What is a Dream Feed?
The dream feed. Yet another phrase added to my post baby vocabulary. I remember the first time I said, “well I’m going to dream feed him”, and Sam looked at me like I was crazy. What is a dream feed? A dream feed is when you “wake” your baby between 10pm and midnight (right before you go to bed), and top them off with some mama’s milk. I say “wake” in parenthesis because I never actually woke Weston up to dream feed. I simply pulled him out of bed, fed him, and put him back. He would keep his eyes closed the whole time, but would be awake enough nurse.
Why do a dream feed?
The idea behind the dream feed is that you’re topping off your baby’s belly with milk before you go to bed so that you can get a longer stretch of sleep. If your baby goes to bed at 9 and you go to bed at 11, you can almost guarantee that you will be up within an hour or two to nurse. Doing the dream feed starts the nursing clock back at zero so can catch some extra z’s.
At what age do you start dream feeding?
I started around 2 or 3 months (to be honest, it’s all a blur). This is when Weston had a semi-decent schedule going and consistently went to bed around the same time every night. When they are younger than 3 months, they don’t exactly have a schedule or routine. It’s just a random cycle of sleeping and eating (and pooping)! As soon as your baby has a good schedule going, you can start dream feeding.
At what age do you stop dream feeding?
This is really up to you. If your baby starts going longer stretches without nursing, you can experiment and see what happens when you eliminate the dream feed. I stopped dream feeding around 5 months when we started working on getting Weston to sleep through the night.
What if my baby wakes up?
Dream feeding isn’t for everyone. Some babies can eat and stay relaxed enough that they never fully wake up. Some babies, on the other hand, can wake up right away when you pick them up. You really just have to try it and see.
Can bottle feeding babies dream feed?
The answer is yes! I never did a bottle dream feed, but I did a little research. What I read on weebeedreaming.com recommends that bottle feeding parents leave their little ones in the crib (or rock n’ play or wherever they sleep) and simply put the bottle in the baby’s mouth. That’s it!
Dream feeding Weston definitely helped me get some extra rest in those early months. It also took away some of the anxiety around going to sleep knowing that I would be awake in such a short time. If I did a dream feed, I knew I would at least get a few solid of hours of sleep. I’d love to know if it works for you! Comment below if you’ve given it a try.
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