Confused about night feed

[Buranda]

Hello, would really like some advice on what to do with our 6-week old DS's night feed.Over the last few weeks, I've been loosely following Rachel's Waddlilove's flexible routine. So around 6-7pm I bath DS, lullabys, feed and then put down to sleep. Then my DH wakes him to feed around 11pm. DS normally wakes around 3ish then I feed and then he wakes anytime between 5-7am.
Last night, DH fell asleep and was woken up by DS crying for food. It was about 1.15am. He'd slept right through from 7pm. He was fed and then he woke to be fed at 6am. I'm shocked (and happy) that he's managed to sleep this long. Perhaps this is a one-off, but is the whole point of the 11pm feed to tank him up so he sleeps through? And then it's eventually dropped? Should I carry on as I have been, or just leave him to sleep to see how long he can last?
Thanks for your suggestions!

Personally I would skip the dream feed tonight and see how it goes. Your baby's natural rhythm might mean you get more sleep, but the worst that can happen is you reinstate the dream feed if it all goes wrong!

What I found was that the first feed to be dropped was that 11pm-ish one. Then what happened next was that the 1am feed gradually started to go backwards. By the time we hit weaning he was sleeping from bath/bedtime to about 5am or 6am and it stayed there with occasional broken nights due to teething, illness etc. I never woke him up to give him a feed but always waited for a shout!

I'm a maternity nurse and haven't done a dream feed with any of my babies for four years. The parents of each family and I decided we'd prefer to go to bed earlier and deal with night wakings.

In the very early days I set an alarm for five hours since beginning of last feed just until weight gain is good and steady.

Then what usually happens is you end up with two middle of the night feeds (eg 1am and 5am) and then the 1am moves gradually throughout the night or the baby will sleep through until morning.

Last year one of the babies I had slept 12 hours at nine weeks and another was 12 weeks.

I'm currently in a position with a seven week old where the parents want a dream feed. I really struggle to stay up until 11pm and also up again anywhere between 3am-4.30am and then again at seven. Without the dream feed I very quickly can get six hours unbroken so am finding it tricky this broken sleep.

I never could get the hang of a dream feed (or more to the point, my DCs couldn't) so we put them down at 7pm and and just dealt with the feeds when they came up. Initially that was 11ish and twoish and then sixish, then the 11pm one disappeared and DD is just now (at 5m) starting to go through until close to 6am when we have to get up anyway. DS slept through a bit sooner at about 12 weeks but rarely sleeps later than 6.30. Its not an exact science and some people prefer to try and feed before they go to bed in the hope they won;t have an early hours one. Try not to overthink it would be my advice, just ensure no other factors are causing her to wake up (especially temp. now that its Nov).

I wouldn't anticipate being able to drop any night feeds on a regular basis at the moment - you've got a whole batch of developmental bursts and growth spurts coming up so you'll need to be guided by your baby to a large degree!

Perhaps this just suits him? I never found the dream feed to be helpful and the 10pm feed was the first one that my (demand fed) babies dropped on their own. I found it very annoying that DTD1 always woke at 2am whether I fed her at 11 or not - I'd have rathered feed her earlier and have a good stretch of sleep in the middle of the night (her sister would sleep until 4am, so I was up every 2 hours!) but whatever I tried, that was their natural pattern. As long and you and he are getting sleep of some description then try and relax about it.

Thanks ladies for the good advice. Funnily enough I just left him to it and he's woken up around 11.30ish anyway for the last 2 nights. Going to go with his way for the moment as he knows best!

I've found dream feeding to be a bit hit and miss. Even if I do it he still wakes at 2am for a feed and sometimes I can only get him to take 1 or 2oz during the dream feed so he's hungry again at 2 anyway! Sometimes I need to tell myself to relax and just go with the flow a bit more!