Dream feed

[slightlyconfused85]

Ds is 8 weeks and is keen for an early bedtime of around 6.30pm. He therefore has last feed of the day 6 or 6.15. When he does down at this time he rarely wakes until 1 or 2 am and then again at 5ish. Does anyone have experience of a similar pattern and did you try a dream feed? My concern is ill feed him in his sleep at 10ish then he will wake at 2 and 5 anyway and just end up with food he's not asked for. Any experiences?

[FifiFerusha]

Hi,

My DS is 8 weeks and I tried a dream feed last night with not much success. He usually goes to bed 8ish and wakes up at 2 or 3 and then sleeps until 5 or 6. Last night I gave him an expressed bottle at 11 30 but by the end end he had woken up fully and it took me ages to get him back to sleep. He then awoke nearly every hour and a half until morning. Not sure if I disrupted his natural cycle or if he is too young for a dream feed. Saying that I dream fed my daughter at 3 months with half expressed milk and half formula and this worked a treat. Just give it a go and what happens. Every baby is different. While I am here, how does your 8 wk old get to sleep. Mine is a real sleep fighter and spend hours rocking him. Don't want to start bed habits ahhhh.

[Takingabreak]

Hi yes we tried dream feeding at midnight but with no sucess, he still woke at the same time for his feed which was 2am. The problem was that he wouldn't take the bottle because he was so tired and even a nappy change didn't wake him! We only managed to get 1oz down him, we went to bed and was woke an hour later. Ds1 ate at 6pm, 10pm,2am and 4am till he was about 6 weeks old then dropped the 10pm one. All we did was fill him up in the day. Ds1 is 19 weeks old now and I still feed him every 3 hours because if I didn't I really don't think he'd sleep through, he drinks on average 30oz in the day since 16wk old.

My SIL tried dream feeding and it took about 4 nights for her LO to get used to it but it worked for them and he didn't wake till 4ish for the night feed. They stopped it when he was 15 weeks old and he never missed it or woke up for it, they are lucky, they've had two great sleepers.

Let me know what you decide, good luck and if you really want to try it expect a few crap nights and if it doesn't work then wait till their a bit older xx

[FATEdestiny]

I have four children.

Two DC had dreamfeeds religiously and needed them when young. One DC never had or needed a dreamfeed (12 hour sleeper) and one would wake for a single night feed at around 2am regardless of dreamfeed or not, so I never bothered.

So all children are different.

Also remember that night feeds (dream feeds or other) are not set in stone and are not linear. Maybe now your DS doesn't want a dreamfeed. Maybe in a month or two he will and you might start offering one. Maybe after a few weeks he'll stop wanting one but then further on down the line might appreciate a dreamfeed again.

Just go with he flow and follow babys lead rather than feeling you have to make a choice one way or the other.

[Thurlow]

IME, you need to give dream feeds some time to bed down. The first week we did it with similar aged DD she still kept waking, but after a week or so she stopped, and we did a feed at 10.30ish and then she slept until 3-4am.