Dreamfeed?

[NoTeaForMe]

Hi all,

I wondered if you can explain a dreamfeed to me? My 5 week old baby has her last feed around 7ish and generally then sleeps til 1/2/3am. I wondered if a dreamfeed would make her sleep through a little more. How do you go about it? What time would I do it? Do you literally pick them up and get them awake enough to feed but not too awake?-not sure that would work with my baby! Is it something most people do, does it work for most?

Any advice or experience for me?!

Thanks.

My sil recommended this to me but I'm afraid it has never worked for me.

Dd simple won't feed in her sleep she may latch on if I'm lucky but won't feed.

It did really work out for sil though.

Oh and my dd is 17 weeks and still goes down at 8 is up at 10,3,6 so I would if dearly loved it to work.

I will be watching this thread to see if I can get any more tips.

i have only ever done it with bottles and it did work wonderfully for DD.

With DD I would scoop her up still asleep, cradle her and tickle her bottom lip with the teat. Sometimes i would stroke her cheek to start her sucking if she didn't start herself. She would take the bottle in her sleep and when finished i could put her back into her cot still asleep.

After a while she would start suckling as soon as i picked her up.

We always did it between 10.30 -11.30pm. I first heard of it from the Babywhisperer books. The author, Tracey Hogg, recommends a dreamfeed no later than 11.30 as if you do it any later you may disrupt the babys sleep pattern.

I did a dreamfeed with DD and it worked fantastically, she was breastfed. She would go down at 7pm and always wake around 2am, I would dream feed her at 11pm and she would go through until 5am when she would feed again and then go back down until 8-8.30 (we were very very lucky) We started this at about 10 weeks when we put her in her own room.

I would simply pick her up and she would latch on by herself and then fall of when she had had enough, I would then just pop her back in her cot. We did use a hot water bottle which we would pop in when we took her out and the remove before we popped her back.

Give it a go, you have nothing to loose. Oh and my DD is the lightest sleeper ever.

Hi NTFM, the plan is that they have a dream feed around 11pm (regular feed amount or even slightly more than normal) with the hope that then the big sleep is then from 11 to 6/7

It can take a few days for baby to drop the early am feed they were used to.

And yes, you keep lights dim, no nappy change unless smelly and feed, burp and back into bed.

It can be earlier or later depending on your bedtime, but if you and baby are able to go straight to sleep after her am feed then it might not be of help if she sleeps till 7/8am

HTH

I have done with all three children, although sometimes they woke up properly, but either way didn't matter they took good feed and went back to bed.

DS2 now 7 months and I am too scared to stop incase he wakes up in night!!!

Oh, I've learned something! It wasn't called a dreamfeed in my day [raddled old crone emoticon], but I did it with my first baby and it did seem to work.

Nothing worked with DD2 though.

I find it impossible to do with breast so use ebm and also get DH to do it so I can go to bed earlier. It was working a treat when she was taking about 6oz but recently she has only taken about 2 and more night wakings. Hoping this is just because she's unwell and things will settle when she is better..

It didn't work in the sense she would sleep for longer, but I preferred the option of me dictating when to feed her as opposed to waiting until she woke up.

If she was really asleep I would stir her a little bit. In the early days it could take up to 5mins to get her to latch, but as she got used it , it became second nature to her.

We do this, with a bottle of ebm. Lo will have this around 10.30 and has then been making it to 4 or 5. I just wonder whether we should wake him when he sleeps (real bad wind so has to be burped). Not brave enough not to do it to see when he wakes though!

Hmm, I might give it a go then! Is it better to dreamfeed with breastfeeding or a bottle do you think? We have been doing a bit of mix and match so she'll take either. (it's formula in the bottle not breastmilk, don't know if that makes a difference?)

Thanks

It might be easier with a bottle but I managed to do it with breast as some milk started dripping out onto his lips and then he latched on (didn't make him sleep any longer though, but we've only done it once)

I've found formula can make my bf baby a little more unsettled and gassy (harder to digest I guess) so always breastfeed for the dreamfeed.

At the moment she has formula for her 'bedtime' feed. So should I swap and breastfeed then and give her a bottle for the dreamfeed or keep the bottle for bed and then breastfeed for dreamfeed? What do you think is best?

Thanks for all your advice so far.

Do you find she sleeps longer after a formula feed or a breastfeed at the moment? If she sleeps well after formula I would do that for the dreamfeed - ime a breastfeed can take longer than a bottle feed, and you want the dreamfeed to be as quick and fuss free as possible. Really depends on the baby though!