Eliminating dream feeds - who's right?

[Meandacat]

DD is 4.5 months old. Goes to bed at 7.30, usually (with luck) asleep by 8pm. Until recently we'd then been feeding her at the back of midnight but she's now pretty much still sound asleep at this time and so HV and family have said we should stop.

The thing is, she now wakes at around 3.30-4.30, and stays awakes for a good hour and a half - and by this I don't mean happily gurgling away in her cot, I mean shouting "hey guys, I'm awake! Get up and pay me some attention. No WAY am I going back to sleep right now" awake. I've tried feeding her quietly in the dark but it makes no difference. She's had her long sleep, she's awake. She used to stir around 4.30am anyway, but just sleep (very) restlessly til a more realistic hour. That was often bad enough but this...!

So - what do we do? I want to go back to a midnight dream feed and at least get some semblance of a proper night's sleep. Family thinks that's nuts and we have to tough it out til she learns to sleep longer. I feel so unconvinced that that will happen any time soon though.

I should add she's in the same room as us til I make curtains for her own room (which I guess I ought to do pronto!). But even if she's in her own room I don't think we'd be able to leave her just to shout. She's too young for sleep-training, surely?

I don't have any answers but am interested in the answers so am marking my place. My DS is 21 weeks (10 corrected as he was prem) and my hv has just said to try and bring the dreamfeed back to earlier to make him sleep longer into the morning (3 am is usual, 4.30 am is a good night and by 5.30 after another nap he's either screaming, or giggling away telling me its time to play)

hildathebuilder, I love it when people do that. Shows at least I'm not asking too stupid a question!

She is too young for sleep training

Feed her at midnight if she needs it

I'd do a slightly earlier dreamfeed so you dont have to stay up so late. Why not try 10.30/11pm. You may find that she wont do the whole night without the dreamfeed until she is well established on solids. I did used to dreamfeed ds until I got fed up staying up late to do it. Instead I would go to bed earlier and feed him when he woke in the night. He had the nightfeed till he was 8 months old. It depends on what you would prefer - staying up late to dreamfeed and getting a block of sleep then or go to bed earlier and get up to feed in the night.

'Family' may think it's nuts to reinstate the dreamfeed, but 'family' are not the ones up with her at god-forsaken o'clock. And as for the HV - if it ain't broke don't fix it!

Reinstate the dreamfeed. She needs it and you need it.

Seona1973, DH used to stay up for dreamfeed while I went to bed, then I'd get up and re-settle baby when restless or just get up properly whenever she woke in the morning, while he slept on (he works from home). It was an arrangement that worked which is why I am so tempted to go back to it til DD is a little older...

Hi Meandacat

You can tell whether your LO is ready to reduce/drop their dreamfeed if they are going through the night after the dreamfeed and not as keen on their morning feed. We're just dropping my LO's dreamfeed at the moment, she's 6 months though.

I would suggest you go back to feeding her at midnight but slowly bring it forward to an earlier time. We only moved from 10.30 till 10.00 but it made no difference to my LO's sleeping.

We moved it by 10 mins every 3 nights. Once we were at 10pm we started reducing the amount gradually by 1oz every 3 night and we got down to 2oz. Hardly seems work waking her for 2oz so we're not doing it for the first time tonight. Wish us luck!

Hope you manage to sort it out!

Hi
Defo reinstate the dream feed. We did the same - hubby fed at 11-1130 and I went to bed and she generally went back to sleep. When we started weaning her at 5 mo she gradually ate more and by 6 she was on 3 meals a day plus 3/4 bottles of milk (although not as much as she used to of course). About 3 weeks ago (she is now 6.5mo) she refused the dream feed for 3 nites on the trot. DH said he wasn't going to offer her again and we dreaded when she would wake but she didn't, she slept thru.
not saying that you should wean her early to make her sleep of course, but just to say reisntate d/f until she is ready to wean and you may very well find she drops it herself soon enough thereafter.

Thanks! . Just had horrible time putting her down: she refused her 7.30 feed with half and hour of solid screaming... this is a separate recurring problem which I've posted about elsewhere. Thought we'd got over it. Obviously not! But at least it also has helped me decide that she'll probably be in need of a feed later.

But fhutts and WoodyM, your advice sounds pretty solid and I appreciate it.

You're still not alone with the solid screaming at bedtime. Mine used to scream hysterically from the minute she got out the bath until I eventually calmed her down enough to take her bedtime feed and sometimes she just wouldn't have it. Awful times. Once she had calmed down then usually she would go to sleep.
Perserve with whatever routine you have for bedtime feed she will eventually stop the screaming as my DD did one night about 8 weeks ago. Even so much so I can read her a story after she gets out the bath wrapped in a huge towel [ and she is happily pulling at the pop up animals. .
If it is of any help started on tiny bit of baby rice for a whole week between first feed of morning and the 11am feed, so around 9.00am I gave her rice.
Increased to giving it to her around 4pm then increased by giving veg instead of rice then rusk, porridge etc.
Now she has breakfast (with milk) lunch (no milk) afternoon bottle at about 2/3pm then tea at 5pm (no milk) and finally bottle after bath at 7pm and this seems to keep her satisfied.
best of luck maybe see you on the weaning area soon!

meandacat - My little one would do exactly that .I was shattered,plus hubby was very cranky!! So I used Jo Tantum to come and help me sleep train.I think the word sleep training scares some people but this was done easily with my bub sleeping 12 hours now .Jo said that (like yousaid) babies can only have 1 long sleep in 24 hours .So we concentrated on getting him to sleep from 7-11pm(dream feed) then 11pm - 7am .Without waking or a feed .Once he was doing that (at 3 1/2 months) we then started to drop that feed .And of course now he sleeping really well,except for the odd wake when he has a snuffle of jabs .
Hope this helps