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Sleep

Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler. Need more advice on your childs development? Sign up to our Ages and Stages newsletter here.

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Original poster

routine for a six week old baby- should i wake at eleven to feed?

26 replies

minkey99 · 06/09/2004 16:47

My baby is six weeks old and sleeps from around 8pm to 12pm/1am then from 4am to 7am(ish). Has anyone tried waking their baby at eleven to feed with the hope that they will sleep through till 7 or is this still early days? I seem to read contradicting things about it and am totally confused!

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Twiglett · 06/09/2004 16:48

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lydialemon · 06/09/2004 16:55

You don't have to wake them in order to feed them. I used to anticipate DDs feed like that and feed her when I went to bed. I am Bfing, so don't know if it works with bottles as well, but she would latch on and feed without waking up fully and I could then put her straight back down. The only difficulty is then deciding when to try and drop that late night feed!

I think someone referred to it on another thread as 'dreamfeeding' so it may be an 'official' method IYSWIM but I have no idea who is credited with it!

lydialemon · 06/09/2004 16:58

I demand feed as well, but I hated to go to bed knowing I would be woken up in an hour, easier to nudge the feed forward than lying in bed wasting sleep wondering if it's worth bothering to go to sleep

Twiglett · 06/09/2004 17:01

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lydialemon · 06/09/2004 17:08

Twiglet, your DD sleeps better than mine

But then she is on a mission to drive me mad through sleep deprivation ATM, wouldn't believe that between 1 week and 4 mths she slept 9 til 7. Now she wakes up at least 1 or 2 times a night. Very tempted to try feeding at night again but its probably not a good idea!

Original poster

minkey99 · 06/09/2004 17:14

thanks for advice will try and wake her at eleven for a few nights and see what happens. dreamfeeding sounds so lovely....

OP posts:

Twiglett · 06/09/2004 17:15

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Skate · 06/09/2004 17:16

I've done 'dreamfeeding' with ds1 and ds2 and it worked for me. I bottle fed and all you do is lift them out of the cot and give them the bottle, but in the dark and without saying a word. Mine have always gone straight back down again - you could give it a whirl!

lulupop · 07/09/2004 06:51

Give it a try, but I've found it more trouble than it's worth. Did with DS it took me ages to get him awake enough to take more than a couple of sucks, and he'd still wake within a couple of hours. With DD (4 months) I tried again as I also hate going to bed knowing I'll be woken an hour later, but she doesn't wake up enough to feed well, and if I do wake her properly it takes forever to get her down again. And then it makes no difference to her going through the night (what's that, anyway?!)

Have friend who's writted a book on baby sleep and she reckons if you wake a baby then you're just "teaching them to wake up". Not sure about that but IME this hasn't really worked. Just be grateful for any sleep you can get, I say!

gingernut · 07/09/2004 09:10

It worked for us so worth a try IMO. ds was about 6 weeks when he started going from that late night feed to around 6 or 7 in the morning (bottle feeding).

clary · 07/09/2004 10:55

minkey I always wondered what would happen to that late night feed, how do you drop it? But I know many people do it. Personally I found that the 1/2am feed became 3/4am and then 5.30am and we were there!

That 1am-4am window you have would be worrying me more. Do you mean the baby is awake for that 3-hr stretch? That's a bit grim. What happens, is (s)he awake and cryign, or just a slow feeder?

Original poster

minkey99 · 07/09/2004 11:29

Clary, no meant she sleeps from 1am till 4am ! thankfully. didn't explain it very well sorry.

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sweetkitty · 07/09/2004 18:05

I've been thinking about the same thing DD is 7 weeks and if she has a 11pm feed she can go to 7 next morning heaven I know. Last night she had a feed at 9 and was up at 2am. I might try dream feeding as well.

kbaby · 07/09/2004 18:18

We do it and it works. I bf around 7.30ish and put DD to bed, at 10.30 I wake her up. I need to do a nappy change and a cold wet wipe to wake her up enough though. I then feed her and she falls asleep and goes back down. If I dont wake her enough she doesnt feed enough and then wakes again soon, so be sure to wake her properly.

Last night I didnt do a late feed as I wanted to see what would happen{thought DD may surprise me and go until 4am} our night went like this.
Feed 8.00,12.30,4.30,7.30
Sunday night I did a dream feed and it went like this;
Feed 7.30,10.30,3.45,7.30. It means by doing a late feed I only have to feed once during the night whereas if I dont do it I end up having to do 2 night feeds and one of them is not long after ive nodded off to sleep.
I suggest giving it a go and giving at least a week to see if it works.

