My little guy is almost always in bed by 8pm. I usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10. I have always woken him up to feed him before I go to bed to try to get a long stretch of sleep out of him. I am wondering if I should keep doing this or not. He does not STTN yet at all, but some nights he only wakes up around 3, then again at 5 or 6.
What do you all do? Does the dream feed really help?
Re: Dream Feed?
Right now I feed her until she pulls off. Once I decide to stop dream feeding I'm just slowly going to reduce the duration of the feeding. I'm hoping that works better than just stopping cold turkey.
But I have noticed that during her 12 week growth spurt and during the transition of me going back to work she would wake up around or a bit before the time we dream feed so I can see how it can backfire. We're getting back on track, though.
This for me... I started to do a dream feed about a week before she turned 4 months... when i did she would only wake up at 4:30, then 7ish. Now at about 4.5 months, we've had our first, genuine STTN... put down at 8, dream feed at 10:30, wake up at 6:30.
I dream feed twice before I go to bed. My daughter feeds every 2hrs like clockwork. She is asleep at 6:20 (she chose this time and holds to it). I go in at about 8:30 and 10:30. I change her diaper, BF, burp and at 8:30 give her zantac. She sleeps through it all most nights. Occasionally she wakes and conks out as soon as I start burping her.
She will then sleep from 2-4hrs for the first part of my night then is up every 2hrs she feeds gets a diaper change and is back asleep immediately.
We've done this for good 6-8 weeks now and it works wonders. It allows me a longer stretch of sleep when I first go to bed.