Non-Sleepers Can you tell me about dream feeds please

[zwiggy]

Got a 6 month poor sleeper - have had lots of advice about giving a dream feed. BUT I daren't wake him up to give him a dream feed incase he won't go back to sleep easily or it then becomes the norm that he wakes up at that time aswell as all the other times.

i know I should just try it but he doesn't usually stay asleep long enough for me to wake him.

any experiences?

The idea is that they don't wake, they feed in their sleep and that indeed was the case with mine.

HOWEVER I found that the dreamfeed was counter productive and in fact set up DDs stomach to want a feed a few hours later. This was especially true after 6 months when technically they don't need night feeds and in fact having them may disrupt normal sleep patterns.

I say technically because although babies aren't supposed to need night feeds after 6 months, I don't think anyone ever thought to tell them that.

I did dream feed with my dd last year and she still woke up all the time in the night. We gave the dream feed up when she was about five months to see what would happen and she started sleeping for really long stretches for the first time. Wasn't long before she slept through the night 12 hours. I think the dream feed just disturbed her sleep patterns.

In others words, I'd say don't bother!