do you dream feed? Does it help with the night sleep patterns?

[sleepdodger]

After many months of non sleep we have been making progress with DS, now 6mth who for the last month has finally conceeded that sleeping in an evening is a good idea! We are now getting him down at 730pm, and he goes anywhere from 3-5 hours, though the 5 hours is only in the last few days
He is teething terribly, and after this initially great start to the night the sleep pattern is very random. On a good night we might have another couple of 3 hour stretches, more likely we might get a 2/2/2 or 2/2/1, he sometimes feeds for 30 mins and other times 10 mins. I have tried a tough love approach and sending in DH (I bf at night so 'smell!' tempting...) but I think because of the teeth issue is has been comfort as much as necessity

Friends 'dream feed' and reckon it helps them get a good stint at sleep, so I wondered what the mn concensus was.
My concern is that if, after just months of persuading him to sleep, I wake him to feed him we might actually go backwards

Anyone any thoughts good or bad. FWIW I will probably try this week, but interested to know your experiences

BTW he was ebf to 4mth, and now has 2 bottles a day, 1 lunch and 1 pre bed, rest bf still
thanks

[graciem]

hi my experience with dream feeding wasnt good. my 2 became reliant on that night feed so never slept better in the long term. i hated it and it is awful but a little bit of tough love does work. my hubby taking over 1 of my sons wakes actaully worked, my son just started sleeping for 6 hrs wakin for a bit of a comfort feed and then slept another 6hrs. your baby wont need milk every 2 hrs now he is probably comfort sucking. hope this helps. x

[lilham]

A dreamfeed is done in their sleep, so you don't wake them to feed. You simply take a sleeping baby out of the cot and put a bottle or boob in his mouth. I don't understand how it works but my DD can latch on without opening her eyes.

[Ljll]

I dream feed my 3 month old DS and he has been sleeping through to 7am for the last 6 weeks. I put him down at 7.30pm and dreamfeed at 11pm. As previous post he is asleep during the feed, I just put my boob near his mouth and off he goes whilst sleeping. It did take a week to get it sorted but now he takes it straight away and has a good feed. I think it is great as I don't need to get up before 7am. Night sleep is all sorted but day sleeps are a different matter!!

[sleepdodger]

hmmm thanks all, I did realise it was a sleep feed, but not sure how sucessfully I'll get him out of the cot without waking. Maybe I'll try my husband going in for a bit instead of me