Dream feeds involve feeding your baby whilst still asleep, the theory is that by doing this you will get a longer stretch of sleep for yourself. Dream feeds have become increasingly popular in recent years and have been written about by authors such as Tracy Hogg in The Baby Whisperer.
However there has been no research to show if dream feeds are effective for helping with baby sleep and there is no scientific basis for them. Stories of success are based on anecdotal evidence with some parents swearing by them and others saying it did not work for them or made things worse! We'll share with you the basics of dream feeding so you can make your own mind up. If you are really struggling get support from other mums in the coffeehouse
How to dream feed
Feed your baby about 10pm - 11pm before you go to bed - You pick your baby up and sit comfortably with them and give them a breast or bottle feed, ensure there are no loud noises or lights that can act as a stimulus. To get the baby to start sucking you may need to elicit the rooting reflex by gently stroking their cheek with your nipple or teat. If the baby doesn't feed then try changing your position to disturb the baby a bit or stroke the palm of their hand or sole of the foot. Try not to disturb the baby too much so they become very wakeful. Then offer the breast or bottle again, unless your baby is deeply asleep they will eventually feed. The first few times can be very hard to get them used to feeding this way. See here for more on sleep cycles. If you look at the sleep cycle chart on the right you can see that the deepest phases of sleep occur between 9pm and midnight, the time you would be attempting to give your little one a dream feed.
Pros of dream feeding
Many parents say dream feeding is a godsend and it has worked for them If it works you can go to bed early and get your other half to give the dream feed so you can have a longer stretch of sleep, if breast feeding you would need to use expressed breast milk. Recent research has highlighted the beneficial effects of breast feeding at night time; naturally occurring nucleotides that have been previously linked to sleepiness only reach their highest concentration in breast milk that has been expresses at night. So using breast milk that has been expressed during the day may be inadvertently contributing to a sleepless night.
Cons of dream feeding
As the deepest phase of sleep occurs before midnight, the chances are your baby may be deeply asleep and very hard to rouse enough to feed. From a safety point of view you should not feed a baby who is lying down or deeply asleep because of the risk of choking. You are disrupting a baby's natural sleep/wake rhythm and interfering with their circadian rhythm which can be counter productive Some babies tend to wake more frequently after being woken up the first time. Dream feeds can cause a night time feeding habit that otherwise may not have been there. It can be difficult to know just when to stop dream feeding and when your baby is fully capable of sleeping through the night, some baby's do this quite naturally from two months onwards and the vast majority from 3-4 months. They can be too sleepy too eat and some may be difficult to settle once disturbed For many babies it makes no difference at all to how long they sleep at night and they will still wake at the time they would have done anyway.
What the Netmums say
All I can give is my opinion but to me there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea of dream feeding. It completely goes against the baby's natural rhythm and when they are so little I think you have to accept that they will wake in the night a few times. I think to myself would I like to be half woken up and an given food I don't really want. My dd is 9 weeks old and I give her final feed at about 7.30. I then leave her to wake when she's ready and many nights she will go through to 2/3am anyway. Granted some nights she wakes at 12ish but isn't that just to be expected at that age? Give them a bit of time and they will naturally start going longer. Like I said just my opinion I'm sure there are lots of mums who advocate it. Susan
I did the 7, 11, 3 and 7 routine too with DD. I use to give her a dream feed at 11pm and if I could get away with it not change her nappy as it would wake her up too much. I was doing this till about 6 weeks and then wondered how long she would go if I left her because that way I could go to bed at 9pm if I wanted or even earlier. I then found she was going thru till 4ish so I would give her a bottle then and then force myself to wake up at 7 to stick to routine! She wasn't as hungry for her 7am feed so I upped the 7pm feed by an ounce and also the 7am feed and dropped the 4ish feed by 2oz and kept doing this till she dropped that feed all together. Kelly
I tried dream feeds with my DS, it didn't work. Sometimes he'd wake up when I picked him up to feed, he'd be very grumpy (because I disrupted his beauty sleep) and unsettled then it'd take me even longer to settle him again. It was impossible to change his nappy without waking him.
If I did manage to feed him while sleeping then he wouldn't bring his wind up then we'd all be up for the next few nights with his colic and constant crying. Is anyone managing to burp the baby after a dream feed? What's the secret? Mine never burp if they fall asleep while feeding. He is quite happy to drink while sleeping though. Sam
I think some of you have missed the whole point when it comes to the dream feed. You are NOT meant to wake them up - you pick baby up, slip bottle in the mouth and they should naturally start to suck. No winding is required and no nappy change is needed unless they have dirtied or soaked through. All of this should be achieved with little to no lights on. We did dream feed our son and it worked a treat for us - he was going 7 - 7 (with dream feed) and he wasn't even 8 weeks old.
True enough how would you like someone to wake you up feed you then put you back to bed - written down it does look odd but in reality it does make perfect sense and I would have tried everything and anything to get some sleep. As it so happened we followed DS and gave him what he required when he needed it. When he started taking 2oz or less at 11pm we stopped dream feeding by 12 weeks he was going from 6pm to 6am which gradually moved to 7 -7 without as much as a peep God bless the dream feed I say! Dyanne