What's a dream feed? Should you do it? When should you try a dream feed? When should you stop dream feeding? How do you get rid of a dream feed? I'm tackling all of your questions about dream feeds in this post.
What is a dream feed?
A dream feed is when you go to your baby a couple hours after their bedtime and rouse them enough to feed them. After this feeding you lay them back down to continue sleeping. The ultimate goal of the dream feed is to sync up your baby's longest stretch of sleep with Mom or Dad's first stretch of sleep.
For example: If your baby goes to bed at 8pm but you don't head to bed until 10:30pm, it would make sense that you wake them at 10:30pm to feed them and help them "tank up." Then they will (ideally) sleep a good long stretch and that will give you a good long stretch of sleep too!
When can you start to dream feed?
I recommend using a dream feed with newborns. Once your newborn and you get home from the hospital and start to get into a nice rhythm (I find this typically happens around week 4) this is a great time to introduce the dream feed. Now, if you are a parent who follows your newborn to bed at 8pm OR if your newborn won't go down for the night until 11pm anyways, then a dream feed won't do you much good!
If you do attempt to introduce a dream feed, I encourage you to give it a try consistently for 1 week before deciding if it's helpful or not. If you do a dream feed but your newborn is still up 2-3 hours later, then it might not be worth the hassle.
When should you stop dream feeding?
I don't introduce dream feeds past 4 months of age. Now, if your baby is over 4 months of age, still using a dream feed, and sleeping great at night, keep using it! But if you are using a dream feed and your baby is still waking frequently overnight, it's time to get rid of it and address any sleep associations that could be occurring.
The reason I like to get rid of the dream feed around 4 months is due to your baby's sleep cycles. At night, your baby's deepest and more restorative sleep happens between around 7pm and midnight or 1am. If we are disrupting sleep right in the middle of that, it could be negatively affecting your baby's ability to get the restorative sleep they need.
Also, if the dream feed is not helping your 4+ month old baby to stretch their next feeding until 2am or later, then it's really not doing its job. It's likely that an underlying sleep association (feeding, rocking, holding to sleep) is responsible for your baby's frequent night wakings and that's where you should focus your efforts instead.
How do I get rid of a dream feed?
If you've successfully used a dream feed but decide you are ready to get rid of it, I suggest gradually decreasing the length or amount of feeding over time. For example: If you bottle feed 5 oz at the dream feed, drop down to 4 oz for 2-3 nights, then 3 oz for 2-3 nights, then 2 oz for 2-3 nights. Finally take the feeding away and if your baby happens to wake around that dream feed time, have a sleep coaching method in your back pocket to apply.
If you breastfeed, you would use the same idea but instead track the number of minutes you are currently feeding and gradually decrease that.
Of course, there are a lot of different factors that go into overnight feedings and frequencies so bear that in mind as you make this next step. Make sure you have realistic expectations as well as a plan to follow through with and ALWAYS ask your pediatrician if you are unsure whether your baby should still be getting night feedings.