Do dreamfeeds just not work for some babies?

[Sleepybadger123]

Hello

My DC2 started doing a longer stretch of sleep around 6 weeks, from around 8pm - 2am.

I introduced a dreamfeed at 10pm (when I go to bed) hoping to get the longer stretch of sleep 10pm to around 4am.

Persevered for just over a week, but all the dreamfeed did was add another feed at 10pm - DC2 still woke at around 2am and 5am for feeds.

The dreamfeed worked wonderfully for my DC1 to shift his longer sleep to start when I went to bed.

My question is - do dreamfeeds just not work for some babies? And so I should try to go bed as close to 8pm myself as I can, to make the most of the long stretch of sleep?

Or should I try when DC2 is a bit older? I can’t remember exactly when I introduced the dreamfeed with DC1.

Thanks in advance.

Dreamfeeds worked well for my first child and didn't for my second. Just depends I think

Never worked for mine, I always just had to go to bed when they did to get my solid chunk of sleep in that way.

You are doing well to get though so early though

Mine has never taken a dream feed. If he's sleepy he just doesn't take it, and if he takes it he wakes fully. So I never bothered after trying a couple of times.

But at that age his bedtime was at like midnight! It was way too late for my liking but at least we then went to bed at the same time. It gradually crept earlier then and by 3 months he was going to bed at 10pm. Then it shifted earlier and earlier settling at 7 eventually.

Must admit I am older and not up to date with what a ‘dream feed’ is. However when I had babies the idea was to work with what your baby was naturally doing and try to nudge it towards a better routine.
on that basis it would have been considered madness to disturb, at night time, a young baby who was sleeping for a six hour stretch. What would have been advised would be to wait for the sleep stretch to lengthen out from say 8-2 into 8-4 or 8-5. A possible alternative might be to try and put baby down a little later, at 9pm, but not if baby was sleeping a lot before 9 or crying a lot because he/she wanted to sleep.
By putting in your dream feed it seems to me you are risking disturbing your baby’s ability to sleep for a decent stretch, and that is counterproductive to what you are trying to achieve.

What worked for us was putting DC down at 7, then waking at 10.30 - properly woken, 30 mins watching Newsnight, then lights down, feed and everyone to bed. The post Newsnight sleep then stretched to 7am.

We kept this for a while, then slowly reduced the Newsnight feed until they just slept straight through.

It never worked for my first, she had reflux so seemed to actually make her worse. I've tried with my second who is 8 weeks and so far she just won't accept a bottle if she's not hungry. I might try again in a few weeks, but if she doesn't want it, I'll accept its not meant to be!