Longest Stretch of Sleep

C

clowe77

Registered User
My 3 month old baby boy usually has bedtime at 7-8pm and we usually wake him up around 11pm for a feed before he goes back to sleep for the night. When we do this, he normally sleeps til 4-6am, a few times straight to 7am! However on weekends we sometimes do not wake him up at 11pm and just let him sleep on, in which case he inevitably wakes up around 1-2am. One would think he would then just sleep through til 7am but he then will still get up around 4:30-5:30am (thus only sleeping about 3 hours this stretch).

My question is - should we keep be consistent and even on weekends wake him up at 11pm, hoping to first phase out the 4-5am feed? Is it bad to be inconsistent with his night time sleep/wake schedule?

Any experiences on your baby's longest sleep stretch and how you did it would be great!
 
Hi, I would say consistency is extremely important. We did the same, a dreamfeed at 11pm or so, then the stretch afterward went til 5amish then slowly got longer until she was waking at 7am. We dropped the 11pm dreamfeed once solids were well established at around 7 months, but a lot of people manage to drop it much earlier on.
 
I think it depends on your baby. We have a four-month old and we usually put him to bed at 9 pm, and wake him up for his dream feed at 1 a.m. (This is the feed my husband gives with EBM.) Hubbie has to set his alarm for this feed and there are times when he will sleep past the alarm and not give the bottle til as late as 2 a.m. Still, even with the hour's difference, bubs will get up in the morning at 7 for his first feed.
 
clowe77,

I seem to be on a similar schedule as you. I have a 4 month old. She goes to bed 7-8pm and then we dreamfeed her with a bottle of EBM at 10:30-11. She then wakes up once during the night anywhere from 2:30-5:30 and then up for the day at 7 or 8am.

I have been playing around with the two evening feeds with different combos of nursing/EBM to see if I can get the middle of the night wake-up more consistent but no luck. BUT have kept the feeding times consistent every day.

Peainpod, how much do you feed at the 1am EBM feed? I have been giving 4oz and have no idea if that is too much or enough. Sometimes I give less and she sleeps longer so can't find any rhyme or reason.
 
I have never woken my baby for a dream feed even from birth. I always have fed her on demand. She has her bedtime bottle of milk at 6:30pm and sleeps through until 6-7am and has done since she was 4 months old (10mths now). There has been the odd occasion she has woken in the night for her milk. My baby seems to sleep longer than those I know that are woken for a dream feed. Perhaps I am lucky, but I just can't get my head round the whole dream feed thing - if you leave them to sleep then they will wake when they are ready - are you not waking them to feed therefore breaking their pattern of sleep so they never go back in to a deep sleep therefore waking again in the night? I am no Doctor but just curious to know!
 
Cyberfish88 - I totally hear ya! There is no rhyme or reason because we too have played around with the "dream feed" timing. One thing though - generally, the more we feed him at the 11pm feed, the longer he is able to feed. It also depends on how well he has fed throughout the day. They say a baby only wakes up hungry in the middle of the night if he/she has not taken in all the nutrients he/she requires during the day. I try to feed my baby as much as 6oz at the 11pm feed but he seldom takes more than 3, as he is generally so sleepy when we wake him up at 11... and I hesitate to over-stimulate him to wake him up as it might put him off his sleep-mode.

Question for you, Cyberfish - how much does he drink at 2:30-5:30 feed? Mine only drinks a bit - like 5-8min on one breast and then he falls asleep on my breast and then he doesn't wake again til 7am-ish (and he doesn't act hungry when he wakes up!) So I think in my case, he wakes up between 4:30-6am sheerly out of habit, not so much because he actually needs it. Then again, with b-fed babies it's so hard to tell if they've gotten all the nutrients they need during the day because we can't measure out the amounts. Mine is both b-fed and formula fed (about 70% b-fed), so I can't tell either...

Lucylou - you are very lucky indeed. Dreamfeeding does not work for every baby (exactly for the reasons you mentioned - after all, every baby is different) but it does work for many. You are very lucky that you never needed to consider it because your little one sounds like such a good sleeper naturally. Do you breast or formula feed?
 
Dreamfeed's never worked for me, either. Baby's mouth is either clamped firmly shut or she wakes up and is difficult to settle.
 
I formula feed. I have never considered it as I have never felt the need to. I actually dream fed her the other week as she went to bed without her milk as she was so tired. I got her out of bed and she didn't even wake - she took the bottle but after about 5 mins, started gagging as she was drinking in her sleep - I realised after that I wouldn't do it again, I felt awful! I tried to imagine being woken up in the night and having a bottle shoved in my mouth, I wouldn't be best pleased either!! :O)
 
cyberfish88 said:
Peainpod, how much do you feed at the 1am EBM feed? I have been giving 4oz and have no idea if that is too much or enough. Sometimes I give less and she sleeps longer so can't find any rhyme or reason.
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We also give 4 oz EBM and afterwards will nurse bubs to give him some extra hindmilk. (I pump while hubbie does the bottle-feed, so it's not like he's getting a full feed from my breast.) Usually bubs will drink for around 10 mins and this also helps lull him back to sleep afterwards.

