Did a dream feed work for you?

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 is 11.5 weeks and we've just started giving him a dream feed. He tends to sleep 7.30/8 to 1.30am and then to 4.30/5.30am. He's a good weight and feeds well so I'm hoping he starts going longer at some point....For the last 2 nights DH has given him a dream feed at 10.30pm ish and he's then woken up at 12.30am for a feed and gone 3 hours to 3.30am....ie it's made him wake more!! Should we persevere?!

Sounds like he was doing ok before, 7.30/8 to 1.30 and then til half four 5 is pretty good for 11.5 weeks. Yes of course you'll hear about people whose babies are sleeping through at that age but what your ds is doing is very normal. I wouldn't interfere until (if) his sleeping is ever a problem. My dd was up every 2 hours at 16 weeks - that's why I started a dream feed and started trying to change her routine - because it was crap and I was exhausted! I wouldn't have done it otherwise.

To be honest, the 2 wakings he's doing are pretty good going for 11.5 weeks.

I've never done a dream feed with DS and he wakes just once now at 3/4 ish. He's 17 weeks. He did wake earlier but dropped that himself, so I'm thinking he'll drop the 3/4 one by himself too.

With DD worked a treat. We started it quite early on really as a way for me to get longer stints of sleep, so DH stayed up and did the dream feed just before he came to bed and I went to bed much earlier, and she slept through 7-7 from 9 weeks with just this dream feed. We finally dropped it at 7m when we realised it was probably disturbing her more than helping.

DS totally different matter, no amount of planning changed the fact he wanted feeding pretty frequently until quite old (as in 2 hourly through the night still at 8 weeks) and he also was very difficult to wean from night feeds and was still having one feed at 2 years (OK shoot me!)

So I would say it completely depends on the child, it works for some and it can cause more problems for others. I personally would keep trying for a week or so and if not any better go back to allowing his natural wakings to guide you.