To dream feed or not to dream feed?

[houmousandcarrotsandwich]

Put my 15 wo old down for bed at 7, as I've had enough of her being miserable at night, trying to keep her going to have a later feed so she hopefully sleeps longer.

She routinely wakes 2/3 times a night, so I figured she may as well go down early and I get some chill time of an evening.

Would you wake her at 10 ish for a dream feed? (in the hope she may not wake me so much in the night)

honey I think waking 2/3 times a night at this age is completely normal. TBH if you have been keeping her up til 9/10pm in order to have her STTN then she will likely have been overtired & hence why she has been miserable. I think you have done completely the right thing in putting her down earlier, have some time out for you & she will wake you when she is ready for a feed. You might even find she sleeps better & wakes less for having that earlier bedtime.

As for the dream feed - the idea of a dream feed is that you don't wake them, you lift them from the cot & feed them whilst asleep & then lay them back down. Supposedly you don't even need to wind them b/c while asleep they are less likely to take in so much air. This is the BW approach, whereas GF suggests actually waking them & giving them a wee bit of time awake before laying them down for the night. Whilst I've found GF's routines to be good, I didn't ever like the thought of waking my DS once he'd settled for the night, so I didn't ever do it. I just let him wake when he wanted & he would do a nice long stretch from 7pm-1am, feed & then feed again at 4am. Eventually the 1pm feed was dropped & he would just wake at 4am. At this stage I did try dream feeding him to see if he would last through to 7pm but if I'm honest he didn't drink that much, was rather restless all night (seemed uncomfortable) & still woke at the usual 4am, so we didn't bother with it. By 5.5 months old he slept through from 7pm til morning - they all get there in the end. Your dd is still so young - she will be sleeping through before you know it.xx

I used to dreamfeed Ds. If I'm honest I don't think it made much difference. That's said, it made me feel better and could go to bed and straight to sleep feeling like I'd done something rather than getting into bed and feeling like there was no point going to sleep as would probably have to get up again after half an hour. He would usually go to about 2am after a dreamfeed at about 10. After a while though DS could sense me coming up the stairs and would wake up in anticipation of his feed. Not sure if he would he would have done that anyway but felt all a bit counterproductive. Even with a dreamfeed he still woke at least twice a night until 7 months old.

Thanks for the replies.
I know she's being normal waking 2/3times a night, I was so spoilt with my DS who slept through from 8 weeks!

She's sparko bless, I think I will leave her. It seems a shame to not let her sleep!

Ds1 (1month old) sleeps (but wakes for feeds) 9pm-9/10am, this suits me very well as I hate mornings. At the weekend I introduced a dream feed at 11:30pm. I had to wake him to b/f, he was sparko, but he nodded off easily afterwards. It upset the whole night! He woke every 2hrs after that (normally sleeps 4.5/3.5hrs between feeds). I thought maybe it was the heat or a random bad night so tried the next day and same thing. I have given up on dream feeding and he's gone back to his usual. I was so surprised, had thought it might not work, but never imagined it'd be so disrupting!

I've got the same dilemma, at the moment my 13 week old is asleep by 7pm and then sleeps till 12.30/1am ish. She will then wake again between 3 and 4am for another feed. I've been debating whether to dream feed at 10pm in the hope she'd then do her 5/6 hours stint after this. I am worried that if I wake her at 10pm that it will unsettle her and she'll then start waking every 2/3 hours. Such a dilemma !!!!

Well I didn't wake her. She woke herself at 1030 (just as I'd drifted off!), then woke me 3 times after that!

I think I will skip the dream feed idea, she clearly just dislikes sleep for any decent period of time!
At least DS (2.5yrs) stayed asleep until 7.

I've just stopped the dream feed after 6 weeks of doing. Didn't seem to make any difference to DS. he still wakes at 1.30 & 5 so I've decided to leave him to it. Hated waking him up.