Diary of a dreamfeed wean!

[mimicoto]

Hello all! Good to *see* you vadensmommy and *Paula* :-) Just checking in to add my encouragement to Lisel to give dropping the DF a try.  My story with my lo is on this thread.  I was nervous about it as well, but it went super-smooth and straightened out some NW problems - and all of the daytime appetite problems we were having.  When we decided to drop the df, lo's 'poor appetite' lasted all day - he would take a proper feed until his 3rd or sometimes 4th bottle of the day.  As vadensmommy says, it's not as scary as you think and I really didn't find it disturbed my lo to gradually do the df earlier.  It took a while for the appetite to catch up, but really not as bad as I thought it would be.  Give it a go and good luck!

[* Paula *]

Hi mimicoto  great to see you.  Pleased to hear that things are still going well.

[benandmichelle]

Hi all,

Ben slept through for 2 nights!!!! Yay!! But last night woke 3 times again
Never mind....I am convinced dropping the df was a good thing!

Michelle

[* Paula *]

Hugs hun, things will get better I promise.

[vadensmommy]

Hey Michelle
Do you think the wakings are hunger driven??
All I know is that less than a week after we dropped the DF, dd went through a growth spurt.  It may have been Sophie - Leanasmom that started the thread, but her dd did the same thing - went through a GS right after the df was weaned, so at least I had sort of mentally prepared for it.  She had a couple of hunger driven NW's, but once the gs was over, the nw's went away as well.

If it isn't hunger driven -do you do pu/pd or just pd?

[* Paula *]

I totally agree with Vadensmommy - could definitly be a growth spurt.

Love your new avatar of Vaden 

[benandmichelle]

Hi....no they are not hunger driven...probably otiredeness. I had better go over to naps and ask some questions there as his naps are not great now. He is still inbetween still needing the morning nap and not. It is a real pain.
He is not able to pull up yet. I don't do PU/PD at all anymore.....just put the dummy back in I know I know. It is really not a solution but I tried PU/PD and it never 'solved' the problem entirely. He still can't really self soothe and I am at a loss as to where to go from hee. I need to do some more 'work' on it all I think. Things are better than they were but stilll I wonder when he will EVER just learn to go to sleep WITHOUT me having to go into him once. AArrggghhh...... need to get over to props and PU/PD too by the look of it

Michelle

[vadensmommy]

Hey Michelle
Vaden learned to self soothe really early on in life (thank heavens for my angel baby), but when she started pulling up, the sleep stuff got really irritating, and I used pd, and it worked like a charm!  I don't really do it anymore even if she isn't sleeping great for one odd nap - I do more AP, but if it starts to become a problem, then we go back to pd.  Good luck, and I hope you find what you're needing to get him sleeping well!!!

[orbmom]

I am starting the df wean.  Quick question - do I drop the oz's and make the feed time earlier or just drop the oz's.  How long should it take?  We are down to about 3 oz now, sometimes even one.  I tried cold turkey, but he woke up crying about an hour after the normal df time, so I am trying to do it gradually.  He is almost 9 mos, eats breakfast and dinner meals, and takes a bottle at 7:30 11:30 3:30 and 7P.   

[grahamsmama]

If you're down that far already, it shouldn't take long!  I did a few days at each ounce amount.  I also tried to move it earlier at the same time, but we were already so early (9/9:30) that I couldn't move it much earlier than 8 or so.

[* Paula *]

I agree with grahamsmama, start moving the time half an hour earlier every 3 days and drop by an oz every 3 days and see how you get on.

It should not be long now though.

[peacheycat]

Sorry this is a REALLY long one!

I've had my son on EASY for about 12 weeks - he's now 28 weeks old.  I discovered this technique after trying other stuff to try and get him to sleep at night and its the only way thats worked!  He's a big boy and weighs around 23lbs!  He's on three solid meals a day plus puddings and has 5 feeds of formula of 4oz a day (although I think he'd take more but HV advised I was overfeeding him)! and takes an 1.5 to 2 hours nap in the mornings and afternoons and sometimes needs a catnap around 4pm.  I feed him formula at 7, 11, 3, 7 and 11pm.  I want to drop his dreamfeed as he's pretty good at eating his meals now.  I tried as Tracey suggests dropping an ounce every three days (but did it every hour instead of half hour as he's only on 4oz feeds) this didnt work and he was waking around 4am (although I didnt feed him and he did go back off to sleep after about an hour til his usual waking time of around 6.45am), I got fed up of the 4am wakings though so went back to 4oz at 11.  I was going to drop it altogether (I'd added an ounce to his other 4 bottles) last night but he woke at 10;58pm so ended up feeding him again, he took all  4oz bearing in mind he'd had 4 5oz feeds!

Does anyone have any suggestions of anything else I can try?  Or am I just being lazy and should persevere with the early wakings and see if it sorts itself out?  I dont think he's getting too little food as even when he wakes at 4 he is happy to wait til 7 for breakfast, I'm a bit stuck.

Thanks

[* Paula *]

I am unsure as to why your HV is telling you that you are overfeeding your lo.   

My DD is nearly 9 months, and is taking 27oz of formula in 3 feeds - 3 x 9oz bottles, and is also on 3 meals a day, and has a pudding at lunch time, and a yogurt in the afternoon.

20oz of formula is the minimum amount that your lo should be taking.

I would advise you to up the amount of milk your lo is having in his bottles, to say 6oz or so and see how he copes with this.   Up until the age of 1 milk is still your lo's main source of nutritian, and food is really only for practice until he gets older.

I would definitely offer more milk in the day, and once your lo is taking more milk you can consider weaning the DF. 

Hope this information helps.

[vadensmommy]

Completely agree with Paula.  4oz a feeding is not very much at all!  Vaden was getting at least 4x 7oz feeds at this age, and we still had a DF of 4-5oz at night as well.  We didn't drop the DF till around 8.5mo if I remember right (it's buried somewhere in this big post), but that is pretty late.  I'd let him have as much milk as he wanted each feeding and see how he did, but that is just me.  V was never a big big eater, so I was always trying to get more in her during the day   Good luck to you!

[lukemom]

Hiya!

Quick question.  I am in the process of dropping the dream feed.  I am at 3 oz at 930 and this evening he only took about one oz (it's day two of this feed amount and time).  I plan on continuing to do the three day rule but am wondering is it worth waking him up for 2 oz only @ 2hrs into his sleep.  Should I just do those last couple of oz cold turkey?
Would love advice from those who have done it already!
p.s.  Ds will be 8 months old in two days and takes four 6-7 oz bottles.  I haven't added any of the DF oz to any of his bottles cause he can't tolerate it (spits up like crazy)  so have made up for most of those oz in solids foods. (2tbsp = 1 fld oz)  He eats three meals a day, two tbsp of two food groups at each meal.