Do you dream feed?

I saw another post and I'm curious if everyone here "dream feeds." Ours have started going down around 7-7:30. One of my girls will sometimes wake up around 1 to eat, and then they both wake up at 5 to eat again. They then go back down until 8 or 9.

I guess I'm worried that I should maybe be "dream feeding" around 10? My philosophy has been, "if they're hungry, they'll let us know."

Just curious what everyone else does....

Thanks!

 

Never a dream feeder here. I think the same thing...if they are hungry they will wake you. And I just thought that I might be setting up a habit of them expecting to sleep on a full tummy all the time. JMO.

 

We put them to bed around 6:30 & did a dream feed around 10:30. We'd just pick them up & let them drink what they wanted & put them right back down. Most of the time, they never really woke up. It worked great & allowed them to sleep through until 6:30am. The biggest reason I did it was because my girls weren't big eaters. They didn't get enough milk during the day w/out that one last feeding. Once they started taking more milk during daytime feedings & eating 3 solid meals a day we slowly reduced the # of ounces given at the dream feed over a couple weeks & then dropped it w/ no problem. They never woke up at 10:30 hungry after we dropped it. So for us, it worked well.

 

I never heard that term before.

We still get up and offer a bottle at night when they wake and fuss. Sometimes they take it sometimes not.

 

if one wakes up at the "wrong" time and is super fussy and we can't do anything to calm him down, then we'll give him a small bottle (ie, 3 oz instead of the typcal 6-7) just to calm him down. Not sure if that's what you meant, though . . .

 

I still do

They go to bed at 8 sharp and will sleep 6 hrs. So if I don't feed them, they wake me at 2am. If I feed them before I go to bed at 11 or so, I get to sleep through till 5! I've recently tried dropping that feed, and end up waking at 2. . .*sigh*

My girls are so small and only eat 3-4 oz at a time, so I know they need the calories.

 

No I do not dreamfeed. Katie usually eats around 9-10 PM and then again around 3 AM. She is an excellent sleeper.

 

QUOTE
My philosophy has been, "if they're hungry, they'll let us know."


Me too! I've never done dream feeds, & not planning on it.

 

We did this for quite some time. Dh would feed them right before he went to bed. Usually this was sometime between 11pm and 2am. Since they went to bed between 6:30 and 7, it seemed to help them make it through without waking me up. We cut it out about 2 weeks ago though. They were only taking it now and again so we stopped cold turkey. Now they sleep through-- heaven.

 

Yup, I feed them around 11 before we go to bed. They wake up, I don't wake them up. Then they usually sleep through till 4 or 5. I want to cut the 11 o'clock feeding out, but I don't know when I'm going to do that.

Reyna

 

I tried this last night at my 2 am feeding and it worked great. I did not wake them up either while feeding them. I am glad I did it b/c they woke me up again at 4 am and have been up ever since.

 

We do it! Never knew what it was called though. Our babes go to bed around 8-9 and we feed them a bit at 11 or midnight and then they sleep til 7-8 am.
Last night we skipped and they still slept through until 7:30. Usually if we don't they wak up between 4-5 am. We both work and need some sleep... this helps

 

Thanks for all the replies. We're actually considering trying this with Lucy, as she still is waking up at 2 am. I think if we can get her to eat around 10 or so she can hold off til 5 or 6 like her sister. I'm still thinking about it, though, because I don't want her to wake up completely but I'm worried about not burping her afterwards (reflux). I may just continue with what we're doing and keep hoping that she'll drop that 2 am feed soon!

 

QUOTE(skittles @ Oct 17 2007, 08:32 AM) [snapback]454247[/snapback]
Thanks for all the replies. We're actually considering trying this with Lucy, as she still is waking up at 2 am. I think if we can get her to eat around 10 or so she can hold off til 5 or 6 like her sister. I'm still thinking about it, though, because I don't want her to wake up completely but I'm worried about not burping her afterwards (reflux). I may just continue with what we're doing and keep hoping that she'll drop that 2 am feed soon!


i used to dream feed and was told to stop by my pediatrician. I was doing it because they are not great eaters and it comforted me to know i coudl get 4-5 more ounces in them. He said they will make up for it during the day and though i'm not convinced, he's not worried and 3 doctors have told me to stop so i stopped.

Since we stopped, we had 1 night where they both woke up screaming so we fed them a little bit (3 oz) but it hasnt' happened since. One of my babies does wake and fuss some nights but he was doing that with the dream feed anyway... i give him his paci and let him fuss hoping he'll go back to sleep. he usually does though sometimes i hear him fussing for up to an hour. i usually zonk out before he does!

About the reflux, i have a baby with reflux and the dream feed never bothered him though we didn't burp either. I have read it is because they don't take in a lot of air when dream feeding because they don't go on and off like they would when awake.

 

We did dreamfeed when we were working on combining/stretching out the feedings at night.

When they were younger, we would diaper and feed at 9 pm. (they would go down about 7 for a couple of hours). Then we had the midnight and 3 am feed. Well, it was wearing mommy out so we would give the midnight feed but then I would get up before the 3 am feed and do a dreamfeed say 2:45. Then we started pushing the midnight feed back by 15 minutes at a time and I would push the df back by 15 minutes at time (usually every 3-5 days) until we combined the midnight and 3 am feed into a 1/1:30 am feed. Once we were down to one feed at night, it was easy for us to drop after while...so we did it to get rid of middle of night feeds.

I still do a 2oz bottle at 9:30 now because it keeps the boys down until 5:30. If we don't do it, the boys get up earlier but I'm working on moving that feed up slowly until it coicides with their current bedtime of 7:30.

Hope that made sense.

 

We just stopped doing the dream feed this week.
We are on vacation and thought it was the best time to give it a try.
So far they are doing great.
I kept reading about babies that were sleeping 12 hrs and I was pretty confident ours could too, just too scared to take that leap of faith. haha
It was our sanity for the last four months.
DH and I both work full time. So when I went back to work after my maternity leave we had to figure out a way that we would both be able to feed them in the am.
We put the kids to bed around 7pm and then dream feed between 9:30-10pm. Then we would wake them at 6am to feed and then put them back down until 8am.
They have been sleeping 7:30-7:30. YEA!!!!!
I believe in the dream feed.

 

No dreamfeeding here.. we were up too often!!