Dreamfeed - making pre-dreamfeed sleeping worse?

[kmini]

We started dreamfeeding DS at 13 weeks for the usual reasons. It really didn't have much impact on his post dreamfeed sleep. After about 3-4 weeks, his post and pre dreamfeed sleeps massively deteriorated. We put this down to teething and 4 mth sleep regression.

In recent weeks we've seen some improvements in the post dreamfeed sleep, but the pre is still a mess!! He geT's incredibly upset at times, far more so than post dreamfeed.

I'm thinking that perhaps it might be him anticipating the dreamfeed that is causing it.

It only seems to be me that can settle him, so would like him to settle more from 7 to 10.

Anyone else with similar experiences or solutions??

How much does he take in the feed before the DF? I was EBF but finding that DS was taking very little at the 7pm feed as he was tired. He was then waking before his DF at 10.30 and was hard to settle. We swapped to giving him a bottle and this works much better. He always has around 6oz of BM or F and this is enough to keep him going til 10.30. Could you try him with a bottle? Could you also try cluster feeding in the run up to bedtime, so feed every 1.5-2 hours so he tanks up?

The dreamfeed is great, but it shouldn't mean you stop feeding on demand.

If your DSs sleep is unsettled 7-10, could he be more hungry at that time? Have you tried feeding 7pm, 9pm and 11pm, for example? Or 7.00pm, 8.30pm, 10.00pm Or whatever he asks for.

Stop the dreamfeed if you feel it is causing a problem. I cannot imagine this is the cause with unsettledness beforehand.

12-14 weeks is just a growth spurt. Your baby will be more hungry than he was 2 weeks ago and need more milk.

Thanks for your responses. I should have mentioned that DS is now 23 wks, so we've been dreamfeeding for 10 wks. He's also made great progress with length of time between dreamfeed and next feed (I can shush him back to sleep often), anywhere from 5 hours to 8.

I do cluster feed but I sometimes feel like there isn't a lot there for the feed just before bedtime. He started to refuse a bottle at 17 wks, so we are now working on him using a sippy cup with teet, hopefully I can tank him up more in time.

'fatedestiny', I am very tempted to stop the dreamfeed, but have no idea how to. Any advice?

I'm not sure I understand your question. To stop the dreamfeed just don't wake the baby to feed him when you go to bed.

Sorry perhaps i didn't make it clear.He wakes up multiple times between 7 and 10.30. He gets very upset when he wakes and if it's approaching 10, then I often give up the shushing and rocking and just do the dreamfeed early!

It sounds like he is hungry and would prefer to be clusterfed between 7 and 10 and is hungry throughout.

Hmm, think you might be right....there goes my glass of wine at night!