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

Firstly I do think it's reasonable to expect a longer stretch at night time at this age. Apparently at this age they can manage one really long stretch in a 24 hr period. The key is to try to make sure this is at night.
The answer is to ensure you're fitting in enough feeds during the day so that most of the calories needed in a 24 hour period are already consumed before bedtime.

Secondly, I find the dream feed can interrupt their deepest sleep. I also always did one with my daughter thinking it would lead to less frequent feeds in the night. One night I couldn't be bothered as I was too tired. I woke up at 7am & she was still asleep & hadn't woken for a feed! I'd just been disturbing her but when left to her natural rhythms she could manage 12 hours. Before that she'd been waking once or twice. Some babies respond well - other don't. I'd try ditching it & see what happens!

Forgot to say - it's not about the amount of the dream feed or bedtime feed but rather the overall amount consumed in the day. So don't think it will work to increase the amount of dream feed.

Your expectations are completely unrealistic! 10 weeks is tiny.

Pood has a point about the total amont of calories consumed. We used the 'Baby Tracker' app and noticed when DD reached a certain number of ozs a day she would sleep through. It was the total number of ozs throughout the day that mattered. The last feed being large or small didn't make a difference.

I will caveat this by saying babies change what they do all the time and she went through stages of sleeping through and not sleeping through.

10 weeks old and 4 weeks early?! You are being unrealistic ️Unfortunately she is behaving totally normally.
It gets better - dreamfeed work better with older babies who are on one feed per night between 2-4am. In this case a late night feed sometimes pushes the next feed to 5 or 6am.
Hang on in there and don't expect too much of a tiny one

Dreamfeed a do work, but not with 7pm bedtime imo at 10 weeks. They work if at that age you keep baby with you in the Evening and feed regularly, they just nap on and off. Then you do a final feed before you go to bed

At 10 weeks mine both ' slept through the night', this is defined at 5hrs straight. For us that was 11pm-6am, after feeding all evening beforehand. You have 7pm bedtime so yours is doing 6hrs 7pm-1am. You need to decide when you want those straight 5-6 hrs. In evening when your awake mainly or overnight when you can sleep also

For 10 weeks that's really not too bad at all! My DS was one of those annoying 'sleep through the night' early babies (and by that I mean 7pm to 7am) but he didn't do that until about 16 weeks old.

A dream feed never worked for us though, it just disturbed his sleep and never made him sleep longer. I would ditch it if it's not working out. Be patient though, lots of babies are more settled overnight after about 4 months (when sleep regression can kick in but it didn't for us)

ditch the dream feed & see how it goes, id never wake a sleeping baby, let them settle into their own routine.

Yes - never wake a sleeping baby has been a mantra in my house and DS is a great sleeper.

For fuck sake!! She's 10 weeks old!! You should be feeding on demand.

Dream feeding worked really well for our three, but we didn't take them out of the cot or change nappies (unless there was an obvious need). We just sort of leaned over the cot with a bottle (expressed milk, for those who care) and let them drink as much as they wanted. Would usually get them through until about 5-6am.

Good luck. Your baby is doing well.

Well done umbongo, very supportive.

Umbongo - I don't think it's for you to say what she should or shouldn't be doing.

How would you like it if someone said 'for fucks sake by 10 weeks your baby should be in a routine'

Live and let live!

Sorry not rtft but 10weeks?!?!?! Our nights are just getting to be like that, feeds at 6.30, 10.30, 12,3,5,6.30.

Ds is nearly 9months.

The dream feed didn't do it for my DS. He would wake at 3/4am for a feed if we fed him at our bedtime or not, so we sacked it off and went to bed at 9. He was around 12 weeks when we didn't bother with it anymore I think. He woke at 3/4am until we night weaned when he was on solids though.

I can totally relate to how you feel. I too seemed to be surrounded by people whose babies all slept through the night incredibly early and it made me feel that I was doing something wrong when actually, like you, I had a very good sleeper.

My baby was also waking twice a night at 6 weeks old (which is how old your baby is really...). She naturally dropped down to one feed at about 8 weeks and none at all by 16 weeks. SO much of this is down to luck. One of the friends who made me feel particularly insecure about my baby's sleep because hers started sleeping through at 6 weeks, now has another baby who is 5 months old and not sleeping through. It has very little to do with you as a parent at this age (unless you do something ridiculous like CIO - ridiculous because your baby is far too young for it now). It has much more to do with your baby's ability to take in big feeds in the daytime and their natural temperament.

You are doing brilliantly so please give yourself a break.

Just wanted to come back to your opening post OP, where you say you are knackered. Lots of people saying your baby is doing really well, which they are, but I do think you should change something.

You need to make the bits of sleep work for you. I've always had the attitude that if my baby was going to sleep for 5/6/7 hours, I wanted those to be the hours I was asleep ! I've personally never understood why people put their baby to bed so early. My 4 month old goes to bed about 9/10 pm and me as soon as I can afterwards. She wakes after about 8 hours (I count myself very lucky) which gives me a good 6/7 hours of solid sleep. It's enough. If I put her down at 7, she'd be awake at 3 every night and I'd be shattered. Why are you putting her down so early? Id either move your baby's bedtime to later, or take yourself off to bed as soon as they go down.

It depends on the baby, at 4 months my DS couldn't last past 7pm, there was no way he could have stayed up till 10pm. Plus then where is your evening/time with your partner/time to catch up on housework etc? Now DS is 9 months he goes to bed about 8pm but I wish it was earlier!

Cray - at 4 months mine would be tired also. But they would nap in living room with us and feed on and off until we took to bed at 11pm with us. A baby under 6 months isn't supposed to sleep in any room you aren't in, so at 7pm were you stuck sitting with baby in bedroom?

Lots of people put their 4 month old babies to bed around 7 as they are ready for a long sleep by then. It is not unusual- mine weren't napping and feeding at that time by 4 months, they were sleeping solidly until 1 or 2am when they would want a feed.

Cray the SIDS guidelines state that the baby should sleep in the same room as an adult until 6 months so we didn't have any adult time until then (together at least). Our daughter just dosed/ cluster fed until we went to bed, usually about 9 anyway as we were knackered!

Waiting - maybe. But this is not recommended for prevention of sids. Hence most babies I know of nap say 5-7pm in living room, then feed, play, maybe doze on parent if tired still and then go to bed when parents do at 11pm, and then do 6 hrs min from then so 11-5/6am. Ops baby is sleeping 6 hrs straight but 7-1am. That's why they then wake every few hours after, as have down their long stretch in 24hrs already.

Cray - but if you put them down at 7, dont they just wake earlier? So my 19mo sleeps for 10 hours at night. I could put her down at 7, and she'd be up at 5, but I'd rather she did 9-7, much more sociable in my opinion! Or am I missing something - I've genuinely never understood why people try to get little ones down so early. Yes evening time alone with partner would be nice but if we're too sleep deprived to enjoy it it looses its appeal.

I guess it's all just personal preference and finding something that works for you, but given OP said she's shattered I think that trying to sleep when her baby has their longest sleep would be a good call.

My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 13 months AND went through a period of being up for the day at 4am!
10 weeks old and sleeping that much is amazing!! Don't complain.

DC2 did sleep through at 6 weeks. This continued for two weeks when, by chance, I took him to be weighed and he hadn't gained a gram, in fact he may have lost weight. I had quite a telling off from my lovely HV about why had I let such a young baby sleep for more than a few hours and that I had to get more calories into him and start waking him. I had to go back three days later and then each week to get DS re-weighed to check he was feeding enough & gaining weight.