7 month old still has dream feed and wakes at 5am

[RuthT]

Okay I am sure I should know what to do here but I need some seen it and this worked advise.

Am breastfeeding except the dream feed where he takes 7 floz of formula and the devil still wakes at 5am. He is weaned and there are no major development things going on (has had four teeth through but they seemed not to worry him.

As he has teeth and is biting at each feed I am considering stopping.

Any advise on how to stop dream feed and eliminate 5am waking welcome.

what time is he going to sleep and have you tried putting him down in the cot an hour later? it might just be habit, though he is still quite small. a friend of mine gave her DD water for a couple of nights when she woke up in the early hours of the morning. she put on a bit of a show, but once she realised there was no milk, she didn't bother waking up again as for biting, when my DD does that, i immediately take her off and leave it for a minute before i put her on the breast again. hope that helps!

can we swap, mine wakes nearly ever hour

Hi RuthT
What time do you put him to bed?
Try one thing at a time - drop the dream feed. If it's a dream feed does that mean he doesn't wake up crying for it? If he does wake up crying for it, then pop your head around the door to see if he's ok (not face down or leg caught in cot bars etc!) and then just be brave and leave him. Same goes for 5am wake up. Just leave him for a few mins and you will see he WILL eventually go back to bed!
DS2 is 9 months now and I never thought we'd get to this stage, where he sleeps through til 7am. At 7 months there were still funny things going on from time to time, but I took a while to just grit my teeth and leave him.
You can do it! I think that it is habit at this age actually, even though he's quite small. He might just LOVE breastfeeding, and who can blame him!
Good luck!

Well he sometimes wakes for a feed at 10ish but he is never fully awake.

Maybe tonight we leave him to see if he will sleep through? I just worry he will wake even earlier!

At 5am I don't feed him or take him out of his cot I just go in, stick him on his side and tell him it's night time and to go to sleep and generally he goes off again

Help!

My DD is on 3 meals a day, plus snacks - I dont believe that food makes a difference. When she wasnt eating the other week and just on milk she slept thru. Actually when she was first weaned she was even more unsettled and woke even more.

With regard to biting, there's some info here that may help you www.kellymom.com/bf/older-baby/biting.html

(Mine is 8 months, still has a dreamfeed around 10.30pm and wakes around 2am for a BF and a cuddle.)

wake to sleep

wake them an hour before their usual wake up

if you search the archives you will find threasds on it

do you get him out of his cot when he wakes at 5am? if he's habit waking you can try to train him out of it by not getting him out of his cot until 6am. babysleepanswers.com is really good at giving examples of how to do this (eg, controlled crying, pick up put down, etc)

obviously, if he's hungry and needs feeding at 5am then that won't work. but if he doesnt need feeding until later its got to be habit waking i would think.

good luck!

I dropped the dream feed at about five/ six months with dd2 and it was the best thing I ever did. She learned to start sleeping for long stretches - I think the dream feed just disturbed her, so she would wake at 2am, 3am etc etc.

I put her to bed at 7pm and just left her. First night she went through to about 2ish. Fair enough, I was prepared that might happen. Second night she went through to 4am ish. Within a week, she'd slept 12 hours for the first time ever. Within a few weeks she was doing that more often than not.

Agree with PuppyMonkey. My DS used to wake aonce in the night and then for good at about 5.30am and stopped as soon as I stopped the dream feed. He slept from 7 to 7 on the very first night without it. I think it was just breaking his sleep cycles.

That is interesting - think I may try just dropping it for a week and see if it works.

One friend also suggested not letting him sleep in the morning (as he was catching up on being awake so early), putting him to bed at lunch a bit earlier and splitting his lunch. Just to do this for a few days until it sorted his sleep and then going back to normal sleep & feed times.

The stopping dream feed does seem a bit more simple so may just give it a go

I dropped the dream feed and he woke at 5am. I suppose that is an improvement!

Someone also suggested that I give an additional meal - porridge as a supper just before bedtime.

We'll see what happens tonight.

HI RuthT
how are you getting on?? I'm having the same problem with my DD who is 6 months.. She is totally BF and I am weaning at the moment so she is having 3 meals a day but not introduced protein yet.

have been waking her at 10am for a dream feed - she used to go through till 5am on that but now she's started waking about 3am - if i feed her she goes back to sleep till 7am but if i leave her she gradually gets worked up and starts crying adn then we're all awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night and knackered.

Am thinking about dropping the dream feed as it dosent seem to be making a difference and at least i can get to bed earlier - have you had any success?

There can be developmental and/or growth spurt sleep regressions around 6 and 8 months. Ask Moxie maps these out. Lovemyrose, could be something like this with your DD. If she's growth spurting, then maybe she needs the extra feed.

What does she do if she's awake? Just cry or chat and play? Has she recently started crawling/sitting/rolling? Apparently they can wake when they are just about to master a skill or have just mastered a skill. Something about their brains working it all out with their bodies. Add teething in and it's all over. How nice that it happens in the night!