5mth old - is it worth introducing "dream feed"?

[thepreciousbabycheeses]

Ds has just started on solids, yet still feeds once or twice in the night. I didn't used to give him a dreamfeed as I liked a glass of wine with dinner. Now tho he has one formula feed a day so I could make it at 10.30pm.

Usually last feed is at 7.30pm and he used to sleep till 3am but now it's more like 12-1am.

Will the solids sort this out or has anyone started giving dreamfeeds so late?

Need a bit more sleep!

i starged ds1 on a df at about 4months but it didn't make the blindest bit of difference, made him more restless.

Imho dream feeds are utterly, utterly pointless. A tummy is so big, it can fill up so much. It gets empty in the night regardless of how much stuffing it full you do and the idea is babies learn to sleep through the feeling of an empty tummy, as we do and as our older children do.

We all have the empty tummy feeling in the early hours, dream feed/midnight snack/late dinner regardless. We sleep through and so can babies.

Self settling is the way to go. So when the tummy gets empty and your baby stirs, he settles back off to sleep until breakfast time.

HTH

I had this prob, but it was before solids. My ds used to go from 7 - 3 but then started waking randomly. I started the dream feed I too gave it as formula the first week he was all over the place then settled down, boob at 7pm formula at 10.30pm then slept until 7.30am!

Give it a try, my ds is now on solids and does not have a dream feed last feed at 6.30pm wakes at 7.30am.

Good luck.

I swear by dreamfeed
and one glass of wine is nothign to worry about with feeding

saves mne getting woken 2x instead only once and that's worth it

oh an ds2 is on 3 good solid meals and his feeding pattern has barely changed from when he was 3 mths old and he is not overly large either

juliewoolie I want your baby!

Ok on the off chance it helps I will start and give it a week.

Will also work on the self settling in the day as well.

Thanks

self settling does work as well but you need to be quite strict about letting them find their own way of bobbing back off to sleep. Also made a huge difference when my lo found his thumb.

any self settling tips....he used to but now will cry if left on his own. I guess I should put my hand on him so he knows he's not alone, then get him used to me not being there.

for us we followed a very strict routine of putting my ds down to sleep. At the beginning of tiredness we would have a quiet 10 mins cuddles etc. Then into his bedroom all the time talking quietly saying night time sleepy time. Into his sleeping bag sing hush little baby then lights out walk away. If after 5 mins he was howling go back in shush for a couple of mins and go back out. It took a couple of very boring weeks of baby boot camp, to get him into a good daytime nap routine. We pretty much followed the same routine at night time.

It does occasionally go tits up but we just persevere and it all settles down again.

Hope that helps.

it's a nightmare age ime

ds2 is 5mo tomorrow

we don't do a dream feed - made no difference with ds1 so decided not to even bother this time

ds2 sleeps from 7pm til any time between 2 and 4am, when i feed him

we started solids a week ago - not entirely sure it's made a difference but too early to tell really - a bit of pureed pear won't make much difference - will have to wait til volumes ramp up a bit i guess

good luck

ooo well, have done the df for the last three nights. Two nights he woke up at 5am and one at 2am....so i think it's working. Also last night dp switched to a bigger bottle and he drank 6.5fl at 10.30pm before going back to sleep - maybe i have been starving him!

I am have also started reducing the bouncing for day time naps and just put my arm on him so he knows I am there, and bouncy him when he cries and stops when he stops.

we seem to be getting there!

and I went out last night ON MY OWN for the first time for about ooooo 2years (well 6months actually). Was very weird at first but by the second G&T I had forgotten I had a baby (in a good way).

if anyone is still reading this then we are now on three meals a day, bf feeds, two boobs at 7.30pm, 4-6fl formula at 11pm, then he STILL wakes up hungry at 4am.

He can't really be hungry, can he?