General dreamfeed question?

[kcmarie122]

I have a 5 month old (exclusively breastfed) who wakes 2 times a night to eat, just about every 3-4 hours.  Her bedtime is about 8 or 8:30 at night.  I tried the dreamfeed for about 2 weeks but I don't feel like it is working for me.

I am a nurse and I recently went back to work.  When I work (and even when I don't honestly) I like to go to bed shortly after DD.  This makes the dreamfeed inconvenient because I have to wake up after only an hour and a half/two hours after going to bed myself.  I understood the dream feed to sorta reset the baby's longest sleep stretch to a more convenient time for the parents longest sleep. 

So my question is, is the dreamfeed going to help me enough down the road (when trying to eliminate night feedings) to be worth the inconvenience now?  Because once I do start getting more sleep in general, I probably will likely go to bed a little later.  Also, I only work 2 days a week so do I need to pick one way and stick with it or could I do the dreamfeed only on nights I go to bed around 10:30/11:00.


Here's my DD's history when I tried and also gave up the dreamfeed:

When I was doing a dreamfeed around 11:00, my DD would wake again around 2am and then again around 5/5:30am.  So when I would ream feed there usually ended up being 3 night feedings.   

Now that I don't dreamfeed, she will usually wake around 12:30/1:00 and then again at 4:30 but then sleep until waking at 8:00-ish, so only 2 night feedings.  So right now, the dreamfeed doesn't seem like something I want to do. 

(I should also note that without the dreamfeed she has occasionally slept until 3:00 and then hasn't woken up until 8:00 ( hallelujah!!).  I would love it if she could do that consistently.)   

I do think my DD is  actually hungry at night because when I try to just soothe her back to sleep she pretty much flips out.  If I just feed her she eats and then goes right back to sleep (I lay her down awake) without any fussing.   But I'm open to advice as to how to get her to sleep better/longer at night with or without the dreamfeed.

I don't think we have any props.  I don't nurse her to sleep, no paci, no rocking, etc.

[Emami]

My DD was the same - doing the DF just added in an extra night feed and didn't achieve anything so we stopped giving it.  She started doing longer stretches on her own.  1-2 NFs seems pretty average for her age, so I would keep doing what you're doing for now and you should find that those nights with just one wake up become more regular, and then the wonders of STTN!  If the NWs start to seem more like they're habitual then I would start to think about other ways to settle, but it does sound like she's hungry.