routines without the dream feed

[jank]

I have a 4 month old and am looking for people to post their routines without the dream feed.  The reason I ask this is because I've found that the df has been disrupting her sleep and she is beginning to wake up for it.  Before, her last awake feed is at 7:30pm  (sleeps shortly after ~ 7:45-8pm) with a df at 11pm.  She slept once to 7am but usually wakes up around 4-4:30am.  Without the df, she sleeps until 3:30am.  Hence, I've found it wasn't worth it to stay up for the df for an extra 30min to hour sleep.  Should I try to cluster feed her to compensate for the missed df in the evening? (When she wakes up at 6pm and feed her again before I put her down like before?).   I am bfing and have started giving her a bottle at the 7:30pm feed to make sure she is full for the night (she takes about 5-5 1/2 oz).  She's 12 lbs.  My routine is below.

E- 7am
A-7:30
S-8:30

E-11
A-11:30
S-1:30-2:00

E-3 pm
A-3:30
S-4:30-5:00

A-6:00.  Bath at 7:00pm
E-7:30 pm
S-7:45-8:00 pm

No DF.  Wakes at ~3:30 for feed.  Sleeps til 7 am..

[RachelC]

jank,
It looks like things are going great for you!  You could try a cluster and do feeds at 7, 11, 3, 5, 7:30 to try to get some more calories into her before bed.  Not sure how well that would work for you.  You may just want to keep things the way they are.  If she's gaining weight, producing diapers and happy, you may not need more feeds (5 feeds doesn't *seem* like enough, but I think my dd was on 5 feeds at 4 months.... 4 during the day and a df and she slept throught).

HTH

[sam's mummy]

This is almost exactly what I am going through right now. My bubs is 9 weeks old and has been sleeping solidly for about 3 weeks (more than 6 hour stretches at night). It seems that no matter when I feed him after the 6:30-7pm feed, he will wake at 4-4:30 without fail. I used to try to feed again at 9pm and then 11pm but regardless, he wakes at 4-4:30. So I gave up the 9pm and 11pm feedings because he sleeps through from 8pm (when he goes to sleep - after his 6:30 feed) to 4-4:30am anyway.

I'd like to switch this to a 9pm or 10pm feed and sleeping through to 6 or 7am but I can't seem to change the 4am wake up! I've tried his dummy but he only falls asleep for 5 minutes each time (and I give up about 30-40 minutes later and feed him). I've tried letting him cry and he will still go on for 1 hour +, I've tried pickup and put down, but this just gets him worked up thinking he's getting a feed, so I tried pickup and dummy, but he gets agitated because the dummy won't give him any milk!!

Any suggestions?