How to do Dream Feed??

[sweetiebum]

My DS is 5 weeks old now and I would like to get him started on a dream feed so he'll hopefully sleep a little longer or later at night.  Right now I'm getting up twice with him which I know isn't bad for 5 weeks but I have to go to bed between 8 and 9 usually in order to get enough sleep and sometimes I just don't want to.  If I could stay up until 10, feed him, and then go to bed knowing I've got a few hours of sleep ahead of me before he's up to eat that would be super.  Anyway, lastnight I stayed up until 10 and tried to feed him in his sleep but he wouldn't even open his mouth for the bottle!!  I was so frustrated!  How do I get him to eat at this feeding?  He hadn't eaten since 7 so he really should have been hungry - we're doing feedings every 3 hours or so during the day.  I eventually gave up and went to bed by 10:30 and, wouldn't you know it, he was up to eat at 11:30.  Argh!  It didn't work for me at all.  Any tips or advice please??!

[estherofi20]

I remember when Paul wouldn't open his mouth to take the DF... ok... here it goes... i oppened his mouth with my hand and stuck the bottle in his mouth , sometimes he would start drinking it, others he would just move his tongue and get ALL the milk out LOL , but generally he did take it, at that age i used to put him in my bed and give the bottle there, burp him and all, now i just stroke his bottom lip and he takes it and i don't even move him from the crib. But i do agree with Stacy, the DF started to work to cut the 1 or 2am feed on my LO until he was like 10 weeks old (i did it since day 1).

[rubysmum2]

i have been doing the dreamfeed with my little girl since she was 3weeks old. She is now 10 weeks and goes to  bed at 8pm and as a dreeamfeed of 5oz at 10.30pm and goes right through to 6.30ish i the morning. when i first started te dreamfeed i had to push the teat in until it hit her closed gums then wiggle it inbetween her gums. she would pull a face then start to suck! in the first few weeks she would sometimes take 1oz and others 3oz but you can tell when they have had enough because they let there mouths flop open. i did find that i had to keep turning the bottle whilst she was feeding because she would drift off into a really deep sleep i set myself a time limit of 30minutes to give here the dreamfeed and then i would stop. now that she is 10weeks old and in her own room she has just gone from taking 4oz to taking 5oz on the df and then sleeps perfectly till morning. i did feed her every 3 hours in the day then do cluster feeds at 6pm and 8pm until she was 8 weeks. she was also a big baby 10lbs at birth so perhaps this is why she sleeps so well at night . completely different to my 9 year old son who never used to sleep !!!                                                         

[Lªuren]

sweetiebum how are you getting on with the dreamfeeding?

Lauren x

[Kimberly®]

Yes please let us know how its going. I know how much work, and for me, tears it can take while you try to make things work. Have things settle for you? Have you got a dreamfeed in place??
btw I wanted to mention that, while I agree having to go to bed at 8 or nine to get sleep sucks(we spend 6 weeks doing that) eventually things will settle out for you. Just never give up. 2 night wakings is a great start, your DS will be sleeping through before you know it