Dreamfeeding, night feeds etc, a bit confused!

[Mandraki]

It’s probably too early to be thinking of her sleeping through and to be honest she is a good sleeper so I shouldn’t be worried. My girl is 6 weeks and has a feed at 12.30am, 3.30am and wakes around 7am for the day. This is not bad as she wakes, feeds and then straight back to sleep. However I keep reading about dream feeds and how they can help them sleep longer at night. I’d like her to sleep longer between feeds, even if not just yet (I’m aware she is still tiny and physically can’t go too long without a feed). Is it just a case of giving a bottle to a sleeping baby? Because once she’s asleep she is zonked until she’s ready! She seems to snack between 5-7pm on the same bottle and then will take a 5oz bottle around 8pm and then night feeds tend to be around 3oz as she falls asleep before she can finish more (and won’t be woken). Day time feeds (8,12 and 3ish) are usually between 3-5oz.

I feel like I’m waffling here but can anyone tell me about dream feeds or what I can be doing to increase her sleeps between feeds or get her to finish a bottle at night maybe? Though I think if she falls asleep she must have had enough?

[Mandraki]

Bump

[MrsBriteSide]

I breastfed DD so a bit different to your situation but I did try dream feeding a few times in the early weeks. I'd try to put her on the boob when I went to bed at about 10pm. Sometimes she'd latch and feed while still half asleep, other times there was no waking her! When she did have a feed it didn't make any difference to her waking up later for more feeds. At 6 weeks her night time feeds were very similar to your baby's.

You could certainly try to pop a bottle in her mouth when you go to bed and see if she takes it. It might make her skip the 12.30am feed so you'd get a longer chunk of sleep. Then again it might not!

She will eventually drop the feeds that she doesn't need though. It's not always about feeding anyway, it's also about comfort.

[FATEdestiny]

Is it just a case of giving a bottle to a sleeping baby?

No, you wake baby up and keep him awake to take as much of The feed as possible. The idea is to make a night feed convenient for you (ie before you go to sleep) so you get more time sleeping!

For example if you feed at 8pm then you (or DH) go to bed at 11pm, you wake baby up and feed then. It hopefully replaces the middle of the night feed, or at least one of them.