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Hi guys
It seems that everywhere i read people suggest late night (dream feeds). I tried these in the early days and Hendrix wont wake and feed. Lately he has been waking again once a night around 4-5am. Hendrix goes to bed 6-7pm.
Does everyone (or did you at Hendrix age) wake for an evening feed?
If my child was asleep there was no way I was going to wake them in order to feed them. If my boobs were full I would just express some off. My theory was "if they were hungry then they would wake up naturally" I also have issues in having to wake them if we need to go somewhere
Love
Heather,
I still give Eliza a dreamfeed. After reading the "BabyWhisperer" I decided to give it a go as she goes down fairly early 6-630pm for the night.
I never wake her up all I do is pick her up and stick the bottle in her mouth which is always open. I don't burp nor change her nappy if it is not dirty or really wet. She settles back straight away. It is amazing that they have the reflexs to just to suck and because they are asleep they don't "gulp" hence not needing to burb. I have done this since Eliza was about 4 weeks old. She might not take all the bottle but most times she does.It is the difference between a 4am wake up or a 7am wake up
Bec
i have never woken any of mine either for any feeds,but i am lucky enough with all of the others that they just slept through and that was it....
Dominic however 8-[ is another story entirely...he goes to bed about 7pm now,and will wake himself for a feed about 10-11.30pm....i have to say i like it because it means he will sleep right through to 8 am in the morning usually,only because he will drink a full 150-200mls though,which he wont drink before he goes to bed earlier as he is too fussy....
I say go with what you want to do....
Dommie didnt go to bed til 10pm last night and slept right through til 8am this morning,so maybe the dream feeds are the way to teach them good sleeping hours,but then having said that i dont think i would be comfortable waking Dominic,but its ok if he wakes himself.....
(if anything made sense out of that it is good,because looking at it doesnt make much sense to me!!)
I won't wake Alex for a feed i did try it for a few days but it mad things worse. I just go by when he wants feeding and sometimes he does wake at night it just depends on when he goes to bed to when he wakes up. Last night he woke at 10.30 then woke at 6am.
Thanks guys
I think i will stick to what im doing and follow his lead. i think it may be easier to give a dream feed with a bottle as the teat is firmer and easier to put in a mouth than a nipple. He does usually sleep through and has done so since he was 8 weeks but i think that it really has to do with the weather in sydney also - its warm when he goes to bed then cools quite a bit during the night. Fingers crossed he sleeps through again soon
Heather I've heard that between 4am & 5am (just before sunrise) is the coldest part of the night, so maybe you're onto something there.
Zander tends to wake around that time as well - he kicks his blankets off early cos it's hot & I think he wakes then only to have his blankets put back on!
I used to give Aidyn a 'dreamfeed' at around 10 or 11 pm, and it ensured that he wouldnt wake up until at least 7am the next morning. If I didnt dreamfeed him he would wake up at about 4am.
I never woke him up to have a feed, just picked him and up and cradled him, put the bottle in his mouth and he would drink it in his sleep... same for burping, he would sleep right through it, but he usually would burp fairly easily too because he was so relaxed with being asleep...
Matilda still sometimes wakes between 4-5am thats just the time she goes really light, so we usually give her a bottle if she can't get back to sleep :)
Sarah - what have you been dressing Zander in and what do you have as bed linen on his cot??
We've just started "dreamfeeding" Jenna to try and break her of the 1-2:30am wakeups she has been doing for the last month or so. I just pick her up and put my breast in front of her nose. Even dead asleep, the last two nights she has taken it! I've had to stroke her face, and pull on her ear a little to keep her feeding.
Last night I burped her, and then put her down. She wriggled for about 5 mins,and then started crying. So I picked her up again, and she burped again! Then went straight to sleep. She has woken up through the night, but hasn't got hysterical for a feed, which is what shes been like fo rthe last couple of weeks.
So I reserve judgement, but if I can get her through to 4-6am (this morning it was 5!!) I'm happy.
Fi
heather
i started doing a dream feed with lani when she was around 5mths old - cause she started waking every hour on the hour during the night to be fed and i was getting a little frustrated as you do.
anyway i started picking her up and not waking her and breastfed her just before going to bed at night (between 10 and 11pm) i knew then if she woke she couldn't really be hungry, eventually i started doing it with about 150mls of formula (i was having a few feeding problems) anyway it worked a treat for us and she started sleeping through again till 6 or 7am - i kept this up till she was around 10mths old cause i was scared that if i didn't feed her she would start waking again lol - one night i was so tired i went to bed early and she didn't wake so i didn't worry about the dream feed anymore.
having said all that - i did try the same with my ds but it didn't work - all babies are different.
i don't like waking a sleeping baby thus when i did the dream feed i used to just gently pick her up out of the cot and put the bottle or the breast in her mouth and she just drank with her eyes still closed, i would then gently lift her and try burping her and quite often she didn't need to burp as she was so sleepy whilst feeding no air was being gulped down.
good luck - if you want give it a go for a few nights and if it doesn't work then go back to what you are doing.
I have tried it with both Olivia and Charlie, and both of them stayed asleep & had a bit of a breast feed, and then woke up the same time they would have done anyway, so I gave up!
It seems to really work well for some babies and not for others, so as the other girls have suggested, maybe try it and see what happens/how Hendrix reacts?
Hi Heather,
I guess if Hendrix is going to bed around 6pm and waking up around 5am that is as good as sleeping through so I would think a dreamfeed isn't necessary? Sounds like you have it all worked out already!
Thank you all for your detailed posts! I might try a dream feed tonight! Fletch thank you for compliment :D
Heather, Makenzie has a feed around 11-11.30pm, otherwise she will wake in the night or very early morning (like 3am). I don't know how awake she is when she has that feed as that's DH's job (coz I go to bed lol). She's been waking at 8am the last two mornings so if she sticks with that will slowly move the 11pm bottle forward a bit.
As for clothing at night in Sydney - Makenzie normally has a jumpsuit on (just a bonds suit or a light cotton one) and is sometimes wrapped in a light bunnyrug, and she has a thin flannelette sheet and a lightweight waffle-weave blanket on top. It's so hard to tell at this time of year as one night can be really warm and the next night back to being like winter. She's still in the bassinet too which is not as "open" as a cot so probably a bit warmer.
OMG Brooke - you have the most beautiful little girl! I just checked out your photos and she is just gorgeous! I really want a cuddle. Wish i could just pop over for a chat :D
I bags her for hendy!! haha