Dream Feeding

[MrsRV]

Our LO is 2 months old and is an angel. Currently, routine is, last bottle at 9, up to bed at 9 in her Moses, she then goes through til 4/5ish, another bottle then up at 7/8ish.

Thinking of putting her up at 9 on her own (with monitor) so we can have an hour to ourselves in front of telly although bit apprehensive.

When and how do u dream feed? I'm thinking at 10ish when we plan to go to bed? And just pick her up in her sleep and put her straight back down without changing her nappy? Will this help her to go to 6/7 am?

Sorry... Currently, last bottle at 8 not 9.

i did the dream feed at 10.30ish by agonisingly leaning over the edge of the cot, gently proping her head up in the crook of my arm and fed her while she was still fairly flat which stopped her waking up.
i only changed her nappy if she had a poo or woke up.

she still needed a middle of the night bottle at that age though, but i kept all the bottle making stuff in my room so i didn't have to trek off to the kitchen to make one up.

DS (DC2) now 11w. Sod the 'dream' feed, I wake him fully otherwise he falls asleep on the job and wakes again 90mins later. We turn on the lights, change his nappy, turn on the musical mobile on the changing table...

We (I!) do the feed when I go to bed, 11ish. If I don't do it, he wakes between 11.30 and 1am anyway (and my boobs explode). He usually goes through till about 4.30 - this morning was 5.45 . Since he feeds every 2hrs during the day still (and is 91st centile), this is a result for us.

Btw we put him to bed 7.30ish, same as DD. He gets a feed 5.30ish when she has tea and another 7ish when she has bedtime story, so he's tanked up (but winded) before bed and doesn't disturb our dinner .

Oh, and through the night actually means midnight to 5am. Doubt very much a 2mo can go 9pm to 7am without feeding, that's 10hrs. There's always the exception but generally the best you can hope for is around 6hrs unbroken - point of dream feed is to manipulate those 6hrs to suit you (ie 11.30 - 5.30 rather than 7.30 - 1.30!).

By the sound of it we're doing pretty well and no real need for a dream feed then!!

I dream-fed from when DS was a couple of months old until he was properly sleeping through - till between 6-7am (at 6 months!). I used to express at around 10pm and then DH would give him a bottle when we went to bed. That saw him through probably till 4am-ish. We didn't use to wake him up for the dream-feed though - DH would pick him up out of crib and feed him but pretty much in the dark, and we would never change his nappy at that time (I did use to for the middle-of-the-night feed though!)

At 8 weeks you could start putting your little one to bed earlier than 9pm to give you and your partner even more time together in the evening....move it forward an hour?

That all sounds really good! You're doing well to get that much sleep!

However, we found that as the weeks progressed our DD (now 4mo) wanted to go to sleep a little earlier so we introduced the dream feed. It took a week or so for her to really get the hang of it, so if you do try it, give it a while before writing it off. If it helps, our routine since about 8w has been...

6pm - quick 15 min nap to 'take the edge off'
7pm - half a bottle
7.15 or 7.30 - bath time
7.45 - other half of bottle in bedroom, straight to bed
10.30/11 (depending on when we want to go to bed!) - dream feed

She then generally goes through until 5 or 6 in the morning - well, we've just started on Hungry Baby milk to help her get through, as she was waking up and not really wanting any more oz throughout the day but also being grumpier as she hasn't had the long sleep she was used to.