When to feed at Night?

[Becfromnz]

Hi beautiful Mums out there,

I am just wanting a bit of guidance about my DS and his night wakings. Up until recently, he was taking longer naps most of the time, but now seems to have been bitten by the 45 minute monster! However, even with longer naps, his nightwakings were pretty similar to now. He seems to wake at around 2 regardless of dreamfeed (though i have never been consistent with df...just kind of tried it every now and then to see if it would make a difference kinda thing). Now when he wakes at 2, I don’t think he is hungry because he will take a dummy and go back to sleep. He will then wake at 4 hungry and not want dummy at all, so this is when I normally feed him, and he will then sleep until 7. I am just wondering how to stretch the time between the dreamfeed (if i do it consistently) and the 4am feed? Would I be better to try and feed at the 2am waking, and see if that gets him through until later than 4am, or do I keep just feeding at 4, hoping he will eventually give up on the 2am waking? In the past, he was sleeping up to 6-7 hour blocks at some stage of the night but that seems to have disappeared! Ironically, that was before I started EASY so I have no idea what we did to achieve that!
E: 7:30
S: 8:30 until 9:20 (tried to get back off to sleep, no luck)
E: 10:00
S: In bed at 11:00, sleep 11:30 until 12:00 (tried to get back off to sleep, no luck)
E: 1:00
S: 2:45 until 3:30 (tried to get back off to sleep, no luck)
E: 4:00
S: 5:00 until 6:00
A: Bath
E: 6:40
S: Bed at 7:00, asleep 7:40, awake at 8:30, 2:00, 4:00, 7:00

Many Thanks for any suggestions that anyone can offer!

By the way, DS is 11 weeks old and exclusively breastfed

[ZacsMumme]

What time is the DF Hun?
There is a huge GS around 12 weeks - just a heads up incase things go a bit nutty soon
So it looks like you on a 3 hr E give or take during the day is that right? at this age I would say his feeding habits are quite normal for a Bf babe really...yes some do lovely long stretchesetc but others don't. Some Also do of a bit then go back to needing more frequent feeds.

Hopefully you will get some more advice, but iwould work on stretching all feeds to 3 hrs apart, as long as he is feeding well and gaining weight this will encourage longer feeds rather than snacking which they an stat to do around now. Bigger feeds during day will encourage longer stretches at night.

FWIW we always had a pesky 4am feed, DS wouldn't takes DF either do it was our last to go

[Becfromnz]

Thanks for the fast reply! My dream feeds tend to be around 11, and i'm thinking I should do it consistently for a week or so before i can judge....the trouble has been that DS has been unpredictable on when he will settle for the night, so sometimes he hasn't long been asleep after a wake up so haven't bothered with a DF. Hopefully he will start predicably settling for the night so i can give it a good go! Also, I just read that not giving as many night feeds can affect supply later on....should I be worried about that?

PS: Very cool to see a fellow kiwi on here!
PPS: How do people get to become moderators on here? Still learning how this works!

[Fiver]

At 11w, going from a DF (or not) to 2am is great (4am even more so!)  If it were me, I would probably feed at 2am right now rather than trying to resettle.  It's not unusual for a BF LO to still need 2x NFs at this stage, especially, as Sara said, you've got that 12w/3m GS just around the corner and another big one at 16w/4m.

Any NFs you're doing between 12am and 6am are going to be good for supply later as that is when prolactin levels are the highest (hence these clever babies waking at those sort of times during the night ) so don't panic there.

As for your question about moderators, this should help - http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=83234.0

[ZacsMumme]

Amanda's advice is great
I was also thinking that if you give the DF a week you may find that 2am wake becomes 3/3.30 and LO lasts longer ie to 6/7

It is nice to see a fellow kiwi where you from hun?

[Becfromnz]

Thank you both so much for the great advice and answering my questions....just to update you, I have been giving the dreamfeed for 3 nights in a row, and DS has stopped waking at 2, now just wakes between 3:30-4:00. Hopefully he keeps this up, it has made a huge difference in how im feeling.

I am loving this site, just knowing that there are hundreds of parents out there going through the same things that I am is very comforting....

Ps: Zacsmumme, I am in Whangarei, Northland...

[Fiver]

Glad the DF seems to be working out for you now

[ZacsMumme]

Great progress,that is fantastic. Glad your getting some more sleep
It will be warmer up there than here down by Wellington!