Why won't the dream feed work!?!!

[KLG3101]

Feeling deflated, shattered and frustrated...

Our DD still wakes twice during the night after a dream feed at 1030pm. What am I doing wrong?

Bedtime routine just now is

615pm bath
645pm feed in nursery dim lights
7pm sleep - sleeps until I dream feed at 1030pm or if I leave her she will
Sleep until 12am/1am
1am wake
4am / 5am wake
7am wake

10 weeks?! Your routine sounds exactly like my 8 month old. I was ready to say it's absolutely normal, but for 10 weeks I'm afraid it's better than normal!

Dream feeds just dont work for some babies.

I could never make it work. Mine only fed when they were hungry- so if they'd woken up themselves. If i woke them id end up with a baby not hungry enough to feed, but not full enough to go back to sleep.

Eventually they go longer and longer.

At 10 weeks I would just go with it and feed her when she wants. She'll get there in the end and sleep through. You'll stress yourself out trying to prolong sleep at this age.

Remember the official definition of 'sleeping through' is 5 hours so 7pm-12am would count as would 10.30pm to 3.30am.
Sounds more reasonable put like that.

That said, I find it very hard to believe there's 6 week olds putting in those hours and my DD was a great sleeper the first 3 months so I should know!

Are you breastfeeding? It digests quicker so bf babies do often wake up more I think, and certainly mine is hungry on each waking however long she feeds beforehand

I work as a maternity night nanny and post natal doula

Your baby is doing really well.....10 weeks is still very young

Give yourself and your baby a break from "what everyone else's baby is doing"

She's only 10 weeks!!
In fact she's only really about 6-8 weeks.
She's doing very well if she's only waking twice a night.
I though you were going to say she was at least 10 months!
Out of the maybe 20 families I know well NONE had babies that consistently slept throught the night at that age. Sometimes they'll trick you for a night or two and then go back to 3 feeds a night.
Relax, you're doing fine.

My friend insisted her baby slept through from 3 weeks old & loved to rub it in my zombified from lack of sleep with ds face. Turns out that when her baby went down at 10pm & was up for a feed at 3am it didn't count
It may make them feel better to say it but I'm quite sure there are very very few babies going a full 12 hours from 6 or 10weeks!
Also, yes to the growth spurt thing!
Your baby is still so very small.
Hope you get a chance to get your feet up

I'd have been delighted with that OP

Your DC is still so young. The first months you need to nourish them, when they wake they need to feed so please don't worry too much about night wakings your DC Needs to feed to grow. Cherish the cuddles because you will look back and miss the closeness when they are sleeping through! Kind of... Haha!

At 10 weeks she's doing fantastic. I had two extreme babies one who wouldn't except a dream feed ever, I just ended up going to bed earlier to get more sleep. Then one who naturally work around 10-10.30pm for a feed then did a longer sleep. But I couldn't change their sleep patterns, that's just the way they where.

Parenting is about being a parent 24/7 and trying to optimise when you get rest in between so your their when they need you most. It's hard going but your doing great.

Plenty of babies this age still feed every 3 hours round the clock. Their tummies are still so small and as others have said, your baby is really only 6 weeks old! Lower your expectations and maybe try going to bed earlier!!

Everyone I speak to has their babies sleeping through the night from 6 weeks

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

I have 3 hulking great teens and none of them had EVER slept through for 12 hours, let alone when so tiny.

My tip is, learn to take anything you hear about 'other peoples babies' with a HUGE pinch of salt. Babies all do their own thing in their own good time. It's not a race. It's not a reflection on your parenting. It's just luck - good or bad. What you probably aren't factoring into the equation (of what 'everyone else's babies are doing) is the fact you are only hearing from people who are up, dressed, and out and about. You'll have missed all the people who are still in their dressing gowns and nowhere near ready to be popping here, there and everywhere.

My sister and i "slept through" from 6 weeks.

Turns out my mothers idea of us dleeping through was to give us a bottle at 6.30 pm, shut the door and ignore any crying until 6.30 am.

Apparently we "soon learned" no one would come.

Some babies do sleep through naturally. Most dont.

given the judgment that some dish out on the subject of controlled crying, I bet there are a load of people who, on reading your post, are itching to ask you, Micah, whether you and your sister are badly damaged and have been in therapy since your teens??

Yoy might need to readjust your expectations there op.

In my experience it will get worse before it gets better too.

My 3 month old twins wake 5 times between 21-8am, my friends 6 week old baby wakes once. I breastfeed and she formula feeds so that might have something to do with it

I'd ditch the dream feed and go to bed yourself at 7:30pm so you get a decent chunk of sleep in!

I wouldn't bother with the whole dream feed thing. I actually think sometimes it just gets them into a habit of expecting a feed around then. I just fed on demand and gradually both went longer between feeds and then cut them out altogether. I also made any feed after 4.45/5am "the morning feed" and got up and started my day then rather than try to go back to sleep after that. Somehow seemed to make me resent waking at that time less and gradually they learnt to sleep longer anyway.

Hum, me thinks these people you are speaking to are bending the truth. DD did sleep from 10/11pm - 6am at 10 weeks and I considered that sleeping through as we got a full nights sleep. She was the first one in my NCT group to do it though. None of the other babies slept that much so young. And she stopped doing it once the 4 month sleep regression hit... so even if there is a grain of truth in what these people are telling you it could change in a heartbeat.

10 weeks! That sounds like the routine my 8 month old niece has. I had her overnight on Saturday and she woke up at those times (minus the dream feed). I don't think many 10 weeks olds sleep through the night, they only have little stomachs, and need little and often

DD is now 9 months and usually wakes up twice for the dummy. She doesn't often need milk these days, but occasionally she does - even though she's weaned.

My son is eleven weeks today and still
Up every 2-3 hours through the night. He's little and he's doing what his body needs to do.

Wtf!! That's amazing. Dd is 10m and doesn't consistently sleep through

My DS had that routine when he was 9-10 months old.

At 10 weeks I would be very grateful. When my DS was that age he'd be feeding about 10 times in a 24 hour and was easily up 3-4 times a night. If I got a chunk of 2.5 hours sleep in one go I felt thankful.

Babies sleeping through at 6 weeks is not the norm so is not something realistic to aspire to. Your baby is tiny, follow her lead and stop expecting so much from her.

My DS didn't start reliably sleeping through (8pm-6am) until he was about 18 months.

10 weeks old!!!

Would be happy if my 10 month old kept to that...