I am trying to implement a dreamfeed with my 7.5 month old. I tried in the past and gave up because a) A lot of times I couldn’t stay up until 10:30 b) Sometimes, when I went to him he couldn’t wake up enough to take much c) It really didn’t seem to help him sleep longer- he was actually waking at 1:00 when previously he often slept until 4:00.
Since he WAS sleeping through from 6:45/7:00 until at least 3:30 most mornings, I figured that was probably our best bet and it worked for a while. However, we have been having problems for a few weeks...
This was our ideal schedule for a while up until a few weeks ago.
4:00/5:00 BF and back to sleep (sometimes much difficulty going back to sleep; sometimes had to start our day at 5:30 or 6:00 and adjust from there)
7:00 wake and play in crib about 15 minutes
7:45 BF (because of the night feeding he was not ready to feed right away)
9:30/10:00 nap for 45 minutes (or 1 hour 20 min. sometimes)
11:30 BF
1:30/2:00 nap for 45 min.or 1 hour 20 min. (only 45 min if the morning was longer)
3:00 BF
4:00 maybe take a catnap
5:00 solids
6:30 BF
6:45 sleep until 4 or 5
About 2 weeks ago, he began having frequent nightwakings. I think he had two sorts. Type A was him crying every hour or two for half the night and needing to be resettled. With these, I was able to settle him- sometimes easily, sometimes with <10 minutes of p.u.p.d. But then there were type B wakings: he seemed to be hungry around 10, 11, 12, or 1 (and resettling attempts of 40 minutes did not work) in addition to the regular 4 or 5 feeding time, so he was getting 4 daytime feedings and 2 nighttime feedings. The type A waking mellowed out about a week ago (mostly), but he was still waking to be fed twice a night.
I have done the dreamfeed 3 nights now and these have been the results.
First night:
took DF at 11 and woke to eat at 5:15, couldn’t get him back down so we started our day at 6:00
Second night:
took DF at 10:30, woke to eat at 4:00, went back to sleep until 7:00
Third night:
took DF at 11:00, woke at 3:30 and I did NOT feed him; it took one hour of p.u.p.d. to send him back to sleep, slept 4:30-7:00
Do you think that the dreamfeed is the right way for us to go? I am hoping that it will help us get his milk feedings to 7:00, 11:00, 3:00, 7:00, and the dreamfeed only. And then in the future when he starts taking more solids, I hope we can either drop the df or one of the daytime feeds. (I think I have read that this happens with many of your little ones. Is this correct?)
If anyone has suggestions for our routine other that adding a dreamfeed, please let me know. I am going to try this in the meantime.
Thanks,
Joan
