Dream Feed - do most of you do it?

[pattymc]

I have ds1, 2 and half and ds2, 9 weeks. We always did the 10.30/11 dream feed with ds1 but with ds2 doesn't seem to be working. He feeds at 11 then wakes 3ish then again 5ish but last night I left him to wake naturally he woke at 12 and then didn't wake again until 5.20am - I'm sure it's a fluke but does anyone else not bother doing the dream feed - I sort of assumed most people did it. it doesn't feel so natural with ds2. Formula feeding by the way.

and if you don't do a dream feed what were you doing, if you can remember

or any advice...

We fed both before we went to bed but it was a while before they stopped waking in the night, the gaps eventually got longer until they went from 11 until 7. DD was much earlier than DS aswell. he sill woke up when he was 9 months.

and although I totally understand reason behind dream feed and did it with ds1 it doesn't seem to be working for ds2 and I feel unnatural waking him up and that he will find his own way

I never bothered with DS - i am of the opinion that if a baby is hungry they will wake, and if they are sleeping they should be left to sleep

DD wakes naturally for a feed at that time (and at 2 and 5 am)

I do... I feed dd at about 10.30 because she's slightly disturbed by me going to bed (she's in our room still) so I pop her on for ten mins to get her back to sleep. If I don't feed her, and she settles back when I'm in bed, then she'll wake at about 1am and then again at 4 or 5am which kills me. This way I feed her while I'm still awake, then she usually goes through to 4-4.30 and then she sleeps until 8am, so I effectively only have to do one wake up per night.

Sometimes she does wake up more than I'd like her to, but she seems to settle back ok, it might take 20 mins or so of her huffing and puffing in her moses basket, but so far eventually she manages to get back to sleep.

I have not got into any kind of routine with DS yet. I sort of feed as and when. He has mostly been sleeping 9pm-4am 4:30-6:30am 6:45am-8:30am. But not rigid and not recently!

Last night I did a dream feed to get it back on track, made no difference, he still woke at 2:30am.

how old are your dc's

Did dream-feed with ds1 - and it worked like a dream! Fed him at 11pm, then he woke only once for a feed at around 3/4am, then up at 7am. After he was 4.5 months or so, he gave up the 3am feed and would sleep from dream-feed straight through to morning.

With ds2 it didn't work at all though. Like with your ds2, it was more hassle than it was worth. He still woke numerous times before 7am and would often be more or less awake from 3am onwards! Can't remember when we eventually gave up trying the dream-feed, probably around 4months, but I do remember deciding that evidently it works for some and not for others!

It's a long time since I had my babies (#3 due in 5 weeks though), but I found that the dream feed didn't actually help me that much. They would still wake up ready for a feed at about 3am regardless of whether we did the 1030/11 feed or not. It's worth a try though, might work for some babies.

my DD is coming up for 20 weeks

no dream feed. ds now 14 wks. i just feed him if he wakes.

he feeds to sleep at 7pm and stays upstairs in his cot in our room. then we go to bed about 11ish. i don't feed him then. he usually wakes at 3am for a feed then up at 7am for the day.

it does vary though. sometimes he wakes at 12am, 3am, 5am then up for the day at 7am! sometimes he goes down at 7pm, wakes at 8pm (!!) then sleeps through to 7am.

i just go with the flow. dd is 3.5, did the same with her.

I am a dreamfeeder - it has worked well for both of mine, but have friends who have experienced similar to other posters i.e. it worked great for the first DC and then really didn't for the second one.

I have always woken them around 10pm for a feed and then demand fed through the night - both gradually pushed their night feeds later and later until they were going through consistently till 7am. DS2 has been less predictable than DS1 though. Both boys started sleeping 11pm-7am from about 8 weeks, but I get more random wakeups through the night with DS2 (now 4 months) - he generally sleeps through, but occasionally wakes needing a feed. DS1 never woke! DS1 was (and is) a stupidly good sleeper though, I was never going to get that twice!

To be honest one of the main reasons we've always liked to do a dreamfeed was so that DH could spend a bit of time with them. In the early weeks we would always keep them awake for a good hour or so at that feed, and that was his special time.

I didn't mean to do a dream feed but as our daughter is in our bed we wake her when we come up to bed anyway so i feed her to get her back to sleep...it used to work great and she would sleep through till 5 or so...but the last couple of weeks she now wakes at 1 ish, then 3 ish, then up and at em at 6 or 7. she just hit 5 months though.

up until she was 4 months or so we had no routine to speak of.

DS started sleeping through his 11pm feed when he was 10 weeks old, but kept waking around 3-4am for a feed. I tried to reintroduce the dream feed a few times, hoping that he would sleep through the 3-4am one instead, but all that happened is that he would then take 2 feeds in the night. So I gave up the dream feed, and he would go to sleep from 7pm until 7 or 8am, with the one wake-up at 3/4am for a while. Then at 3 and 1/2 weeks he started sleeping through until 6am, and I was delighted - although that lasted only about a month until his next growth spurt, and he was back waking up at 3-4am most nights until he was 7 months old. Has slept through the night ever since (is 9 months now).

meant to say 3 and 1/2 months, not weeks