Confused about clustering

[Bellasmommy]

I am confused. I thought on Tracy's book she recomended stopping the cluster feeds by 8 weeks but to continue the df to 7 months, but I see some people are clustering much longer. What is recomended? My LO is 9 weeks and right now we are on a 7, 10, 1, 4, 7 routine, with df around 10:30-11 and she wakes up at night bt 2:30 and 4. If she eats b4 3:15 she cannot make it until 7 am, and wakes up at 6ish. She is not taking much on her df either (1-2 oz only.) Any sugestions to keep her asleep at night until 3:30ish so she can make it to 7? She also sometimes wakes up around 1am, but can go back to sleep with a paci.

[branwen]

hi there!

looks like you're not really clustering. Clusters are usually 2 hrs apart starting in the afternoon and into the evening- like 3/5/7 sometimes 9 then to bed.

In my experience, personal and on this site, clustering is used a lot more for breastfeeding moms as our supply is lower in the afternoons.  Bottlefeeding moms can usually end clustering because they can measure the amounts their little ones are getting.  They usually stop clustering and go wtih the dreamfeed insteads.  That also being said, many bf'ing moms cluster but do not dreamfeed. 

Hope this helps!

[Bellasmommy]

Thanks for the reply. Right, I stopped clustering about 2 weeks ago. I was going 4, 6, 8, but since she was going to bed at 7 (not really falling asleep until 7:30) then I had to get her up at 8 and fight back to sleep until 8;30... Now I feed her at 7 and she is in bed by 7:30, it takes her 15 min to fall asleep. I could feed her at 9 pm (she doesn't completely wake up then.) I have also been pumping (I'm bf) and my husband has been dream feeding her 10:30 to 11, but she is barely taking anything and waking up around 2:30. If only she made it to 3:30-4 we would be fine...any ideas?

[branwen]

Was she going longer when clustering?  If so it is okay to go back--at least I think so...we clustered bf'ing until about 7 months like you observed, but we did not do a dreamfeed.  When I clustered I did 2/4/6 or 3/5/7 depending on where we were at the time   You could always do 4/6/7 so 7 is a little "top off" as Tracy calls it I believe.

It is good that you are listening to her own bedtime and not waking for that feed...that will be a great permanent bedtime as she gets older!

If she is in a growth spurt you need to stop the pumping and let her nurse as much as possible to stimulate your supply--or always make sure you pump after she eats so your body kicks on that you need to make more milk.  This was hard for me to learn with my dd too.  She would start waking earlier, and that became the sign that she needed more but I wasn't producing more. 

If you can get enough in her in the evenings I bet you could combine the 2:30/4 feed to one 3:30 feed like you want!  At this age I would really let her tell you when she wants to eat.  If she's not taking anything at the dreamfeed I wouldn't chance waking her.  Maybe she would make it until midnight and then go back to sleep until morning- that would be a cool thing huh!!!???