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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

'dreamfeed' = wrong?

44 replies

Superslinger · 27/07/2012 11:52

DH has read about dreamfeeding, where apparently you feed baby whilst asleep late at night and it gets them to sleep through? Anyway, he thinks it's a great idea and definitely what we should be doing, but I find myself feeling a bit... odd about it/ like it's for some reason a bit 'wrong'?

Does anybody who knows more about it have an opinion? Am I just being silly? Does it really work and there are no down sides? TIA

OP posts:

nethunsreject · 29/07/2012 20:52

I never liked the idea of it either. I did try it with ds1, and it was a disaster and he kept us up all night! With ds2, I was just grateful that he was asleep and didn't DARE touch him
But, for those who it works for, especially if they need their sleep for work/other kids/health and well being, fair play.

surroundedbyblondes · 29/07/2012 21:01

I have several friends for whom this worked a treat! Very jealous!

DD1 never needed it, and started sleeping through at around 3 months. DD2 has yet to sleep through at 21 months. We tried dream feeding her when she was smaller, but found that she would vomit up the feed if she wasn't 'ready' for it. And so we struggled on with broken sleep and night feeds.

FlipFantasia · 29/07/2012 21:12

Haven't read the whole thread, but dreamfeeding is not something I want to try. It totally doesn't fit with the feed on demand thing for me - why put a sleeping baby to my breast? Doesn't make any sense to me.

DD (18 weeks) sometimes wakes up around midnight for a feed and sometimes doesn't. Am happy to feed her when she wakes (especially as she sleeps "better" than her brother, who honestly didn't sleep for longer than 2 hours for 9 months but is an amazing sleeper now at 2).

I have friends who swear by it though, so each to their own. If something works for your baby and your family then do it

poocatcherchampion · 29/07/2012 22:34

I think its odd as well, and not demand feeding by any stretch. We haven't done it here.

SarryB · 29/07/2012 23:30

I demand feed the rest of the time.

Convert · 30/07/2012 07:01

God forbid something should actually be about 'convenience' for the parent. I forgot I was supposed to sacrifice getting some sleep myself until they go to university.
Isn't there enough to beat ourselves up about without giving your baby a feed now being labeled as forcing food down their throats?

tiktok · 30/07/2012 08:12

Dream feeding is not 'forcing' anything - it's wildly over-dramatic to suggest the baby is co-operating against his/her will.

Convert · 30/07/2012 08:22

Exactly Tiktok, I'm sure none of my babies would have taken the feed unwillingly.

NellyBluth · 30/07/2012 08:37

Works fantastically for us - but DD takes it from a bottle, and stays asleep throughout, and it moved her wake-up from 3am until about 5-6am. However if you feel iffy about it then there is no reason to do it. Some babies don't like it anyway. One thing I do really like, however, is that DP can do the feed while I'm in bed. Is that maybe what your DP is thinking?

Indith · 30/07/2012 08:49

Well I have never been able to get mine to latch on when asleep and not hungry!

Some people swear by it, others don't. We tried with ds1 when he had gone from waking at 10 ish to waking at 11.30 ish so I could go to bed and get 2 or 3 uninterrupted hours but I had to wake him quite a lot to get him to latch on and he still woke up at 11.30 anyway. Then after a couple of nights trying to dreamfeed he started waking at 10 AND 11.30 so we gave up and dh had to spend a few evenings shushing him back to sleep until we got back to where we had been!

lottiegb · 30/07/2012 11:04

I think we're doing a half-way thing. She feeds and goes to bed around 7.00-7.30 then wakes hungry at 10.30 or is waking or about to at that time. So sometimes she cries first, sometimes she's half asleep for this feed but it makes sense to us to feed her just before we go to bed, as then we all get as much sleep as possible. She does need to be hungry to take a full feed, if she isn't she won't, so there's no 'forcing'.

choceyes · 30/07/2012 11:27

I did it with my DC1, who was bottle fed expressed BM (latch issues meant I exclusively expressed for him), till about 9 months. It wasn't forcing him at all, he went for it glady! BUT......he didn't sleep through....till 3yrs!! So it definitely didn't help with that!

but with my DD who is BF, I feel odd doing it and I feel that it is not the right thing to do, taking a sleeping baby and trying to get them to latch on. She does wake up for BF still in the night, but it is more for comfort (she is nearly 2 now!) and even when she was a small baby I wouldn't have done it, it would go against my demand feeding ethoes, even though I did demand feed DS albeit from a bottle. Maybe it is something that is easier to contemplate doing when you are bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding as maybe breastfeeding at night, is as much about comfort as it is about nutrition, so they would wake up wanting to BF when they want to for the comfort at night anyway, even if they don't need the milk at night.

TheSilverPussycat · 30/07/2012 11:37

I hadn't heard of this till I joined MN. I did my own version of dream-feeding (a quarter of a century ago) - I was the one half-asleep at something o'clock in the middle of the night...

SarryB · 30/07/2012 11:39

I don't feel it is 'forcing' at all. It's the same when he's awake. When he's full he stops, or if he's not hungry he won't even take it in the first place.

sleeplessinderbyshire · 30/07/2012 16:17

we did it with DD1 and it was great. she'd usually wake at 11pm feed and then take hours to settle. a dreamfeed at 1030 would keep her asleep til 2-3am at least so was well worth it

steppemum · 30/07/2012 21:16

fed all of mine at 10:30 , I woke them for a last feed, they were sleepy and half awake but they all took a good feed.

ds slept through at 5 weeks, went from 10:30 - 6, and then quickly to 7am

dd1 woke at 1, 3, 5 and 7 and went on waking like that til I did controlled crying at 6 months, then she slept through til 7

dd2 woke in the night for one feed and then at about 4 months dropped it and slept 10:30 - 7 am

No idea it was called dream feeding. Mine usually woke up enough to feed. I breast fed, and they slept in a cot next to my bed so I didn't have to get out of bed.

topknob · 30/07/2012 21:19

After about 4 months I would wake the baby at about 10.30pm change the nappy so they were quite awake and feed them til they dropped off and wind them, them put back to bed, it worked well for us with a couple of our later kids, even if they had been fed at 9.00pm I still did it.

dietcokeandwine · 30/07/2012 22:49

I always woke mine for a late feed at around 10:30/11pm. In the first few weeks they'd be awake for half an hour or so and then go back to sleep.

I can see, though, that if you are of the mindset that it is wrong to do anything other than feed on demand then the concept of dreamfeeding or waking for a late feed might not sit comfortably. I am not a purist demand feeder - always offered feeds at least every 3 hours during the day regardless of whether or not they 'asked' for it - so I had no issues with waking them for a late feed either. Bear in mind that you are offering a feed, not forcing it. If they're not hungry, they won't take it! It always made me smile with both my boys that they could be fast asleep and then massively up for a feed as soon as it was offered. Both slept through from that late feed until 7am at around 8/9 weeks, and never regressed, so it definitely worked for us. We didn't drop the late feed until they were 6 months and weaned.

I would say give it a try. Try it for a couple of weeks, and see what happens. You can always revert back to pure demand feeding if it doesn't feel right.

5madthings · 30/07/2012 22:54

you can only try it, for some babies it worked, for others it didnt, babies often root and suck a bit in their sleep so if you put them to the breast they will will if they want to and if they dont want to they wont!

it worked for 3 of my 5. the other 2 just got upset at being woken.

we co-slept tho so they fed when i was asleep anyway, but it was helpful if they ahd a feed as i was going to bed and then i would get a longer stretch of sleep :)

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