were occupying the bowl, trying oatmeal. Also, they were more interested in the sprouts today, Bella (one of the chicks) ws eating them for a long time. Now she has wet seeds all around her beak.

You can mix handfeeding formula into the oatmeal if you like, or just offer some plain handfeeding formula in a bowl. This is a good way to get formula into the babies without handfeeding them yourself.