Do you do 'dreamfeeds'?

[MrsC2010]

Just a random thought, do you all wake your LOs for dreamfeeds? We put her down around 7ish in her basket upstairs, and then we tend to have to try quite hard to wake her to feed her. Should we be doing this or should we let her sleep? I don't want to interrupt her natural pattern, but does this mean she'll wake up more times during the night or get unsettled? As much as I love my sleep I dont mind waking up to feed her, I just want to establish a good pattern long term.

She is 8 wks old by the way.

Also, is there a growth spurt around this time? She has been feeding soooo much! (Still breastfed.) Literally every hour yesterday, 4 times during the night last night (normally only wakes between 1 and 3am and then for good between 5 and 7). Sometimes she seems frustrated with it, but maybe she is just playing!

Hello MrsC - think we were/are on same pre and post natal thread.(Aug 11th for ds so just over 8 weeks!)

I used to dream feed dd, ds being a boy can't bloody multitask so won't sleep and feed and if I want him to feed he has to be awake!

Painful

but had an epiphany last night when he went from 8.30 -5am.........

AH yes! 11th Aug for us! 2 months on Monday, can't believe how quickly it's gone!

She has managed 8 till 5 before, so I was wondering whether just to leave her if she is heavily asleep. It makes sense to wake her and try to get some food into her, but she can take a long time to go down again. Last night she did actually seem to feed whilst pretty much asleep, but then she woke up at 1230, 0330, and then 5 wanting feeding...so she actually seemed more unsettled rather than less!

no i never did with either one.

MrsC, don't say that! I am not sure I can do a 2 hr stint tonight!

On a tangent - I still wake up every 2 hours to feed even though ds doesn't!

Well, I left her and she wasn't fussed. She still woke up just before 3 and then just before 6. Logic tells me the dreamfeed makes sense and she should sleep for longer cause of it, but seems not! I'm going to try leaving it out for the next few days and see if a pattern makes itself apparent.

Tis DHs turn for a lie in so we're chilling downstairs with s coffee, a cuddle and CSI.

My ds sleeps the same hours regardless of food, I think it's developmental. He'll wake up at 3 whether I leave him from 7pm or if I've feed him at 11pm.

I introduced a dreamfeed for BF DD at about 6 weeks as she had v slow weight gain. My nice HV suggested it and I was initially aghast as she had been sleeping 7 till 4am and I couldn't believe you would want to wake a sleeping baby.

Decided to try as I wanted to keep BF but needed to sort her weight and it worked well. It probably took 30-40 mins though as she didn't exactly stay asleep, not fully awake but it would take a little while to get her fully asleep again. We were all asleep by 11pm though and she'd wake again at 4. She put on more weight from then and we didn't look back.

But as PPs have said - there were definitely times (growth spurts, sleep regression etc) when she'd wake several times at night regardless of dream feed. Think you just have to put up with these for the short time they usually last.

What was difficult though was deciding when to stop it - by 5m she was really settled on 7 to 7 with the dreamfeed at 10pm and HV had to tell me to be brave and drop it - I worried she would wake at 1am or something but didn't.

Neither of my 2 actually woke up when giving them dreamfeeds.
But DD has just gone from 7 till 7 all night without the 9.30 dreamfeed for the first time last night! (she's 9 months old) So I think we may have turned a corner.
Dreamfeeds worked well for us when they were littler, but as you say it depends on their pattern, my 2 were remarkably similar in that if they didnt have their "top-up" they would be waking about 2am for feeds, where's if they had it then they would go through to a more reasonable hour.

Hmmm, thanks all. I might try a couple more nights and see what happens. She has been absolutely piling on the pounds so far so no worries on that score! (Fingers crossed, touch wood.)