When to introduce dream feed formula

[Cbd333]

What age did you introduce a formula dream feed and did it improve night time sleep?

I'm exclusively expressing as 19 day old won't latch and, at 8 x a day, it adds up to a good 3 hours before all the washing and sterilising and actually feeding the milk to my daughter!

I'm considering introducing a formula feed for the dream feed at about 11pm. This is in the hope that we will get more than 2 hours' sleep for that first stretch as I'm finding the night times so difficult feeding then pumping. Really interested to hear other people's experiences.

There's no reason not to do it. But I suspect that at 19 days it won't really make much difference. Unfortunately, they do wake every 1.5-2 hours usually at this stage. Do you have a partner? If so, I'd be inclined to make your partner do all the evening/just before bed feeds while you sleep.

With ours, we didn't do a dream feed, but dh would take them as soon as I was done (7-8pm), then would hold them or walk around with them to keep them sleeping as long as possible, bring them to me when they did wake (10pm ish), then take them back, do the same, bring back to me for next feed (12-1am) and then go to bed and I'd take over. If you are bottle feeding, your partner can do these 1-2 feeds, meaning you can each get a good 5 hour stretch of sleep. Yes, you'll lose out on that pumping session, but you'll get some extra sleep and be able to pump during the night.

Is your partner also doing feeds during the night? When I was expressing (which was only about a month, but it was awful), dh would do the feed and I would do the pumping, so we could both get back to sleep as soon as possible.

Newborns have small stomachs and need to eat at least every two to four hours. Once your baby can sleep for longer stretches without a feed — usually around 2 to 3 months — then you could start dream feeding.

I know I won't get an 8 hour stretch (I can only dream that will return one day!) but I just seem to remember with DD1, who was formula fed, that she would sleep in 4 hour stints at a fortnight old rather than 90/120 minutes. If mat just be that this is less settler baby but I remember reading somewhere that formula takes longer to digest.

DH is a massive help and extremely hands on so I know I'm lucky on that front. I have nothing but respect for single parents, they must be superhuman.