dropped a night feed - advice needed

[Rachelmac]

My 6 week old seems to have dropped a night feed since Tuesday - great! Although I would like to move it 
His evening routine seems to go something like this-
E 6pm
E 8:30pm
S 9pm
normally would wake to feed at 11pm but now sleeps through
E 2am
S 2:20am
E 5am

Although it is great, I would prefere him to perhaps sleep through the 2am feed instead. I was wondering whether to try a dream feed at 11pm but was worried he might go back to his old routine then i'd regret it.

[RachelC]

Can you please post his whole routine?

[Rachelmac]

Thanks for your reply rachel c,

It's a little random through the day but it goes something like this:
E 7:30am
S 8am (usually 60 min nap)
E 9am
S 10:00 (usually 45 min nap)
E 12noon
S 12:30 (usually 45 min nap)
E 3pm
S 3:30 (sometimes 1.5 hr)
E 6pm
A 7pm bath
E 8:30pm
S 9pm
normally would wake to feed at 11:30pm but now sleeps through
E 2am
S 2:20am
E 5am

I have been trying to get him to sleep longer through the day but he seems to fight it. Hence very little activity time. (alot of his activity time is spent crying because he is very tired.) I have posted for advice on the nap forum about this.

[RachelC]

My first thought is to decrease his A time.  An hour is still a lot for a 6 week old.  I would pull that back to 45 minutes at the most.  That will hopefully help him overcome the short naps.

I would also aim for a 12 hour day.  If wake up time is 7:30 am, I would aim for 7:30 pm to be bedtime (sounds like overall, he is overtired).  You might consider cluster feeding at the end of the day... 3, 5, 7 then bed after the feed, and a dreamfeed at 10 or so.

HTH

[Rachelmac]

thanks, i'll give that ago