attempt to introduce "dreamfeed" was a nightmare!

[floradora]

DD is 14 weeks and goes to sleep about 8pm and has been then sleeping until about 1 or 2 am, wakes for feeds anything between 2 and 5 times until about 8.30 a.m. Feeds are short, 10 mins , then she falls asleep again, although she can be restless. Last night decided to try introducing a dreamfeed so I fed her EBM at 11pm. she barely woke and glugged down a decent 5 oz or so but then went on to wake at 1am, 3am, 4.30 am and 6am....AAArgh! Was this down to change in routine or what? Do i try again and if so how long do you think until dreamfeed helps her sleep a bit longer into the night?

I think we tried introducing a dream feed at much the same age to try and lose the 12-1am wake up call.

Didn't work - we sacked it after a few nights. The disruption to his sleep just seemed to make it worse.

I think if you haven't done it from the beginning you may as well not bother!

don't bother - could well be a growth spurt at this age, too, so try co-sleeping and just let her get on with it

aThanks.. and did you both end up with LO sleeping longer periods during the night? I wonder if she is really hungry for all these feeds or just waking and then feeding for the comfort (or because I offer??) Not sure whether to try again tonight..

No - lol - I'm talking about my ds2 here (ds1 was never as voracious and slept through from about 6-7 months). For me, the main point of co-sleeping was that I could get just a wee bit of sleep while ds2 latched on and off to his heart's content with me turning over every so often.

Perhaps you could try sitting up with her for the first wake up and change her nappy after 1 side so she might stay awake to do the 2nd side, which could help a little? But no wise words from me at all - ds2 is now 15mo and still wakes after 11 and then about 4.30/5, though we've just this week stopped giving him a bottle/my feeding him.

Good luck and just hope you don't have too many demands on your brain in the daytime yet. I went back to work 3 days/week when ds2 was still waking up 4 times/night ....

We also gave up on introducing a dream feed - seemed to make him wake more often. With dd we did a dreamfeed from much earlier, and I still don't think she slept any better.
They're a nice idea, but ime don't always work!

No - lol - I'm talking about my ds2 here (ds1 was never as voracious and slept through from about 6-7 months). For me, the main point of co-sleeping was that I could get just a wee bit of sleep while ds2 latched on and off to his heart's content with me turning over every so often.

Perhaps you could try sitting up with her for the first wake up and change her nappy after 1 side so she might stay awake to do the 2nd side, which could help a little? But no wise words from me at all - ds2 is now 15mo and still wakes after 11 and then about 4.30/5, though we've just this week stopped giving him a bottle/my feeding him.

Good luck and just hope you don't have too many demands on your brain in the daytime yet. I went back to work 3 days/week when ds2 was still waking up 4 times/night ....

Floradora - the dreamfeed never worked for us either - ds just thought "Oh a bonus feed! Great!" and would then wake up two hours later. He's now 5 months and we're down to one feed in the night, anywhere between 1 and 5 - and a short one too. I suspect it's now habit and now he's a big boy, when I've got a bit more energy I might try and get him to sleep without it. They do start to gradually sleep for longer periods - he can now do 8-9 hours solid - just unfortunately not the 8-9 hours when I'm asleep! And to make it worse, my friends with much younger babies are successfully doing the dreamfeed and getting more sleep than me!

It worked for us.

We introduced it at about 3 months, also from a bottle (found I couldn't get him to latch on without waking up) He barely stirred, took 7 oz and slept til 6.30.

We were then to scared to drop the dream feed and kept it going for months nad months and months