in fact this morning she managed 3hr 20min
wow, that's a great start!
Unfortunately, yes, sometimes they just want to wake up early
. I always try the feed and put back in her crib with my DD to buy a bit of extra sleep, if at all possible.
WRT food, I know it's hard not to get over enthusiastic when feeding them and I have to continually remind myself that milk is still the most important food for her right now. I would try to maintain 4 day time feeds for the time being. Usually closer to 1 yo, they can start to drop the mid-day feeds and milk /dairy products can be substituted at meal times.
in an attempt to wean her off this night feed. It took 40mins before she went back to sleep (I'm visiting my parents at the moment so my fab Dad took over for a while). Is this the right thing to be doing, I.e. is it reasonable to try and cut out this night feed and if so, is it best to do so gradually or just stop it?
yay for dads! That's awesome! In terms of weaning night feeds, I think you can do either a gradual withdrawal of the feed (ie. less food in the bottle or less time on the breast over the course of a week to 10 days or so) or just stop it completely and opt for the re-settling. A note about less food in the bottle, you could water down the formula so she's getting the same volume but is taking in fewer calories as one option vs just putting fewer oz in the bottle. If your DD is eating well during the day and doesn't have any medical conditions, likely she doesn't "need" to be fed during the night. By all accounts, she probably is hungry but really, so am I in the middle of the night! Doesn't mean that I eat though. So some of this is habit. Changing any habit will cause some crying and be upsetting so you need to be prepared for that.
WRT changing diapers in the MOTN, if it helps to settle her, then I would do it. some babies are really bothered by a wet diaper whereas others don't notice at all. Of course, she may continue to wake for this reason rather than for another reason but perhaps you can get some super absorbent diapers so she doesn't feel the wetness?
With the DF, I sometimes do it just before I go to bed (which would be just after 10pm) and sometimes go to bed myself and then just wait till she stirs for it (which would usually be around 11pm). It feels horrid having had less than an hours sleep and then having to feed her, but do you think the latter method may actually be better, as it's a bit later and so she might be more hungry and therefore take more and then sleep longer? Or is the first method better because then she's actually asleep when I do the feed, plus at some point I'll want to drop this feed, so will begin bringing it earlier anyway???
I agree, it does feel awful to be woken up one hr into sleep. I think that the idea behind the dream feed is to literally feed them in their sleep so with minimal disruption. Based on this, I would feed just before you go to bed and before she wakes on her own.
WRT stopping the df, here some info:
"How do I implement/drop the dreamfeed?"As for A times, these are all approximate and will depend on your baby. it may vary a bit (e.g. 10-15 min) from day to day depending on how she's doing (eg. teething, sick, poor night sleep, short nap, etc). So I wouldn't work that she was born at 37 weeks but rather follow her cues. by 7.5 months, they can usually handle around 3 hrs. Sometimes you might find that her A times increase over the course of the day (e.g. my DD has around a 3 hr A in the morning and mid-day but her A until BT is longer. She handles it fine) or be longer in the morning and then get a bit shorter over the course of the day. this is alright too.
HTH
