Should You Dream Feed?
Posted by Nicole on February 17th, 2009
Since some babies won’t sleep through the night without a feeding until some time after 9 months or longer, some parents swear by something called a “dream feed”, where you feed your baby while he or she is still asleep, before you go off to bed. Some parents breastfeed and others can give a bottle without even picking up the baby. The theory is that you will get a longer stretch of sleep, yourself. The question is, will this work and should you do it?
For some people, a dream feed will be a Godsend. This is how it works: Baby goes to sleep around 7 p.m., you dream feed (feed the baby when he is asleep) around 10 p.m. before you go to bed, and baby might sleep until 4 or 6 a.m. or later, giving you a glorious 6 to 8 hours of sleep straight. Go to bed early and have your partner/spouse give the dream feed and you can get even more sleep! When it works, a dream feed is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, they don’t always work.
As I explained how we sleep at 4 months old, the first part of the night is the deepest sleep of the night for all babies and children over 4 months (approximately). Therefore, it might be very difficult to rouse your baby enough to feed any old time you want to. Some babies will awaken just enough to eat and stay asleep, but others might not wake up enough and others will wake up too much and be somewhat cranky that you woke them up (especially if they aren’t hungry!). Another way sometimes a dream feed doesn’t work is that even if you can successfully feed your baby, even when she didn’t ask for a feeding, is that she might also wake up at 2 a.m. (or whenever) anyway. Some babies also tend to wake up more frequently after waking up the first time of the night.
I generally don’t recommend dream feeds as a solution. Of course, I personally am not against dream feeding, philosophically (some people believe it goes against the idea of demand-feeding and is not respecting the baby to force a meal on him), and I don’t think it hurts to try it (though it might take a week or two to get back to where you were if things go crazy), but, in general, I think they can be problematic. Dream feeds can make a night-waking habit that otherwise might not be there and it is difficult to know just when to stop dream feeding and your baby is fully capable of sleeping all night without that feed. After all, some babies start sleeping all the way through the night as early as 3 or 4 months. Given how hard it was to get my son to sleep, I generally would not risk waking him up just for my sake. I did try it exactly one time, he was too sleepy to eat, and I felt guilty for even trying, so I didn’t try it again. LOL
Of course, I know all too well how difficult it is to wake up to feed a baby once or twice a night for months on-end, so I certainly know why people do it. Even waking just once when you reach the 7th, 8th, or 9th month, is downright brutal. That, to me, is just part of having a new baby and something I just had to live with (even beyond 9 months for my boys). Their tummies are small and as I always say, there are many adults that can’t go 11-12 hours without a feeding, so I am not sure why we expect our babies to. Instead, I typically recommend, night-weaning down to just 1 feeding around 6 months old and attempt a full night-weaning by 9 months old, if baby hasn’t done it on their own by then.
Have you dream fed? Did it work for you? If so, share your tips
Tags: baby sleep, Breastfeeding, dream feed, sleep through night, sleep through the night
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February 17th, 2009
Hi Nicole,
The dream feed seemed to work with my first child, but my second child who is now 11 weeks old wakes up all the time regardless if we fed him at 10. Now he is actually waking himself up before 10 and he seems hungry so we feed him. I guess it might work for some babies, but now for my 11 week old, he wakes almost every hour sometimes or every 2-3 hours at night. We have stopped the dream feed for the last week now.
February 19th, 2009
I am certainly guilty of dream feeding…mostly our son because he seemed to wake up more often. I would occasionally due it with my daughter. However, often when I was breastfeeding both of my babies would fall asleep half way through.
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February 20th, 2009
@Wendy Just goes to show all babies are indeed different! Thanks for sharing.
@Aruni No need to feed “guilty”.
If it works, it works!
April 18th, 2009
I am a huge advocate of the dream-feed! I didn’t even know that it didn’t work for some babies! I tell everyone about the dream-feed hoping they too can have their babies sleeping completely through the night by 4 months.
In my case I had to dream-feed both my boys because they go to bed at 5pm and do not wake up until 7am. My oldest one slept from 5-7 from 4 months to 16 months. For being so little I needed to feed them some how. After 12 months I stopped the dream-feed and my oldest still slept that long, my little one is still 9 months…
April 30th, 2009
I tried the dream-feed, but it was a disaster. My daughter is 4 months old. She was sleeping from 9pm to 5am (continuously, without waking up). Then she would have a feed at 5am and sleep again until 8:30 am. That was fine for us, but a friend of mine told me about the dream-feed so I decided to try it (it sounded so good).
I followed the recomendation: put the baby to bed at 7pm, give the dream-feed at 11pm, and feed again at 7am. Well, my daughter started sleeping worse! I would give her the dream-feed at 11pm, and at 3am she would wake up… I would make her sleep again using a dummy, but at 4am she would wake up again…. And the same at 5am and 6am… This happened for several days, until I gave up and went back to our old routine. Now she is sleeping well, without interruptions. My impression is that the dream-feed was actually disrupting her sleep cycle. This is why she was waking up so many times during the night.
Anyway, it didn’t work for her. I think the dream-feed doesn’t work for all babies. It might be a difference in sleep cycles.
May 7th, 2009
@Gina Thanks for sharing your story. I have heard many times how it’s a God-send for many families. I’m glad it worked for you!
