doing 'dream feed' tonight - any hints & tips?
14 answers /
Last post: 07/01/2024 at 1:31 am
He's been sleeping for a 5 hour stretch in the early evening, so I'm hoping to feed him before I go to bed and then only have to get up once in the small hours to feed him again, thats the theory anyway!
What sort of time do other mums do the dream feeds and do they work? ie. do your baby's sleep a little bit longer into the night or do they wake up as normal anyway?
Also I've just gone up to the next size teats and he's gulping his milk a bit, do you think I should use the smaller teats for the dream feed so I don't drown him in milk when he's half asleep?
Any advice welcome, thanks in advance!!
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Good luck x
As for the question - I voted 'no'. We did the dreamfeed for a few weeks, then one night I went to bed early, and said I'd feed Thomas when he finally woke by himself. He actually woke at around 5am - the same time he would've done if I'd dreamfed him!!! In the end I actually found that disturbing him to feed him (even if not actually waking him) made him more prone to waking in the night.
Establish a good bedtime routine (bath, bottle/breast, bed) and these early days of sleepless nights will soon pass.
Sharon x
I don't actually think it made any difference to how much she slept and when I stopped she would still wake at the same time in the night for another feed. Don't think I'd bother next time around, though they're all different of course.
I understand its easy to create a pattern thats useful for your sleeping pattern but if your baby was hungry they would wake, if their not waking then their prob. digesting the previous feed still, so putting extra pressure on their digestive system that is already fragile is risky! Personal opinion!! If you do go with it, hope it is successful...make sure to do extra checks as they can also bring up the milk with wind and choke if not winded after the feed. Soz for sounding neg. its good to have lots of opinions, then you can go with whats best for you xx
Pick him up very gently, put a bottle in his mouth and he drinks it.
I do very gently rub his back (with a hand under his chin), and see if any wind comes up, sometimes we get one - most times we don't.
His normal teats are a size 3, but I use a size 2 on this feed.
I plan to start phasing it out around 6 months.
Then very gently put him back to bed - most times his eyes do not open during this process.
He then sleeps until about 06:30 (or sometimes even later in the morning).
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Andrea T, so sorry to hear your story and to be honest once I read your reply I didn't feel I could even try a dream feed with your warning echoing round my mind. I'm going to leave it for now and see what times he starts waking regularly on his own, then review how its going in a few weeks. I'm also going to see what my health visitor thinks about it from a proffesional point of view.
Donna F, don't appologise for giving your opinion about not agreeing with dream feeds, I definately appreciate having a pros and cons to consider!
Spoke to my HV as was worried about not winding lo in the night as half the time I couldn't keep my eyes open I was so exhausted and she said my sleep was more important that worrying about lo not being winded but now I'm worrying, think i will start getting up splashing cold water on my face and making sure I stay awake!
i dream feed, but i change ethan's nappy first so he generally is semi awake and i ALWAYS wind him afterwards - he goes straight back to sleep though so this has definitely worked for me.
having heard the story on this thread, i can see me being ultra vigilant about burping tonight!!!!!!!!!
I always dream fed at around 11 they usually don't have the full bottle and then they would wake at say 3 or 4 have another change nappy and sleep till 6/7. Using normal teat will be fine x
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I always dream fed at around 11 they usually don't have the full bottle and then they would wake at say 3 or 4 have another change nappy and sleep till 6/7. Using normal teat will be fine x
I always burped also x
