Formula dream feed for 4mth old ?

[FourLittleDucks]

4mth old DD is still feeding several times a night - I feed her at 7pm, do a dreamfeed at 10pm and then she's often up twice before morning.
I'm expecting lots of replies saying 'she's only little' but actually, she's a good sized baby and I don't think its unreasonable for her to sleep a bit longer (nothing to do with that fact that 2 older DDs were both doing 12hrs at 3mths!!)

So was considering doing a formula dream feed - has anyone ever tried this ? I seem to have plenty of milk but wonder if my exhaustion/running around after two older sisters/busy life means that it isn't giving her as much as she wants ?!!

Any tips or stories welcome, or any other ideas. She does have a dummy, so try and get her back to sleep with that before feeding her.

TIA !

I did one formula feed with DS from around 5 months. He was never keen on dreamfeeding for some reason, so he had the bedtime (7pm) bottle as formula and he was a bit more settled.

I think at 4 months it wouldn't affect the rest of your supply (your body would just get used to not feeding at dreamfeed time which is fine if you are ff the same bottle every night). It also has the great advantage of meaning you can go to bed a bit earlier and leave DP to do the dreamfeed so you can at least get a decent few hours uninterrupted sleep in before your DD wakes in the night

Oh - and meant to say - it doesn't sound as though your supply is an issue at the moment. I think bf dreamfeeds are difficult because your dd will be sleepy and b'fing her is so comforting, she will just not take a massive amount before deciding she wants to go back to sleep properly..

Yes, good point Tilly, about going to bed earlier - that's part of the problem isn't it.
I might try it tonight - let's hope she takes the bottle !

Good luck Ime, getting them to take a bottle when they are sleepy tends to be much easier than doing it at another time

Just as preparation for the night being no different to normal - did your DS settle down straight away, or did it take a few days to see the difference in the nights?

It worked straight away for us. DS was slightly different though because he wouldn't settle at all in the evening and would cluster feed until he collapsed from exhaustion at around 10 pm. He'd then feed at least every 2 hours - sometimes less - through the night . From the first bottle, he went to sleep at 7 and then woke at 10.30 ish for a feed and went around 3 hourly from then.

He's almost 7 months now and has just slept through (with a dream feed) for the first time the last week or so (fully ff now though and a shed load of solid food)