newborn at night - extra dreamfeed between 1 and 6am?

[k3lly]

Hello!

My dd is now 1 week, 2 days old and so far the 3-hour EASY routine is working like a charm.

One question however - how do you handle it if the dreamfeed doesn't get them through till 7am? Do you give another little "dream" feed? Doesn't that ruin their appetite for the 7am feed?

If it's close enough to 7 I'm fine with amusing her a bit with a dummy or starting the 7am feed a bit early. However, if it's between 1am and 6am I'm unsure what to do!!

Thanks so much - K x
 

[15milner]

firstly congratulations.

A newborn cant possibly go 8 hrs (nor I believe should they) between a dreamfeed and 7am.  My ds is 11 days old and I am feeding 2 times between 11 - 7am (sometimes only once and I see that as a real treat not an expectation).  thats what newborns do.  they have a tiny tummy - not much bigger than a walnut, so milk will be digested frequently.  I am speaking from a bf knowledge hopefully a bottle feeding 'expert' will be able to help with amounts for a newborn.

my memory from ds 1.

at 4mths dropped to one feed between 11-7.
at 6mths went 11-7
at 8mth (the age that tracy says that the df can finish ) went 7-7. I folloed his cues and dropped when he was ready.

sleeping through is considered to be a 5-6hr chunk of time - not what we consider sleeping through as 7-7.

Hope this helps.  Ignore what other people say and comment on.  Do what you need to do for your baby and follow your mummy instinct and your baby's needs.

It gets easier.

Alex

[k3lly]

thanks for the response! didn't mean to imply I expected my DD to last 8 hours at night - just was wondering how it works when the feed she wants is kind of too close to 7am.  I guess you just have to play the nights by ear when they are this small.

with my DS I think night feeds progressed the same as with your LO -  I came to EASY at 3mo with him though (silly me actually thought he would establish a good routine 'by himself' LOL!!!) hence the reason why I'm not sure about EASY in newborn situations...not been here before!

[k3lly]

Update at day 11:
Recall in my original post I feared that many night wakings could disrupt the 7am wakeup feed.
As it turns out my little girl was so sleepy, she easily went 3 hours between feeds. I even contemplated stretching it to 4. Problem is, she failed to eat enough and hasn't gained back the weight she lost after birth. She lost about 11% which is not insignificant.

Now our priority is to feed her as much as she can handle so she puts the weight back on. The 3-hour routine will have to wait!