Also even though I didnt do a dream feed last night she didnt wake at 10.30 as suggested on a previous message.
DD's 14 weeks
HTH

Beetroot · 07/09/2004 18:30

This reply has been deleted

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kiwicath · 07/09/2004 19:58

I went down the dream feed route since day one and it worked a treat. I did the bath, boob & bed thing at 7pm thing then just lifted him (asleep) at 10.30 for a feed and snuggle. From 6 weeks he slept right through to 7am +/- . Crap daytime napper though so this was/is my saving grace. I finally stopped the dream feed on his 7 month birthday and, bless him, he didn't even notice. Like I said, I did this from day one - don't know how it would go introducing it six weeks down track??? Not much help am I

kiwicath · 07/09/2004 20:07

... Got to add though that 6 weeks is VERY early to sleep through and I count myself extremely lucky that this is what my wee man wanted to do. The dream feed is not a dead cert. If your babe is hungry later on in the night then he's hungry and he should be fed

Calmriver · 10/09/2004 16:47

Hi There. I have just joined, and have a 3 week old baby girl. At the moment I am demand feeding, and feel like I am up all night. She seems to have a bit of colic too, so getting her to sleep can be a tricky one. She tires herself out too. What do you mean by dream feed? Do you mean wake her at 11pm for a feed?

Blu · 10/09/2004 17:41

Minkey - I seem to remember that this was DS's natural pattern until he was about 8 or 12 weeks, when he went down to one waking a night - (interspersed with other nights when he woke every half hour, it seemed!). I think 6 weeks is v early days...and Penelope Leach has this to say about a childcare approach which relies on waking babies regularly to feed them:"if they kept waking somebody in an Iraqi jail, we'd call it torture. Good infant care is being responsive. If you do not give babies the chance to realise they are hungry, ask for food and discover the satisfaction of feeding and getting full, you're not doing that."

(That was probably a bit provocative....and came from a high profile media discussion between her and another childcare pundit - I don't think it's meant to imply that parents are torturers!)

Blu · 10/09/2004 17:44

Actually, I'm sorry I posted that. Didn't mean to be so 'unecessary'.

kbaby · 12/09/2004 15:12

Blu Dont worry. Everyone is different and each has their own views. Thats what makes parenting fun. As ive said below we do it even though I do feel cruel but it works for us so thats what counts. In fact I havent done it for the past few nights as DD's been a little blighter and isnt settling until 9.30 and so waking at 10.30 doesnt seem fair on her and ive been woken up approx 3 times at night for a feed. I cant wait for DD to settle back down at 8 so that I can continue with the 10.30 feed.

kbaby · 12/09/2004 15:16

Calmriver.
The belief is that by waking a baby for a feed before you go to bed you are filling the baby up so that they sleep a bit longer while you are also sleeping. e.g you get 3hrs undisturbed sleep before the next feed is due.
Theres 2 ways of doing it.
1)dream feed which is feeding the baby without waking them.
2) waking baby and then feeding.

We do 2) as 1) didnt work for us. At 3 weeks though you are going to be woken lots during the night. DD is now 15 weeks and im down to 10.30,4.00 and 6.30am on a good night otherwise without a late feed were feeding twice during the night.

Original poster

minkey99 · 13/09/2004 17:16

After asking whether or not i should wake my baby at 6 weeks at 11pm she started to do it naturally herself. She now wakes at 11 then at 2/3am but now is so awake at the last feed it has taken me till 5am to get her down again aaah!! she also does not seem that hungry at the 2/3am feed either. anyone else have this problem?

OP posts:

yingers74 · 14/09/2004 20:58

Hello! With my dd, we did wake her at eleven as suggested by Gina ford if the normal routine did not work. we kept her awake for at least an hour and she then proceeded to sleep till about 6.30 so it did work for us.

fefifofum · 15/09/2004 13:48

I did the dream feed from about 6 wks, then usually was up about 4am for a feed and then again at 7ish. At about 3 months I just stopped feeding him at 4am to see what happened, a pat on his back and his dummy and he went back to sleep (for a few nights then he stopped waking - until now, but that's another story...). Then at about 4and a half months I did the same for the 10.30pm feed (it was getting so difficult to rouse him) and he didn't even notice, just sleeps through.
The trick to dream feed is keep it dark, don't say anything, no eyecontact. My little chap often didn't open his eyes the whole time. He's nearly 6mths now.

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