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Breastfeeding
brandenburdett
member
dream feed (lots of questions)
brandenburdett
member
I would like to know more about dreamfeeding, and I have lots of questions:
Do you dreamfeed? If so, why? Does it help your baby sleep through the night?
Have you tried dreamfeeding and it didn't work? Why do you think it didn't work?
How do you wake up your baby to dream feed? How long do you nurse?
My baby is almost six months old - do you think it's too late to start now? We are going to start introducing solids soon (after next week's 6-month checkup).
I'm interested in dreamfeeding because we are still not sleeping through the night. She goes to sleep at about 7.30 then wakes up at about 12-1 (just for the fun of it) and again at about 4-5 (because she's hungry). I would love love love to eliminate the midnight wake-up call, and make the morning feed a little later so that I can get a good sleep before going to work the next day (!). Will dreamfeeding help to re-set her body clock?
Please tell me about your successes and failures! Thank you!!
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Re: dream feed (lots of questions)
We do it every night and DD sleeps from 8:00 or 8:30 to about 7 am. Basically, our routine is this: Pick DD up from my mom's. Usually she has a little snack (maybe 5 min or so but she's a fast eater) before we get in the car for the commute home. Arrive home about 45 min later. If she seems hungry or super fussy see if she wants eat again, sometimes she does somtimes she doesn't (again usu only 5 or 10 minutes). Start our evening routine (feed dogs, change clothes, read DD a book or two). Around 7 DH gives DD a bath. As soon as she is in her jammies I sit down and feed her. She usually eats for between 30 and 40 min (the only time of day she eats that long, usually she's 15 to 20 tops). Put her in her crib, if she's not already asleep she's usually super drowsy. She rolls around for a few minutes and then falls asleep (usu. w/in 20 min). Around 10:30 or 10:45 I get her out of her crib, check her diaper, give her her reflux medicine and feed her. She sometimes wakes up when we giver her the medicine but as soon as she latches on she falls asleep. She usually "dream feeds" for about 15 minutes. We put her back in her crib and she sleeps for the rest of the night (or has been for the past 3 weeks or so, I probably just jinxed myself).
Honestly, the dream feed routine started when she was much smaller because she was hungry and woke up then and because we had to give her the reflux medicine. It's morphed into a dream feed and seems to be working really well. I did notice that when I just started getting her up at the same exact time each night (rather than waiting for her to wake up) she started sleeping later in the mornings. She was waking up around 4 or 5 to eat but dropped that a few weeks ago. Good luck!!
Hmmm... thanks! There is a lot to think about still...
The other thing I was worried about is pumping. Usually I pump just before I go to bed to top off my supply for the next day at daycare (I can't keep up with her with what I pump at work). So, if I dreamfeed, I'll lose those extra ounces and I can see that my stash will deplete much more quickly. Or will it? Maybe she will eat less in the day if I dream feed?