(Most nights he will finish the whole bottle, but on the occasional nights when he's tired or fussy, he may only drink as little as 2 oz - but he'll always want to finish on the breast.)

I agree with Clowe that if they are given enough during the other feeds, they probably don't "need" a dream-feed per se. But my baby is larger than most (above 97 percentile) and he already feeds 9 times in a 24-hr cycle (4 EBM bottle feeds and 5 nursing at the breast) so I'm not sure when or how I can fit in an additional feed to make up for what he drinks during the dream feed! Esp since I have to pump for the 9am-5pm period when I am at work and I am generating just barely enough to cover the bottle feeds on a daily basis (without having to resort to my freezer stash.)
 
I'm told that formula-fed babies tend to sleep through the night more easily as the formula milk stays in their stomach longer. With fully breastfed babies, they digest the milk more easily (smaller curds) and so need to be fed more frequently.
 
Lucylou - yes formula fed babies sleep through the night much more easily... so I am not surprised you never had to resort to dream feeding. I guess that's more something breast-fed babymommies like us need to do to stay sane (ie - TRY to get ourselves a few extra hours of sleep in the night!)
 
Peainpod - wow I don't think your beloved NEEDS a dream feed... i'm sure you can cut it out soon - sounds like mommy is working hard and giving him plenty of nutrition during the day. I think lots of babies don't sleep through the night out of habit more than need... and as they grow older (and wiser haha) they will kick the mid-of-night feed habit... one can always hope!!!
 
clowe77 said:
Peainpod - wow I don't think your beloved NEEDS a dream feed... i'm sure you can cut it out soon - sounds like mommy is working hard and giving him plenty of nutrition during the day. I think lots of babies don't sleep through the night out of habit more than need... and as they grow older (and wiser haha) they will kick the mid-of-night feed habit... one can always hope!!!
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Really? But since he finishes the 4 oz bottle AND nurses at my breast on most nights that I'm reading this as him still needing the dreamfeed. (ie. once he starts only taking a couple of oz instead of the full bottle, that's the sign of habit more than need.)
 
clowe77, As for middle of the night feeds - exactly the same as you! She feeds off of one breast (while I pump the other) for only about 10 mins and then goes right back to sleep. Occasionally she will sleep through till 8 or 9! (I count on her waking me up so was shocked one morning to see it was so late and she was happily playing in her crib)

As for the 10:30 dreamfeed amount, I reduced it to 2oz the other night and then nursed her and she slept her longest stretch yet so I have no proof that increasing the 10:30 dreamfeed amount will help them sleep! (hmm unless, she actually got more from my breast which could be the case...) I was also wondering if maybe you want them to drink less at this time because eventually it will be phased out?

I think you and peainpod are right about the nutrients during the day. My daughter has always been on the small side so I am always trying to feed her as much as I can. Like peainpod, I don't know how I could get more feedings in.

Lucylou, yeah formula-fed babies are a completely different story. If I don't dreamfeed my daughter she will wake at 1-2am making that 7pm-2am her longest stretch of sleep. So the theory is that I am helping her switch that long stretch to post 10:30 feed. It is also the same idea as those who recommend tanking your child up during the day so they get the nutrients and can sleep longer at night. I was uncomfortable with it at first but it really works and all I have to do is gently pick up my daughter and she starts smacking her lips without waking up! It is pretty funny. She then goes right back into a deep sleep.

Anyways, it is good to hear your routines clowe77 and peainpod so that I know I am not too far off.
 
Hi Peainpod - well, of course don't take my word for it - I am just surmising here... you seem to be feeding your baby plenty during the day - was does his PD say? And is he over or under avg weight or right on target for his age? If he's in say the 90th percentile or above (which mine is!), I'd say he probably doesn't need the extra night feed... Sometimes babies suckle for comfort (and feed out of habit) not necessarily out of hunger. Just my 2 cents!

Cyberfish - feel free to PM me or call me at 9020 5970 anytime to discuss any of your issues. I think we're on the same wavelength with feeding/sleeping schedules. Last night my LO slept from 1am (daddy slept through his 11pm alarm so we did the dream feed one hour later) to 6:45am, so I'm pretty jazzed today. He did wake up at 5:10am crying but twice I picked him up and cuddled him back to sleep after 8 minutes without feeding him... Have you ever tried just cuddline/patting your baby back to sleep if he wakes up at 2-4am? That could work, and you'd be training your baby to not feed before a certain time. If he's not really hungry, chances are he could go back to sleep with just a cuddle...
 
Cyberfish - since you're more focused now on phasing out the 2-5am feed, I would not reduce the number of ounces you feed him at the dreamfeed YET. Let him phase out the mid of night feed before starting then to slowly reduce the dream feed. That's what I've read anyway...
 
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