Which night feed to drop (first?)

Hello everyone!

Our girls are nearly 5 months and have a pretty regular schedule but I really want to drop one of their night feeds so we can all have a little longer sleep!!

Current schedule is

8am feed
12:45pm feed
4pm feed
8pm feed
12 midnight dream feed
4~5 am feed

Should I work on dropping the 4~5 am feed or the midnight dream feed? I just pick up sleeping babies at midnight to feed. The 4~5 am feed, I wake for one of them to cry and then feed that baby first and then the other. It's not always the same baby crying each night!

I've also started limiting the amount of dream feed and 4~5am feed - I'm making 3 oz bottles instead of 5 oz bottles (just started this a couple of days ago)

Any advice from other mums would be most appreciated!

 

Hi Christine,

I have always kind of let them lead when it comes to dropping bottles. I think though, they dropped that midnight feeding first, and then the early morning feed. They started taking less and less out of the bottles, so instead of giving them a bottle, I would give a paci or pat them back to sleep. Good luck!

 

After a frustrating battle to follow my ped's advice and drop the middle feed for our kids (yes, at 7 months they are still eating 3 times at night -- I'm going crazy!) I tried dropping the dream feed last night. They didn't actually drop it (they kept waking up, so eventually I fed them -- we ended up pushing back the dream feed time by 90 minutes), but we had success! They only woke twice last night.

I think, for ours, letting them eat at the dream feed time sent the message that we eat at intervals of X hours at night (three for us), so they expected that throughout the night. Once I made them go longer before the first feeding, they went longer before the next feed all by themselves.

You only have two feeds, but the expectation thing might still apply -- if you feed them for the first feed, they might still anticipate a feeding after the next 4 hour stretch).

Kim

 

hmm it sounds like I should drop the dream feed first?

Part of me is worried that I will throw our routine to the wind! hahaha

It is a bit scary to think that they could be doing it for another few months....

 

we dropped the midnight feed first, then worked on just comforting them when they woke at 3-4 or so. they would wake and we would rock them back to sleep and give pacifiers. now we don;t feed at night at all- bottle at 8ish, then up b/w 5:30-6:30 (depending when i work). they occ. wake briefly around 4 or 5 or so, but pop in a pacifier and they are (usually) right back out. IF they need more calories, you could try getting an extra feed in during the day, so they're not trying to get their calories at night. that might help. hard to say. good luck!

 

At 5 months are schedules were similar to yours.

At 5 months they were eating 4 8oz bottles and having 2 solids a day. Their last bottle was at 7:00pm. After that they were each waking 2 times in the middle of the night wanting to eat. I know they were eating out of habit. The reason I know it was out of habit was because when we stopped the night feedings with CIO, they would wake at 6:00/6:30am happy as can be and not crying for a bottle. If I was starving them at night, they would be waking crying and so hungry. But they were able to wait until 7:00am for that first bottle.

For the first week or so, we gave them one more bottle after their 7:00 bottle and then if they cried after that we would not go in their room. So sometimes they would get a bottle at 11:00pm and other times they would go until 3:00am. We fed which ever baby was crying. They each got one chance!

We did that for a week or two and then eventually we stopped feeding them during that one time they would wake and eventually they were not waking to eat anymore.

I dont really have an exact answer to your question but just wanted to share how we eventually let go of night feedings.

 

thanks so much! I will keep the quantities low at night and work on upping the quantities of their day feeds and then cut out the dream feed first (in around a weeks time) and then see how it goes. I just wondered how others had done it. Thank you!

 

I also followed the lead of the babies. I kept our dream feed as long as possible. However, it was between 10-11pm. Then I only fed during the night when one woke. At about 5 or so months I started demand feeding at night. In other words I wouldn't wake the 2nd when the 1st woke. I was just worried about staying up all night trying to drop feedings. So I took my cues from the babies. Hope this helps.

 

thanks Stephanie, it helps!!