14 week old dd slept through the night... So what's the worry?....

[mads1]

There is no pleasing me!!! Don't get me wrong. I am really pleased that last night dd2 slept through the night. She had her last feed(bf) at 6.30pm and slept till 7.00am. She stirred at 6ish this morning so I gave her the dummy and she went back to sleep. She wasn't even screaming for her feed this morning.

So what am I now worrying about?!!! Well, if this is going to be regular (which I know could probably have been a one off) is it ok for her to go so long? I have thought about dream feeds because usually she wakes at either 3 or 4am. When I did do one once it saw her through to 6.30am.

Is it safe at this young age?

My two slept through the night at that age. I'm not sure I would do a dream feed, really don't get why anyone would want to disturb a sleeping baby.

I would just give her a before bed feed and let her decide for herself when she is hungry again.

My DD slept though the night at this age too. To be fair though I was constantly feeding her during the day, particularly the evening.

I would assume your DD would wake up if she was hungry, so I wouldn't worry about it.
Just be very very grateful

There is no harm in it. However, the dream feed works as when a baby goes through a growth spurt, they will need feeding more between bedtime and the morning. By tanking them up at the dreamfeed, they are more likely to carry on sleeping through to morning.

I don't wake dd for dreamfeed. She stirs a bit, takes her bottle and goes straight back to sleep until 7am. I used to bf for this feed and she did exactly the same.

I am going to stick with the dreamfeed until dd (nearly 5mths at the moment) is fully weaned onto 3 meals a day, which will probably be around 7mths or so as we will start weaning at 6mths.

Actually, I tell a lie! I have dream fed two other times; weeks ago and dd always wakes. She splutters at the bottle and this obviously wakes her. However, she does go back to sleep quite easily. If we do decide to try dream feeding (which we did with dd1 on the GF routine) then need to keep trying to get her use to bottle.

Pudding, you made a very good point about growth spurts.

I just can't seem to decide!!!!!

has anyone else done dream feeds?

Not done dream feeds,
My to boys both slept through from 2-3 weeks. They fill up in late afternnon/evening and then go right through. I work on the mantra "NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!"

Go for it!
Did dream feeds with ds1. He slept through from about 6 months (massive struggle until then).
Did none with ds2. He slept through from 6 weeks - until he was about 7 months old (then had another 3 months of regular "I'm hungry!" waking since he took an age to wean).
Used to get lots of sympathy for coping with 2 when ds2 was tiny - actually I felt fab because I was getting plenty of sleep.

Both my bf girls slept through the night 7pm to 6.30 / 7ish from a very young age (DD1 was 8 weeks and DD2 was 9 weeks). It's fine - presumably if they had needed feeding they would have woken up..... I found dream feeds a waste of time - it just woke them up! Also I found dream feeds didn't work well if bf as my milk was generally pretty low at that time and my DDs didn't bf well if half asleep, a bottle of EBM worked, but I couldn't be bothered! If it works for you though, then go for it. I did find I had to add in an extra afternoon feed around 4 months though to make sure they fed enough (so feeds around 7am, 10.30am, 2.30pm, 4.30 and 6.30 before bed.

I hate you.