May 7th, 2009
@Emma Having my second child, I think it’s also the baby’s ability to slip back into sleep mode and how they sleep. My 2nd son can be playing super happy and hard and then sleep soundly 5 minutes later. My first needs 30+ minutes of down time before he can really slip into sleep mode, so disruptions for him are just that much “bigger”. I agree with you that the dream feed works great for some and not others just because of their uniqueness. Thanks for commenting!
June 12th, 2009
Hi all
I tried the dream feed over a week and I had the same result as Emma above wrote!
Think it disrupted his sleep and now I’m stuck! How long will it take to get back to his past sleep cycle?
June 21st, 2009
@wasen Some people do get stuck for quite awhile, but I think on average it takes about a week or two. Good luck!
October 16th, 2009
I was just recommended to dream sleep by a friend. I’m going to try it, my 3 month old wakes up every 2-3 hours during the night. I’m hoping dreamfeeding may elongate her sleep so that I can get some rest, I’ll let you know how it goes!
October 23rd, 2009
@Meghan Let us know how it goes! Good luck!
October 24th, 2009
I am doing dream feeding slightly differently and it seems to be working. My 6 week old daughter began to wake at 4 every morning and it was taking me 2 hours to get her back down.
Instead of making the last feed before bed a dream feed, i am getting up quickly as soon as i hear her stir at around 4am and giving her a dream feed. It means that instead of a 2 hour ordeal, its only taking me 25 minutes or so and i can get back to bed quickly.
November 5th, 2009
Here’s one for the masses. My wife and I have a 13month old daughter who will only take a bottle when sleeping period. She will only pick at solids and will not take a bottle awake at all. Milk in a sippy no way put water in yes. A doctor told us only feed her when she’s awake.4 day’s 6oz a day and a fight to get that. has anyone heard of this.
November 13th, 2009
@Claire Sounds like it’s working for you. That’s great! Good luck!
November 22nd, 2009
@Jason I have heard other parents with this particular issue before. I don’t think it will be as simple as not feeding her except at daytime. That sounds like it will be a lot of tears at night!! I would try something more gradual, but would try to get her more on milk during the day (in a sippie). Good luck!
December 3rd, 2009
Hi,
I did dream feed with my eldest who is now 4 yrs and she used to sleep through the night from when she was 4 months old. I gradually stopped it around 7 months when she had established solids. My second one who is now 5 months old, doesn’t drink much milk during the day or night. She seems to be in deep sleep for her dream feed at 10Pm and drinks little. . She now sleeps through the night. However when I tried to stop the dream feed, she would wake up at erratic times during the night hungry. So I guess for my kids they seem to help.
December 27th, 2009
@Lisha Thank you for sharing your dream-feed story! All kids are truly different.
February 27th, 2010
Hi my baby slept ‘through the night’ from birth from 11.30 – 5.30 ish We used to keep him downstairs with him feeding on demand and cuddling etc i didn’t really notice how often he slept. Went to bed around 11 -12 fed and then he would sleep for 5-6hrs straight through. Then around 3 weeks he became colicky it was a nightmare from 6.30-10pm with him getting grumpy at 4.30. He is a lovely baby in the day. I decided to do a relaxing routine around his worst colic time, bath, massage feed etc and this cured the colic. Only problem is now he sleeps from 7.30ish – 1am and once he wakes he has a feed ( sometimes very frantic which can be upsetting) he then doesn’t settle well at all and wakes every 1 1/2 -2hrs. It’s a bit like his colic hs moved to the nighttime I can hear him struggling with wind 9 altough I spend much more time trying to wind him than he feeds). It’s like he’s having his deep sleep early and then light sleep when we want our deep sleep! I tried a ‘dream feed’ at 11pm ( as this is close to when he previosly got a feed) this didn’t make any difference. I am considering going back to keeping him with us in the evening rather than putting him to bed but I suspect he’ll just sleep (that had started to happen around 9pm previous to us starting the bath thing) and I’m afraid his colic will return. Shall I try to do his bath routine later so he gets his 5 hrs later? Or shall I try dream feeding again? Or shall I just get on with being woken every 2 hours. He is 5 1/2 weeks old and his sleeping at night is getting worse! He sleeps tonnes in the morning I don’t want to impose heavy routines on him in the day but I can’t believe he used to sleep through and now doesn’t! Evil child LOL Any advise? I’m getting so little sleep I am becoming physically wobbly in the day!
March 3rd, 2010
Are you a doctor? If not, why would anyone care what you recommend (or not) as a solution to their child’s sleeping habits?
March 3rd, 2010
@Mike No, I am not a doctor and don’t pretend to be. People care about what I recommend or not because I am a mom who has gone through a lot sleep-wise and can give practical and realistic advice. Most doctors tend to have a “Do it my way or you will fail.” mentality and one way doesn’t work for all kids. I have now helped countless parents overcome very difficult obstacles even when their doctor wasn’t able to help them. Helping other parents has given me a wealth of knowledge and experience with a wide range of personality types that you can’t read in a book or get from a doctor in your 15-minute well-baby visit. You can read parent stories here: http://www.babysleepsite.com/testimonials Good luck in your sleep journey (if you have one) and thanks for commenting!