Advice from moms who do not dreamfeed

Z

zac08

Registered User
Hi All! So here's a question that really boggles my mind. My 4 month old feeds once during the night (between 7pm and 7am). He is 100% bottle fed, on 80-90% expressed milk. Funny thing is that the time that he wakes up to feed can vary from midnight (last night it was 11:15pm) to 6:30am!!! Yup, a few nights ago, he slept from 7:30pm to 6:30am, with no waking up at all in between! The night before it was 5am. But on other nights it could be 3am, 2am, midnight.... It's all so random!! I don't understand why it varies so much and how to "control" it more. With our first child we always did a dreamfeed at 10:30/11pm so we could control it better, meaning we'd dreamfeed him at 11pm and by 4 months of age, we knew that he didn't need to feed between 11pm and 7am and he was pretty much sleeping that 7-8 hour stretch by then on his own. With #2 we never did a dreamfeed and now it's too late to start one (we tried a few weeks ago and it was a disaster because he was NOT used to being woken up to drink milk!).

He has his last bottle of the day at 7pm and is fast asleep by 7:15/7:30 most days. I try to establish a 7-8am wake up time, though some mornings he's up by 6:30am which is fine.

Any advice or shared experiences on how babies who were NOT dreamfed started going through the night and, more importantly, whether these little ones were also all over the map when it came to wake-up time in the middle of the night would be much appreciated! I know he's too young to be pulling 12 hour stretches but I would like to know if I should be expecting more consistency in his middle of the night feed times. Yes, he does drink pretty much the same amount during the day, every day. Because he is totally bottle fed, I know this.

Thank you!!!!!
 
personally, i NEVER woke either of my kids. i just fed them when they "needed" it... totally worked for us, but not necessarily for others.
 
i have never tried dreamfeeding my bub who is just over 9 months now and he seems fine with it. he eats/drinks a lot during the daytime and he goes to bed around 8pm and wakes up at 6am - he made up his own schedule since he was a month old or so. he doesn't drink from 8pm till 6am either. once i tried to push a bottle in his mouth instead of his dummy and he got fussy and tried to teach me a lesson by not going back to sleep for 2 hours in the middle of the night!! i dare not try again! lol

he was very ill (high fever with vomitting twice daily) last month and only that time, he woke up around 11pm and when i put the dummy in his mouth, he pushed it out and cried till i gave him the bottle.

i guess you will be able to figure out what your bub needs as the day/night goes by. his waking time might be more consistent when he is a bit older.
 
We started dream feeds pretty late too at 3.5/4 months. Till then, he was breast fed on demand. It turned out reasonably easy. Sometimes he would get up due to habit at 3am but I gave him water a couple of times, or picked him up to rock him and he would be off to sleep again. Did not have to do it more than a week till he got the hang of it.
 
I gave a dream feed to my first baby upto around 7 months, but when we had our second I decided I prefer to go to bed earlier and get up through the night rather than staying up till 10.30/11pm to do the dreamfeed. My son (our second child) slept through consistently from 13 weeks (from 7pm to 7am) without a dreamfeed. He was breast fed this whole time so I don't think it is too early to expect this from your child, however I do agree that this is not the norm. What I would be looking at is if he has shown gradual improvement over the past few weeks, and if so, then this is a sign that you baby should continue to gradually improve. Prior to sleeping through, my boy was a bit randam as you have described, but eventually he kept pushing out that night wake later and later.

One thing I would ask is what is your baby's daytime routine like. Might be a good idea to keep a little diary. For instance, if he woke up earlier though the night, did he have less sleep during the day. Sometimes when my children are over tired they wake through the night. Might be a good idea to look at a 24 hour period over a few days as opposed to just the night time routine. Good luck, sounds like you have a fairly contented child on your hands.
 
Thank you everyone for your input!!

Sazzy, that is a good point. I have always tried to keep the temp in his room consistent but I will pay more attention to how he feels from now on.

AussieMum, this is exactly our situation - with my first, we did the dreamfeed consistently from birth and it worked grandly for him! And in theory i think the whole idea makes sense, but for our second we were just so tired all the time, we couldn't bring ourselves to wake up at 10:30/11pm to feed him (we were exhausted and crashing by 9pm most nights, haha!). Your idea about keeping a diary is a good one. I have been keeping mental tabs and to my recollection his daytime sleep does not seem to impact when he wakes up in the middle of the night; however, often you miss things without keeping a physical record so I may just start to do that - thanks again for your advice! Wow, your second is incredible to have started sleeping 12 hours straight through by 3 months and breastfed too! Good on you :-)

The interesting thing is that whenever he does wake up, he is RAVENOUS, even it is only 11:30pm! Last night, he downed the 200ml bottle in less than 5 minutes!! So I do think he wakes up out of hunger, regardless of what time it is. Which is strange because he is fed consistent amounts every day.
 
but beware, he could just as easily be waking up because he is too hot. (i find hk kids are generally WAYYYY over dressed...i am talking 7 layers when it's 20C outside! completely ridiculous!)

BOTH of my kids wake up when they are too hot, they (and I) prefer our rooms on the cold side (while daddy likes his room warm for sleeping). as an example, last night, i had the ceiling fan on, the AC on high blowing down on top of me... i had a tank top on and a light blanket and i STILL woke up 1/2 way through the night all sweaty and with a WET pillow!
 
i'd agree with carang, my daughter prefers her room on the cold side too...we have a baby monitor with a thermostat and we know she likes it at 21-22...any warmer we turn on the AC.

i have never dreamfed my daughter, i fed on demand...uping the last fed by 1oz to make her feel more full and then letting her sleep for as long as possible. i had a note pad, so I could see a pattern and play around with the amounts of milk and timing of feeds during the day so that the last feed would be just before bed time -
 
I continued the dream feed for 3 months as it ensured I did not need to get up between 10pm-7am. But we stopped the dream feeds around 7 months too. I realised that we were unnecessarily waking him up. He had started solids by then and I made sure he was full before going to sleep. Keeping a log any time in doubt as others have said is a good idea- it really tells you if there is a pattern and how to manipulate various aspects.
 
My son's room is always air conditioned when he sleeps whether napping during the day or sleeping at night. He sleeps at around 23 degrees.

We need gave our son dreamfeeds while in a crib. like leslie above, we gave usually 1 drink a night when he woke up for it. By 8 months, we weaned him off it and he could sleep through the entire night without one.
 
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