STTN tip..."dream feed"

kmcclelland

Hi ladies!

I've been reading a few sleeping trouble posts and thinking back to the hellish days (basically, back to a week and a half ago before M&L started sleeping through the night) of exhaustion. ?Then it dawned on me...I'm not sure if I shared the fabulous trick that helped M&L STTN! ?I shared it with my PEPs group, and don't know if I discussed it on here...the dream feed.

We would give Mary and Lila their last "awake" feeding at about 7 pm, change them, do bed time routine, and they were asleep by 8 pm. ?Then, at about 11/11:30 pm DH or I (we traded nights) would go into their room and pop a bottle into their mouths while they were sleeping in their cribs. This was called the "dream feed" because we didn't actually wake them up. ?They would each eat about 3-4 ounces without ever waking up! ?We didn't get them up to burp or change them...just left the room. ?The night we started doing that, they stopped waking up at 2 am to eat. ?Mary did continue to wake up at about 3:40 am fussing, but eventually we stopped feeding her at this time and gave her the paci instead, which helped break her waking up habit.

Then, a few weeks ago we started slowly moving back the time of the dream feed...to 10:30 for a few days, then to 10:00 for a few days, and then to 9:30 for a few days. ?Then, after about a week and a half of moving back the time, we just dropped it one night and they never knew the difference and have been STTN since then!

I know every baby is different so this won't work for all babies, but it did work for 2 more moms in my PEPs group that tried it out, so I'm hoping it can help a few of you too!?

ChiBride2007

I have heard of this though a little different, I think they picked them up and fed them but didn't wake them up. Wouldn't you have to worry about them spitting up, etc. laying on their backs without a burp, etc. Obviously, mine aren't here yet, but I'm intrigued.

lajolla09.30.06

I wish we could do this to drop the 3/4 am feeding but ours have serious reflux so a feed without a burp would equal total disaster.  Good to hear it worked for you though...maybe if we ever have another.  haha.

kmcclelland

We have reflux issues as well, but having M&L sleep on an incline, along with rx zantac, has worked pretty well for us. ?We deal with a TON of spit up but since moving to the incline sleeping position and meds the babies don't seem to be in pain anymore. ?

For an incline sleep position we just put the car seats into the crib and they sleep in their carseats. ?I think that because they're eating on an incline during the dream feed and we've switched to Dr. Brown's bottles (which are a PITA because of all the pieces but have produced a noticeable decrease in gas), it made this doable. ?Plus, we figured that if one of the babies DID have a painful gas bubble to the point where it woke them up and they cried, that we'd go in and burp them. ?Surprisingly, they never did, and we've actually had them burp independently after the dream feed.