another dreamfeeds question! Please help me MNetters!

[nadssss]

hello, i really hope you can help: I have a lovely little 9 week old who is generally pretty content. She had a fairly standard (i think?) night time routine for a BF baby: put down at about 6.30, up for a feed at 12am and 3am and then rather hard to settle after that and we often get up at 5/6am. Not really too horrific.

The last two nights I have tried a dreamfeed at 10pm (idea being that she sleeps until say 3 and I get more than 2 hours sleep after the feed).

The dreamfeed itself has worked well - she slurps away for 15/20 mins in her sleep.

However she wakes at 1.30am and 4.30am so the planned 3am wake hasn't really worked.

My question is: do you think i should persevere? Should i give water at 1.30am instead? Although she does seem hungry then...

Is 2 days far too short a time to judge the success or otherwise of the dreamfeed?

Any thoughts v gratefully received as I pursue the dream of a four hour chunk of sleep!

THANK YOU

[Chellesgirl]

'Dream feeds work for us. We've been in a routine for about a week now and its definitely saving me getting up twice during the night. Our lo is 7 weeks and is fed every 3 hours during the day (stocking up for the night-time), she has a bottle at 6pm then we bath her about 7.30pm then feed her at 8pm (this is called a tank feed as its earlier than usual), then we put her in her moses basket upstairs awake and she settles herself, then at 11pm my oh just gently picks her out of her basket and wiggles the teat of the bottle into her mouth and she takes the full bottle and never opens her eyes once, has a gentle winding and is put straight back down to sleep. We don't change her nappy unless its dirty. Then she wakes once between 3-4am for a feed then sleeps through until 7am. Prior to this routine she would wake at least twice, ie 1am and 5am, which was completely wearing me out. I normally go to bed earlier than my oh so that i can get a good few hours sleep before she wakes during the night. The trick of the dream feed is to give it them before they wake up.'

I found this on another chat site.

[fuzzylittlesheep]

nadsss I have an 8wk old and just this week have managed to get her sleeping through til about 7am from the dreamfeed at 11pm. We were dreamfeeding from the very beginning but she was always waking at least twice and often after about 5am was quite difficult to settle back down. For us what seems to have made the difference is her amount of sleep in the day. I realised that she was getting too many hours in the day so I made sure she got no more than 4-5hrs total nap time in the day and since then she has been sleeping through. Just thought I'd mention it in case her night waking pattern isn't just related to hunger.

[dinkystinky]

Hi Nadsss - and congratulations on your baby. Dream feeds take some time to work I think, as you're resetting their feeding patterns so you may want to persist with it for another week or so and then reassess. I've never dream fed my DS1 or my DS2 (now 10 weeks) as they both tended from fairly early on to sleep for longer stretches at night (though DS2 feeds every 2.5 hours during the day to get all his milk in) but my friends who did dream feed said it was easier to do the dream feed with a bottle rather than bf (as baby can be more asleep for it).

If you're up to it, pop in and say hi to the Fab Feb lot on the postnatal threads... am sure they'd love to hear from you.

[nadssss]

thanks for all your replies: so we are dreamfeeding at 10.30 and she is generally going through until 2.30 - which is not bad. hard to get her back down after that though -i never thought 6am would constitute a pretty good lie in!

hi dinky! i didn't know there was a postnatal thread - i'll check it out. how did you find the birth centre? I thought it was just incredible! i had such a great birth there and the midwives were really amazing? how is your new baby and coping with 2? am in total awe of anyone with more than one now x

[dinkystinky]

Nadsss - that sounds good re the dream feed. She'll start stretching out from 2.30 to nearer to 4 soon as she gets stronger and can fill her tummy more efficiently.

Birth centre was brilliant I thought - though my labour was only around 4 hours from waters breaking and we only got to birth centre half an hour or so before having Danny (though at least in enough time to get into the pool)... Was wondering how your birth went and am so delihted it went well. Danny is lovely - chilled (most of the time anyway) and a happy little chappy... Hope to see you on the postnatal thread.