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Infant feeding

Can I/should I attempt to alter the pattern of night bottle feeds?

6 replies

DangerMousey · 28/01/2013 12:07

DS1 is 7 weeks old and formula fed. During the day he takes a bottle about every 3 hours, and is fed on demand. For the last couple of weeks we have introduced a loose 'bedtime' routine (bath, bottle, cuddle, bed in moses basket in bedroom) just before the bottle which he tends to have at around 8pm.

He usually (touch wood!) goes off to sleep very easily after this 8pm ish bottle, on his own, which is nice cos DH and I then get to have a bit of an evening - time for a quick bath before bed etc etc.

Since we introduced this bedtime routine he has stopped waking up for a bottle at 11pm/midnight ish and now seems to normally go through until about 3.30am/4am until his next feed. He does usually wake up and have a bit of a grizzle at about 2am but if we put his dummy in, he goes back down for another 90 mins or so.

After his 4am ish night feed however, he is very unsettled, grizzling off and on, and I am up and down continually from then until 7am, when he wants his breakfast bottle.

SO.....my question is: it's bloody great that he's happy to go almost 8 hours without a bottle (he is thriving and putting on loads of weight btw), but obviously I would rather they were a more sociable 8 hours!! Like 11pm-7am for example!

Should I try and force the issue and manipulate when he feeds in some way?? (and how on earth would i do this? I am not going to let him cry when he is obviously hungry)....or should I just ride it out and hope that sooner or later he also drops this 3-4am night feed? Or at least settles back nicely after it?

Any thoughts/experiences appreciated

OP posts:
brettgirl2 · 28/01/2013 22:17

The only thing it might be worth trying is feeding when he wakes up at 2? Then maybe he'll go off again and sleep longer?

I never got on with dream feeding they woke anyway. Dd2 drove us to distraction, she always had one night feed somewhere between 12 and 4 Hmm

mrswishywashy · 29/01/2013 07:05

I wouldn't reintroduce the dream feed what will most likely happen is he won't settle and still be awake 2am anyway.

I would instead feed him when he first wakes and then that may see him through until morning.

ellangirl · 29/01/2013 15:58

I disagree, I would reintroducing a dream feed at 11pm ish. It doesn't work for all babies, but it did for us- DS never woke up properly when we got him up for a dream feed. Your DS is only little though, so it might be too much to expect him to always go 8 hours without feeding just yet.

preggersshock · 29/01/2013 16:56

I would also do an 11pm dream feed, you'll top him up nicely setting him up for a nice 8 hour. I do this with my little girl & (touch wood), I can count one one hand how many times she's woken in the night since a few weeks old & she's now 14 weeks Grin

McBaby · 29/01/2013 17:31

My baby is EBF but had the same pattern Dream feed make no difference still woke at 4am! But now further down the line goes straight through!

shouldIbecrossaboutthis · 29/01/2013 23:48

4am is a light sleep phase for most babies apparently. So once they wake at this time it's harder to get them to go off from my experience and what I have read.

My DS only ever woke between 4am and 5am for a feed even when he was brand new so maybe I'm just lucky in that he likes his sleep. It might be coincidence but he started to sleep 12 hours from 6 weeks old which is when I started to do a dream feed between 10.30-11.30pm.

My DS is nearly 4 months now and the trickest time for use was always 7-10pm when he didn't always go to sleep so that might also be a reason why he slept 12ish hours from 6 weeks, it was more like 10pm-10am then!

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