BabyWhispererForums.com
SLEEP => Night Wakings => Topic started by: PaolaG on December 14, 2005, 19:41:57 pm
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hi all. My daughter Lea is 4 months (born 8 August). Our problem is that she still wakes at least once and more often twice a night for feeding, by which I mean between 7pm and 7am. During the day she feeds every 4 hours and seems pretty comfortable with that.
Her day starts at a different time each morning, but normally she wakes between 7.30 and 8.30am. She doesn't need to be fed instantly. She has a bath at around 6.30pm, a last feed before bed at around 7pm, and then she happily goes to sleep by herself ( I don't feed her to sleep).
In the night, her eating is very erratic. I haven't been giving a dreamfeed because when I tried, it didn't seem to reduce her night wakings. At her best she can go 6 to 7 hours betwen feeds (she did 8 hours once!), and at worst is 3 or 3.5 hours between feeds. So when she goes off to sleep at 7pm, I really don't know if I will be feeding next her at 11pm or at 2am.
Should I try dreamfeeding again? At the moment I am just not convinced by it, because when I do feed her at around 11 or 11.30pm, she often only goes 3 or 4 hours to the next feed. Our best nights are when she goes from 7pm to 2 or 3 am, and then to 7 or 8am.
a bit confused, and wanting more night sleep.
Paola
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At 4mo it is very reasonable to have 2 feeds between 7pm & 7am. The fact she isn't waking at the same time & does go a longer stretch says to me she needs it. I know some people who do a df (i don't as I like to get to bed early) say it can take about a week (sometimes more) before it kicks in, so you would need to keep doing it for at least a week to see if it works.
I would say your dd is actually doing great if she sometimes does 1 feed in that time & then goes until 7.30 or even 8.30
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My ds is only 6 days older than your daughter, and I know exactly where you are coming from! Does she take a soother? That has been the only way to get around our 2 night wakings. Pat/sh and pu/pd just made him more worked up! So now I feed him at his first waking, and, if there is another one, use the soother to calm him. Now he'll generally eat around 11:00, and go until 6 or 7 am. I think that's pretty good for this age from what I've read.
I was also told that dreamfeeding can take a couple weeks before it really helps reduce the other night wakings.
HTH