dream feeding

At about the 4-month mark, i was told that Ari & Saro were not growing enough. We changed a lot of things and the doc is less worried now. one of the things we did was add a dream feed in the middle of the night. We don't wake them, just give them the bottle and they both do pretty well with it. Lately, Saro has been having 6-7 oz and Ari has been having 4-5 oz and they do this within reasonable amounts of time (~20 mins each). (This is in stark contrast to the 1 hour it takes to bottle feed ari per feeding when he is awake.)

Is anyone else out there dream feeding? Do you worry that it is messing up their ability to sleep through the night? (I.e. if we stop dream feeding, will they wake up on their own looking for a meal?) How long have you been dream feeding and how long do you plan on keeping this up? They don't notice it and i think it takes the stress off of daytime feedings knowing they'll get one good feed at night but it is becoming exhausting setting the alarm for 1am and feeding them. Also, i wonder if it is impacting the amount they eat during the day? (i.e. if we didn't dream feed, would they just make up for it during the day or would the daytime quantity stay the same and we really are getting a good extra meal in?)

any thought on dream feeding would be appreciated!
arda

 

Hi, I'm new to this forum. My girls are 9months now & we've been doing a dream feed from the start...once we got rid of the other middle of the night bottles. They have their bedtime bottle around 6:30 & are asleep before 7pm. Around 10:30 we pick them up & give them a bottle - 4-5oz. They usually stay half asleep through the feeding & go right back to sleep afterwards. They sleep through until 6:30am & have breakfast at 7am. This works well for us. My girls are not good eaters, especially Avery, and don't get enough milk during the day without this extra feeding. I'm hoping to be able to slowly reduce the amount given at the dream feed over the next month & see if we can go without it.

Have you thought about moving up your dream feed time? Per the Baby Whisperer book, she says between 9-11pm is a good time for the dreamfeed & doesn't disturb their night sleep. I don't know if that's true for everyone, but it works well for us. We feed the babies & then we can go to bed & get plenty of sleep. However, when my babies were 4 months, they still needed an early morning feeding also - around 4:30 or 5. Again I think that was because they didn't eat as well as a lot of other babies during the day.

Angela

 

like the previous poster we do a dream feed at about 10. The baies go to bed at 6:30.
With my first son we also did a dream feed and he slowly weaned himself off of it. At about 8 months of age he started takeing less and less and by about 9 months he just gave it up. It was never a problem with him and I am hoping it is the same for these babies.

 

We tried dreamfeeding the boys at around 4 month old (now almost 5) to see if they could stretch past the 4:30 feeding and to increase their daily intake. I've noticed though that when we dropped the dreamfeeding they ate more during the day. Also, we moved them from a 3-hour feeding schedule to a 4-hour one and they take 28-30 oz per day from just 24-26 per day. I too, was worried about the dreamfeeding interfering with their ability to sleep through the night so we dropped it. I was also concerned about not being able to brush theit teeth (when the teeth come) when we dreamfeed.

HTH!

 

How does everyone get their babies in bed by 6:30pm??? The earliest i can seem to get the babies in bed is 8:30 or 9pm... which shows you why a dream feed at 9 or 10pm wouldn't make sense. I just wouldn't be able to fit in their 5 feeds a day otherwise. They are very bad eaters and so each feed takes a while... what are your schedules like?

 

Dream feeding is great. We did it around 11pm before going to bed for several months. We gave it up when the girls started refusing the bottles (or drinking only 1-2 ounces) before falling back into a deep sleep. Most babies give up the dream feed naturally when the time is right.

 

When we do/did dream feeds I never set the alarm to do it in the middle of the night, I just did it before I went to sleep for convenience sake. I only do them now if somebody falls asleep during their last feed of the day and I'm not sure if they'll make it through the night. My friend did dreamfeeds with her twins for 6 months or so and stopped when she thought they were ready (eating lots of solids, etc.) and never experienced any problems. I don't think it impacts their ability to sleep through the night because they're not really awake for the feed anyway. I think it's really hopeful they take so much in 20 minutes! Sounds like they'll get there during the day at some point too (Evan used to take 1 to 1.5 hours to drink 5 ounces and now takes about 20 minutes to drink 7 or 8 - he just needed a few months of practice.). Good luck!
Catherine

 

QUOTE(Safari @ Aug 26 2007, 03:20 AM) [snapback]380385[/snapback]
Dream feeding is great. We did it around 11pm before going to bed for several months. We gave it up when the girls started refusing the bottles (or drinking only 1-2 ounces) before falling back into a deep sleep. Most babies give up the dream feed naturally when the time is right.



I agree!! I think we completely stopped around 8 months. It never messed up sleeping through the night. It really worked for us! Once they started taking 2 ounces, we quite.

 

We do the dream feed between 9:30-10pm every night.
It works for us.

 

QUOTE(ADC17 @ Aug 25 2007, 09:26 PM) [snapback]380306[/snapback]
How does everyone get their babies in bed by 6:30pm??? The earliest i can seem to get the babies in bed is 8:30 or 9pm... which shows you why a dream feed at 9 or 10pm wouldn't make sense. I just wouldn't be able to fit in their 5 feeds a day otherwise. They are very bad eaters and so each feed takes a while... what are your schedules like?


My girls get overtired if we put them to bed later than 6:45 or so. They fall asleep faster & sleep longer when they go to bed around 6:30. When I used to put them to bed at 7pm or later, they would wake up earlier in the morning - like around 5 or 5:30. That sounds backwards doesn't it? But they consistently sleep in later when I put them to bed earlier.