question about tonight's dreamfeed

[Leosmama]

After no afternoon nap today, I easily got ds down for the night at 5:30pm.  The last time I put him to bed at 5:30, I decided to do a dreamfeed at 10;15pm so he could get through to morning without being hungry.  It worked, in that he slept until 5:00am; believe me, 11.5 hrs of night sleep is the most he's ever done!

But now I'm wondering, should I do that same dreamfeed again, or should I try waiting until 3-4am or so?  Or should I (gasp) NOT do a dreamfeed and just 'see what happens' ?   

For those of you not familiar with my ongoing plight, my lo has been waking around 4:30 (give or take 30 min.) almost every morning for a few weeks now.  After trying different things, I found that when I've done a 4am df he's able to go longer in the morning, till about 6am.

What would you do???

[NiknLily]

Hi just going to bump you up, as I havent a clue, but its not nice to get overlooked.
newmum

[Leosmama]

Thanks for the bump!

Well, I did the df at 10pm last night, and he still woke up at 4:20am    But, I was able to get him back to sleep after nursing at that time so he did get lots of sleep last night.

Going forward, I'm really not sure if I should be doing any dreamfeeding.  I was initially doing the 4am df as a way to extend his morning wakeup time, but that has been hit or miss in terms of success.  Considering that I'm actually beginning the process of slowly weaning from the breast altogether, I'd like to not have to do this feed in the wee hours.  And I'm afraid that if I offer a sippy cup of milk instead, he'll be so thrown off that it definitely won't help to get him to sleep.

I tried for 3 weeks to NOT feed him when he woke at that time, and to get him to go back to sleep on his own, with no success.  I tried gradual withdrawel, a W2S, and the dreamfeed about 30 min. before he usually wakes.  If there was some other way I could get him to sleep later without feeding I would be thrilled.

If anyone has any feedback I'd be extremely grateful. 

[mari]

TBH I would have thought that he was a bit old for a dream feed and should be sleeping longer.  How much food and drink is he having throughout the day?  Perhaps it might help if you post your full routine ie, what time wake up, milk, solids, nap etc and perhaps we can see if something needs tweaking.

[Leosmama]

Thanks Mari - yes, I agree that he really shouldn't be getting a df at his age, but it has seemed that 10-11 hrs is all he's capable of going without any food.  As for during the day, he's been eating LOTS of solids; I noticed this really kicked in when I stopped nursing at night wakings as well as started to gradually wean him from daytime nursings.  Here's how a 'typical' day looks like lately:

4:30-5:00am wakeup; nurse and put back in crib, lately he'll fall back asleep around 6am and sleep till 7:00-7:20am
7:00-7:30am get up for the day and have breakfast, which is cereal or oatmeal and some water
9:00-9:30am  mid-morning snack - some whole grain muffin or bagel with water and/or a little milk
*around 10:00am he starts getting a bit cranky (depending on how his previous night was), so I take him out for a stroll or spend quiet time with him at home in order for him to make it past lunch
11:00am lunch - solids, milk and water (this is usually a pretty big meal, consisting of some form of protein, vegetable, whole grain and dairy)
12:00-12:30pm nap (unfortunately lately this hasn't been long enough, like 1 to 1 1/2 hrs)
3:00pm snack - Veggie Booty or cheerios along with a little cheese and water
5:00pm dinner - very similar to his lunch: solids, milk and water
*normally I would bathe him at 6pm, and put him to bed no later than 7pm.  But lately with the really short 1 nap of the day I've been putting him down between 5:30 and 6:00pm.

So I feel like I'm caught in a vicious circle, because I have to put him down so early due to not napping enough, but because he's going down so early he's waking hungry by 4:30-5:00.  And even if I do get him back to sleep, it takes a while so the 6:00-7:30am sleep time is almost more of a "nap"!  I feel like if I could get him to take a good, long nap (2+ hours) we could get caught up, but that's been challenging.  Today he woke up a little over an hour after going down for his nap and I tried everything to get him back to sleep (even nursing), but it was a no go.

If you see anything that I'm not seeing, please let me know.  Thanks so much for the help!

[Leosmama]

Hi Stacy,

I've been going back and forth on whether we're ready to go to one nap or not.  On the days when he takes two naps, he has a harder time falling asleep at a reasonable bedtime (in other words, he can't go to sleep easily if it's been less than 4 to 5 hrs since waking from his nap), and still wakes up really early.  Everything I've read says that the signs of being ready to go to one nap are early wakings and refusal of one of the naps; well, these have both been issues for us and on the days when he has taken one good, long nap, everything goes so smoothly.

As for the 5am feeding, I spent WEEKS not feeding him at this time, but instead doing a sort of toddler PD along with gradual withdrawel to try and train him to stay in bed and sleep later.  I also tried w2s, and that didn't help either.  A couple of other people on this board suggested that maybe he really does get hungry by this time, and needs to be fed.  After feeling like there was no hope in trying to get him to sleep later in the a.m., I started feeding him again when he woke, mainly because I couldn't take the frustration anymore and just gave in 

But my main question in this particular thread is, on these days when I've had to put him down super early (5:30pm), is it unreasonable to expect him to go past 5am without a feeding?