dream feed - good idea or not?

[Sanwi]

My 11 week ff DD has just gone from sleeping 7pm - 5am for a few weeks to waking up in the night again at 2am. The reason is that she only takes half her feed at 7pm, no matter how hard i try to get her to take more. 3oz and she's fast asleep

So, is it a good idea to give her a dream feed at 11pm (ie the other half of her 7pm feed) or not? I can't help but feel strange about getting a sleeping baby up to feed, and i'm also worried it'll just be extra milk she doesn't need, and that she'll wake at 2am anyway

what experiences have others had with this? does it work when trying to get babies to sleep through until the morning?

[thefortbuilder]

don't they have a growth spurt around that period? that may be what it is.

we found with ds that we had to give him ebm on his night feeds otherwise he just went straight back to sleep (even when he woke yelling for food)!

[countryhousehotel]

my dd was exclusively breastfed and very unsettled at night, so I started the dreamfeed to try and establish more of a routine at night (it was a breastfeed not formula). It pretty much worked, except she then got used to a feed at that time and I did have to make an effort to stop her waking at that time at night later on, when I didn't think she needed it any more (around 8 months i think).

Can't you feed your dd earlier, maybe 6.30 or 6.45pm so that she is less tired and takes a bigger feed?

[Sanwi]

the problem is she gets narky around 5.30 and tends to need a small feed then and tries to go off to sleep. this was fine for a few days but now it has stopped her taking her 7pm feed.

it's made me wonder whether 5.30 is her natural bedtime, but it seems very early and i'm reluctant to allow her to go to sleep for the night then

i hadn't thought of the problem of creating a habit so they get trained to wake at that time later on...

i think i'll try for a few more days before attempting dream feed

[thefortbuilder]

we went through a long phase with ds of him having a late afternoon nap around 5 and then not going to sleep till around 930, even with bath etc etc.

he got out of it eventually though!

[canadianmum]

I was having a similar problem around that age. When is your dd's last nap in the day? Perhaps she is just way too tired to take her full feed at 7pm. Can she sleep at 4pm or 4.30pm for 20-30 minutes just to help her get through until 7pm? I find that this helps my dd on days when she has not had much sleep earlier in the day.

5.30pm does seem a little early for a bedtime but every baby is different, maybe that is her natural time?? Will definitely mean an earlier start in the morning though!

[PuppyMonkey]

We did the dream feed for months, waking her to be fed at 11pm. But then she just would wake at 2am anyway for feed (she was six months by then). So we dropped it. And she started sleeping through.

I truly think we were disturbing her and not letting her "learn" how to go for a long sleep, iyswim. Try dropping it, see what happens. You've nowt to lose.

[canadianmum]

puppymonkey - we found the same thing, dd used to sleep from dreamfeed to 5am or so and then started waking at 1am or 2 am. This was knackering as I was forcing myself to stay up for dreamfeed and then being woken again. So one night I went to bed at 9pm, slept through the dreamfeed and dd slept from 7pm-4am. I have not done a dreamfeed since (dd was 4.5 months when I dropped the dreamfeed).

[RedJools]

Must admit, I "wake" my 15wk old ds up to feed him when I take him upstairs with me at 11/11.30pm. He feeds really well at this time, while I read my book! He is relaxed and feeds slowly, then usually sleeps through till 7am. If I don't feed him then, he usually starts rustling about, then wakes at about 2am, feeds and sleeps until 7am as usual. I quite like the dream feed, as I have to move him at that time anyway, and he feels lovely and relaxed- he can be abit squirmy and cranky when he feeds when tired. He usually goes back to sleep ok, or we leave him cooing in his cot while we doze off and he must just drop off.

[PuppyMonkey]

OOh, read the op wrong - in that case, no I wouldn't bother introducing it at all. Just makes life more complicated!

Canadianmumv - sounds EXACTLY the same as our dd2!

[Ledodgy]

Dream feeds rock imo. I'm bottle feeding now. 8 week old ds goes down at around 7.30-8.30 and sometimes he sleeps until around 2-3 am but sometimes wakes at about 1 am for a feed. I've started dream feeding him at 11 pm. I change his nappy and feed him, he takes almost a full feed asleep and doesn't need any winding this way he wakes at around 4.30 am and I know I go to sleep when he's finished feeding we have a good 5 hours. He then wakes up around 7.30 for his next feed which is ideal as I have the school run at 8.30. When he used to wake up himself at 1am he would wake up next at around 5 then again at 8.30 which clashed terribly with the school run so this way works best for us all.

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[kinki]

I never gave any of mine a dreamfeed. Like you, it felt uncomfortable to me to wake a sleeping baby. So I only fed during the night when they woke for it (exception was in the first 2 mths as they were all a bit small).

They all suddenly started sleeping 10 hr stretches of their own accord (ds1 at 2mths, ds2 at 3mths, ds3 at 4mths). I know I'm very lucky they are good sleepers, but I can't help but think that if I had established a dreamfeed would they become dependant on wanting a feed at that time and therefore keep waking for it.

I don't know the answers. All babies are different. What works for one won't work for another. Maybe try it and see. If it makes for a happier baby and mum keep at it. If not just feed her when she wakes. But remember 11 wks is still quite young.

[Ledodgy]

I thought the idea of a dream feed was that you don't wake the baby? Mine certainly stays asleep throughout.

[Sanwi]

thanks all for the advice - i'm not going to introduce it. i think i'm being ungrateful anyway, as DD sleeps 8 hours in one go at night, just not the same 8 hours i would like to sleep!

maybe i should start going to bed at 7, too

[Meandmyjoe]

My ds sisn't sleep through til I introduced a dreamfeed at ten weeks. After this he would sleep from 7:30pm til 8am (with dreamfeed at 10:30)

I found it so much easier to feed him and keep him asleep just before I went to bed rather than me go to bed at 10:30-11 just to be woke up at 3am by ds screaming as he was hungry.

It meant that my ds didn't wake up at all and didn't have to spend the 5 minutes of me warming a bottle crying and awake! I found it much harder for him to go to sleep after fully waking up like this rather than just sleeping through a dreamfeed.

It worked for us and we weaned him off the dreamfeed last month at 6 and half months.

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

I have to agree with LeDodgy, dreamfeeds rock!

DP gave ds ebm every night at 10.30 for about 6 months. He mostly stayed asleep/half asleep and would easily settle if he did wake.

If we were late with the feed he would let us know! So we stopped doing it when he stopped waking up at 10.30.

[deaconblue]

11 weeks is very early to consistently go for such a long time without food. ds was nearly 5 months before he didn't wake for food in the night. I personally don't like the idea of dream feeding because I cna't see how it is good for a tummy to be filled when hte baby doesn't even know it is hungry (if the baby was hungry at that time it would wake naturally) and also how will you ever know whether you can stop dream feeding?