Drop the DF?

[Lindsay27]

DD will be 1 month tomorrow and I'm curious about possibly dropping the DF.  More just thinking out loud here...

My DS never had a DF but we sort of came by this one naturally as DD seemed to settle into an evening routine very quickly and typically goes down for the night at about 7pm and thus would naturally feed about 3hrs later at 10pm.  At first she was waking for this feed but now she's usually dead asleep so it just turned into a DF.  The thing is, it tends to wake her up completely, she can often fight the bottle and can be generally pretty gassy and seem uncomfortable after (grunting, holding her legs up to her tummy etc.).  It seems like it might actually be doing more harm than good?  The pro is that it does tie her over until about 1:30am, and she has gone as long as until 3am.  I usually go to bed at about 10pm so the DF fits into my routine easily, so I worry that if I stop and just go to bed myself that she'll end up waking an hour later for a feed leaving me with a crummy NF.  That said, she just doesn't seem to want thw DF if that makes sense. 

Any BTDT or advice?  I guess I can just try a night without a see what happens.

[Martini~]

You never know Honey until you don't try. Remember that she probably will need 3-4 nights to show you her true routine without DF. You may always go back to DF when she is older - I did that, started DF at 3mo when DS had 1NF around 4-5am and we switched that NW for 11pm DF.

You may also DF at different time than 10pm like 9:30 or 10:30. Maybe she will be in a different sleep cycle and she will accept it more easily.

[Haribo2012]

I stuck with DF but prob wasn't true DF until about 12 weeks it was more like just the 3 hour routine until then. When DS was around the 12 weeks I could lift him out the cot, feed him and burp and back down while he stayed pretty much passed out, then he used to wake around 2/3pm.

I kept until about 6 months and he was mostly sleeping till 5 ish.
Trial and error I guess Hun, I liked the routine if it as wound just nod off myself and he'd wake for feed 11 any ways!

xx

[Lindsay27]

I am trying to skip it tonight and see what happens.  I think she may need a longer stretch for the dream feed, maybe at like 11/11:30 but it is honestly too late for me.  I think she may end up waking naturally at that time, but at least I'd have a bit of sleep before then.  We will see what happens

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I tried a df with DD3 (had worked well with the first two lol) but no atter what time I tried she just would not rouse enough to feed so I had no option but to wait for her to wake. I would be tempted to try a few days without just to see and go back to it if the df is a better option.

[Lindsay27]

Well it's 4:30am (go back to bed mommy!) and we skipped it and it worked out really well.  She went from 7pm-1am, fed and back to bed (though she only ate 2oz...I really thought she'd take more), then woke at 4 for a feed and is now back to bed.  So I'm expecting she'll wake again at 7.  The 1am-4am-7am is her usual waking routine even with the DF so it doesn't seem like it was even doing anything since she woke at the same times without it and had such a good early stretch. 

I'll try it for a few more days and see if this sticks, it could totally have been a fluke.  She was super tired as we were at a birthday party and she hardly napped all day, so this could have just been a symptom of her literally crashing.

[melloyello]

Just popping on to say my LO (13 weeks now) sounds very similar to yours in that it seemed like the DF wasn't really helping all that much (this was around 1 month as well) and he was so hard to rouse anyway so we tried skipping it and he slept till the same time he would even with the DF! He has gradually stretched that waking out to 2:30-3am now and actually, I tried reintroducing the DF last week for a few nights hoping he might sleep through with it - and he still woke around the 3am time regardless lol. Like Martini says, you can always try reintroducing later but I just think it doesn't always work for every LO and for some can disrupt their sleep.

[Lindsay27]

We've skipped it a few nights now and she is consistently doing 7pm-1am without it, so it seems like the DF wasn't helping to extend her night at all.  So, we are going to drop it for now.  Like I said I never did it with my DS so I doubt we'll use it again.