newborns at night - how many "dream feeds"?

[lilKelBel]

Hiya

sorry for use of silly jargon but I'm a babywhisperer devotee!

My dd is now 1 week, 2 days old and so far the 3-hour EASY routine is working like a charm.

One question however - how do you handle it if the dreamfeed doesn't get them through till 7am? Do you give another little "dream" feed? Doesn't that ruin their appetite for the 7am feed?

If it's close enough to 7 I'm fine with amusing her a bit with a dummy or starting the 7am feed a bit early. However, if it's between 1am and 6am I'm unsure what to do!!

tia

Is your daughter breastfed or formula fed?

In either case she still seems awfy young for you to be worrying about sticking rigidly to a routine. If my (formula fed) daughter didn't make it till 7 from her last feed, I would just feed her again - after making sure she's actually hungry of course - and not worry about it.

Does she honestly say that they can go 7-7 at one week? Lord above, my DD has only just dropped night feeding and she's nine months. Personally I'd just feed on demand at this age and for quite a bit longer, that way you know you're giving them what they need.

I'm a Baby Whisperer fan too, and it's great that EASY is working so well.

At your LO's age I wouldn't expect her to go from 11 pm through till 7 am though, however she is fed - and she probebly won't for quite a while. I would definitely feed her whenever she wakes up in the night - keep lights dim though, and keep it calm, and settle her back to sleep asap. Depending on what time that is, it may affect her appetite for the 7 am feed, but if that feed is a bit smaller than usual, that's no problem.

There's nothing to say your day has to start at 7am though, an hour or so either way won't make much difference as you can adjust the rest of the day to make bed time at the right time.

Enjoy your lovely girl - it sounds as if you're doing a great job!!!

Lil, I re-read my post and it sounded a little sharp. Sorry, it wasn't meant to. I was just a bit taken aback that someone would suggest not feeding such a tiny baby at night. I found these 'professionals' and their routines exhausting because my DD would never follow the timings. Never sleep for as long as they wanted her too, starving when she was supposed to be sleeping and pooing when she was supposed to be eating. In the end I just gave up and I found it much less stressful. I'd say take the routines with a pinch of salt. If part of it works for you then fine but don't hold yourself hostage to someone elses definition of what's right for you and your baby.

Good luck

formula fed only -

the routine I'm putting her on does not expect the LO to go from 7-7am without a feed! The last evening feed is given at about 11pm.

I'm not adverse to giving a feed (if the wee thing is hungry) between 11pm and 7am, as of course 8 hours is a long time. I'm specifically curious about what happens if that feed happens to be requested at an hour which is awkwardly close to the normal 7am wakeup feed -- like 5:45am.

My DS got on really well with the BW routine and a bit of flexibility so fingers crossed things continue to go well with DD!

(by way of explanation I'm a control freak I guess & am just not suited to 'on demand' feeding! I tried it with DS but just ended up constantly feeding a crying baby - not good for him, or me! To manage 2 under 2 I defo need to know what's coming, and when)

On demand feeding needn't necessarily mean constantly feeding a crying baby - I feed on demand and B seems to have settled into a routine of her own, feeding every 3-4 hours depending on the time of day. But routines have a lot going for them too so if it works for you and your bubba that's the main thing.

I would just give the 7am feed earlier if it's only an hour or so. After all - it's not like you can tell your daughter that she's not due to have breakfast for another hour! As jojay says, you can gradually adjust your feeding times as the day goes on so that you're back on track by bedtime again.

My ds was bf and slept 11pm - 7am from around 8 weeks old. I started doing an 11pm dream feed when he was a few days old. If he woke during the night I just fed him on demand. Trouble is, he's now 10 mths and still having a dream feed!!! He wakes at 11pm and whinges until he gets it

feed on demand, even if it means feeding close to a recommeneded feed time

your baby has not read the book and does not know when they are supposed to be hungry

and formula fed babies can still cluster feed, if that is what they need

also, their tummies are tiny

also, the problem with those routines is that your baby goes with it for a wee while, then they have a growth spurt, or get a cold, or cut a tooth, and the routine goes out of the window, and then you feel bad

follow your baby's lead and don;t be surprised if she needs 2 feeds a night sometimes

At the risk of starting a routine versus demand feed debate, I couldn't handle not knowing what was coming next, or not being able to plan my day either, so for control freaks like us, it's three cheers for routines!!!!!!!

It obviously worked really well for you and your DS, so stick with it!!!

faie enough jojay

but i think the key, even with routine, is knowing when to be flexible, and offer more food, even when the book says they shouldn;t be hungry !

Of course Lulu- no baby should be left if it is genuinely hungry and I don't think any book out there would say that you should - but I found with my DS, by structuring the feeds, he rarely got to the point where he was crying with hunger - a growth spurt being the odd exception. At those times, I just went with the flow, and he tended to put himself back on track within a day or two.

jojay i'm in agreement with you - sorry lulu - I'm just not cut out for on-demand feeding, especially with another LO running around. I'm just the sort of person who must have some structure in my life or else I go nuts As with everything else in life a little flexibility defo goes a long way, for sure...

guess I'll prepare for the second dream feed to happen at any time of night, and just hope it doesn't mess to much with the start of day. [fingers crossed emoticon]

Kels666 - at 10mo you can prob try weaning your LO off the dream feed - there's a sensible plan for that in the BW book I think it involves adding 25ml or 1oz to one feed during the day and cutting it out of the dreamfeed, which is given a half hour earlier than normal, then progressing with this every few days till a month or so has gone by and you're giving only a very small feed quite early in the evening - at which point bubs can go without. It worked for us...good luck!!

I think babywhisper has a forum - you will find lots of info there

don;t have to apologise , do what works for you

yeah the website is good but almost too many messages to sort through if you've only got a couple of minutes! and it's not nearly as witty as MN, nor as instantly gratifying in terms of response time

Hi Lil I was really interested in what you were saying about needing to know when to feed because you were a control freak because I consider myself a bit of a control freak too which was(I thought) exactly why I couldn't follow those routines. (Does that make sense? Reaing it back sounds garbage!)

Anyway, I loved the theory and really wanted a routine to work but ended up thoroughly miserable about it all because my DD would NEVER do anything according to the routines and I just found that once I'd dropped the idea we both relaxed a bit more and she managed to sort out her own little routine (which she changes frequently to keep me on my toes). So since I've become a bit of a book led routine basher simply because it made me so miserable and want to save any other poor suffer from the trap. However, if on the whole it's working for you then obviously I bow to that and conceed it does work for some.