HELP with Dreamfeed - turning into a nightmare!!

[kmz]

Hi there

Am having big  issues with the DF.

My DD is 6 wks old. She is on a 3hr EASY.. it goes well during the day. She goes to bed at 7pm (last feed just before). She is BF.
I have started doing an 11pm DF with expressed bottle.

Prior to doing this she was waking around 1/2am and then 3/4am and occasionally wld wake at 5.30 before starting the day at 7.

The issues I am having.. with the DF (we are over a week in) are:
4 of the last 7 nights she has still woken the above times - all 3 feeds.. she only dropped the 1/2am feed on 3 (not consecutive) days. So I feel that we have either added on extra feed or simply moved the 1/2am feed earlier to 11pm.

Also when I feed her the DF although she doesn't wake she starts to squirm badly as if wind - almost hard to hold her -  and then will root with her mouth after for ages - this means she comes out of the swaddle and is practically awake. I did one night on the boob to see if she was still hungry (she was getting 120ml in the bottle) and she wasn't - it was simply a comforting suck - she hardly had her mouth round my nipple.. although this feed was harder than the bottle due to the squirming as she kept coming off the nipple.
However its very hard to get her back down after the DF and two of the nights have resulted in her struggling to sleep to the next feed ( I can hear grunting and groaning then crying at 3am - when I feed her - and then up the WHOLE of the rest of the night till I can't get her back down around 6am.. screaming with wind pain and pulling her knees up to her chest etc. Both nights she has then done 3 or 4 explosive nappies and tons of farts once we are up for the day at 7am.

 I have tried to give her the dummy after the feed but she is so wound up and squirmy that she doesn't take it and then she really does wakes up.. or if I have managed to get it in, once I have calmed her she spits it within 5 mins and is squirming / crying again..

Prior to the DF she NEVER did this.. she would wake, feed and go straight back down. In the 6 weeks of her little life these are the only 2 nights she has not gone straight back to sleep after feeds.. Have I just been lucky and things are changing and its just a coincidence this is happening the week we try the DF?

Should I abandon the DF?? Is it giving her wind?? Is it disrupting her sleep and therefore causing all this? I have only had 2 nights like this so far but its pretty full on and her screaming (its high pitched wind pain screaming) has been commented on by our neighbours!! Who are lovely and weren't complaining.. YET!

I am at a loss whether to continue and persevere through this or just go back to what we were doing and hope that she herself drops the 1/2am feed at some point (she did do 2 nights about 2 weeks ago where she went straight through to 3am so I know she can do it!!). I am nervous if I continue DF and it still causes problems when I do stop it she might then start waking at 11pm for it as well as I will have created a habit...

Please help! Would love some advice before I venture on tonights mission!

[Erin M]

Hi, a few thoughts.
First off, 6 weeks is growth spurt territory so if you're seeing an increase in feeds it could be that.

Are you burping her well after the df?  I know that Tracy says in the book that LOs don't always need to be burped after, but I found that mine did -- also you might look to use a different flow bottle teat if you're not already using the slowest one.

Changing the time of the df makes a difference for some -- 20 minutes earlier in your case might make a difference.

And some babies just don't do well with the df, so in some cases it is better to just stop it and go without.