Dream feeds? Do they allow you more sleep?

[Ineedacoffee]

DS is 20 weeks and I am breastfeeding. Sleeping has been a major issue all along really but things are improving. For the first time ever I have got him to sleep around 8-ish 3 NIGHTS IN A ROW this week prior to this early evening sleeping did not happen. I did a 'proper' bedtime routine for weeks but he had no idea it was a bedtime routine because he NEVER went to sleep afterwards. Now I'm not doing anything specific - he is downstairs when we eat etc I'm just watching like a hawk for first signs of sleepyness and getting him in his cot.

Obviously when he wasnt going to sleep till 9, 10, 11 I wasn't then dream feeding but the last 3 nights I have given it a go at around 1030. He takes a feed really well (last night 45 mins) and stays fairly sleepy and settles straight away afterwards. The first night he slept till 4, fed then til 8! Hooray! But the next to nights woke at 1ish then 5ish then 8. If this is the pattern I would rather go to bed at 9 and get an extra couple of hrs then ( I need my sleep to function and am very grumpy otherwise)

So question is should I persevere with dreamfeeding - does it take a while to get a longer stretch of sleep out of them of just get an early night and let him wake whenever. At the moment the latter option seems better for my sleep (priority 1!) but if people have experience of things settling with dream feeding then maybe I should persevere?

Sorry very long to ask a simple qu.! Thanks in advance.

I tried dreamfeeding three times before we finally got into the swing of things. I tried it once when DS was about 16 weeks, and he just woke as normal around 2am demanding to be fed. Then I tried it again around 20 weeks with a similar result. i finally got it going after I returned to work (DS was around 22 weeks) and was getting exasperated about the random nights of sleep.

He basically slept through till 5am two nights in a row, then I decided to start the dreamfeed the next night, as I knew he could manage a long stretch without feeding. The first night he woke lots, the second night a couple of times, and then voilà it all started working OK. He still wakes once or twice a night, but it's usually enough to shove his dummy back in and roll him over (he's started trying to crawl in his sleep!). We still have the occassional rubbish night, like last night, but mostly it works well and I get a longer stretch of sleep than I used to.

So, IMO I wouldn't bother with the dreamfeed until you're certain your DS is capable of doing a long stretch. Then just persevere and he'll get the hang of it after a couple of nights.

hi coffee. not sure if this is much help, but with DD1 i never did dream feeds, felt like that first bit of sleep was always her longest and deepest sleep, and wanted to encourage that, not interrupt it. however with DD2 i did, and DD3 ( also 20 wks) i am doing it at 10.30ish. she goes to bed early, 6.30., dream feed, and then no more feeds in the night, just settling her again with thumb or dummy when she wakes. this does take a while and ive only started doing it this week as i stopped breastfeeding.

not sure if thats much help! i think if you are really tired the priority should be to get some more sleep for you, so do whatever works, then tackle the nights again when you feel more ready for it.

when you BF in the night do you bring him into bed with you? that is a good way to get more sleep especially if he takes ages to feed.

Hi,

We do a dreamfeed at about 10.30- 11pm. His last feed for the evening is at 7 lastest, after his bath and then we settle him down for the evening. I then express for the last feed so we don't have to wake him at all (he takes a bottle in his sleep).

Could you try expressing at about 8.30 or 9 and then get someone else to feed him his dreamfeed? Alternatively, express a little bit throughout the day the build up the dreamfeed.

I've found that with a dreamfeed, DS will go til 4 or 5 in the morning without waking, and then when he does wake doesn't seem as interested in eating, so we might start to drop the night feed (not sure about it yet). I think the thing to remember is that although you might drop the night feed, your baby might still wake up at the same time each night for a while, I guess maybe they just get used to it.

I think it depends on the baby really. I have some friends who found the dream feed worked brilliantly, but for my 3 it didn't make any difference at all. I think that all babies tend to have one longer stretch of sleep in 24hrs and for mine that longer sleep happened from 7pm ish and if I woke them to feed at 10.30 they seemed immediately to revert to their day time feeding patten of every 2 - 3 hours. So although I gave the dream feed a pretty concerted effort with each of them at times, I eventually gave it up and just waited out until bit by bit they slept longer and longer until they made it through the night. I would give it 4 or 5 days of trying it, but if no improvement then maybe give up and go to bed earlier.

Thanks for all your replies. It seems I was a bit premature in get excited about the 8pm sleeping at all as was hopeless last night (probably because had planned nice meal with DH - bought steak and everything! So I guess I'll just go with the flow for the time being and try to get some early nights. He (or perhaps I ) am obviously a bit hoipeless at the whole routine thing.

SRCE I do feed in bed I don't know how people do anything else - I would be even more of a walking zombie!

I think I should also stop DH setting his alarm at 6 - that is the real killer - He needs an internal clock or something!