Night Feeding..for a 10 wk old!! (utterly confused)

[hellojude]

I have a 10 wk old DD...she's a big 'long' girl 14lbs (as of yesterday) I am utterly totally confused when it comes to her night feed.

I would really really like your views and suggestions please???

Brief outline: BF Baby
Bedtime is about 7.30 to 8pm then she'll through to anywhere from 1.30 to 4.30am. When she wakes she has 180mls. Then she normal wakes at about 6.30am.

This is my question
It has been suggested to me that I should start making the 'night' feed smaller..? However if DD hasn't eaten since say 7pm won't she need the whole 180mls to get her to 6am?? And to start feeding her at about 11pm (when I tried this in the past she still woke at 2am then 4, so i sacked it)

She's a very chilled baby, who during the day is going 4 hours between feeds..however the 9 week growth spurt has thrown this out of the window somewhat... :) We do have a routine but I'm not militant about it.

What do you all think i should do?
a) carry on doing what I'm doing...fingers crossed she should sleep through the night before long?
b) add a 11pm feed?
c) make the 'night' feed smaller?

Thank you all

I would carry on doing what you're doing. Whenever I try to alter something my babies have got settled into doing it's all gone haywire, and eventually they sort it out by themselves.

And, before anyone else says it- 10 weeks is still very young!

that sounds like a very good pattern at 10 weeks
i would leave well alone

we did try an 11pm feed with dd1, and she woke just as often

I'm not sure about this too, as my ten week old is pretty much the same. I put her down between 7 and 8. She's usually had a feed at 5pm then a bath.

She was sleeping until 12:30 1am then waking again at 4, so I decided to try the dream feed at 10:30 11pm, but just like your DD she still woke at 1am.

I'm tempted to just revert back to leaving her to wake naturally, but like you am not sure what to do for the best.

Sorry I haven't helped any, but just thought I'd say your not alone on this. Be interested to hear the advice.

You do what works for you! Sod what anyone else thinks, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

It'll be all change again on a couple of weeks anyway.

Waking up once between 7pm and 6.30am sounds pretty good.

Giving smaller feed when she wakes up - would your DD go back to sleep if you cut it down by 1-2oz? If she can then brilliant, keep cutting it down. We've had two experiences, DS1 happily cut down drastically without much help and was going through the night by around 5 week, DS2 wouldn't and kept having loads of night feeds till around 9 weeks, but we realise now it's because he wasn't having enough during the day, and we only managed to do this once he stopped BF. With BF, I had to keep feeding him at night as I don't know exactly how much he's had during the day.

I agree that waking once between 7pm and 6.30am sounds good.
My DD is 12 months old and still often wakes once at night (sometimes I feed her, sometimes not, depending on how quickly she goes back to sleep with just a cuddle).

I think you should keep going as you are, it sounds like you are doing a fabulous job.

Oh, and I also tried a dream feed with DD when she was younger, and I found it didn't change her night wakings, just added in an extra feed and meant I couldn't go to bed early.

Ohhh...lovely comments! Thank you all. Should add she's not BF as i said (whoops) she's BF now..huge baby + not enough milk = cupboards are now empty!

"Fabulous job' why thank you KD0706 however it has nothing to do with me...fathers daughter...eats, sleeps and smiles. Long my it last!!! :)

I'm very please that you have all pretty much suggested I keep on going with what we are doing! Always good to get feed back that you are doing the right thing esp when it's your first.

Will keep you posted! The machine is asking for yet more food...funny girl only feed her an hour ago..!

hellojude How are you getting on?