Night feedings/awakes 11 Weeks Old

[OdetteOsborne]

Hello
I have already had some really useful advice on here about using the Huckleberry app so thought I would ask for some more help.

I never went to NCT classes and the internet is full of conflicting info - it's about night feeds etc.....

Currently we are in bed by 7pm, then I dream feed at 10.30/11pm (4-5ounces) very rarely wakes and settles back straight away. Then she wakes between 3.30/4.30am where she takes about 2 ounces and again settles very quickly - then sleeps until about 7am.

Last week I tired letting her wake up naturally for the dream feed, she would wake about 1.30am, feed, settle but would then wake up at 5am again where I would re settle without feeding until 6.30am ish. She did this for 3 nights on the trot so I went back to dream feeding.

Is this normal for 11 weeks and do I keep with the dream feed?

Hope above makes sense

Many thanks :-) x

The dream feed does not need to be all or nothing. You can do a dreamfeed for a while, them stop, then start again and so on.

At 11 weeks when formula fed, I would stop the middle of the night feed and instead resettle without feeding. Make sure you increase daytime feeds (either making them more frequent or bigger volumes) accordingly.

You want to first aim for getting an 12pm-7am block of sleep without a feed (ideally without a wake at all). Once getting that consistantly, then trial a couple of nights without a dream feed and see what happens.

Thank you

Shall I continue the dream feed at 10.30pm or a-bit later?

I do try and increase her milk intake during the day but she doesn't really drink a lot anyhow. I try and offer every 2.5 hours.

Thanks again

We had a very different routine to you but DS didn't drop his 10.30/11pm feed until he was about 5 months and we started to put him to bed a little earlier (before then, he'd been going to bed with us after his feed). I guess which is easier for you? We found that the 4am feed was the first to drop naturally so DS would go from 10.30 - 7 or.

Shall I continue the dream feed at 10.30pm or a-bit later?

Just do it whenever you or DH goes to bed, whoever is last in bed. It's fine if that 10.30pm.

Thank you for your replies.

@mynameiscalypso did your LO naturally drop the 4am feed or did you have to re settle using other methods first?

Nope, he naturally dropped it. One day he just stopped waking up for it. We are quite baby-led though so if he woke up in the night and seemed like he wanted a bottle (which was pretty much all the time!), we gave it to him. The only time that I would resettle without feeding was if he woke up for a specific reason like a loud noise or because he banged his head hard on the side of the cot.

Last night she woke at 2am, even after her dream feed at 10.30pm but then went back down until 7am. Funny little creatures - I think it find it hard as I love a routine and when they suddenly change what they normally do it stresses me out :-(

I crave routine too but I try to remember that I don't feel hungry or tired at the same times every day or eat/sleep the same amount from day to day so why should a baby be any different really? Sometimes I wake up at 2am for no reason; it's only to be expected that a baby will too. It would be so much easier if they could just tell us why they're doing what they're doing though!

@mynameiscalypso this is very true and a good way of thinking 😁. It's just a whole new world to me and everyone says different things and so much on the internet - I really should stop using google ha ha

My general philosophy is if my baby is alive and in relatively good spirits, I must be doing something right! 😂