How many use dream feeds?

fwhittaker · August 2015

my LO is 13 weeks and has been a good sleeper. She gets up once per night to eat. The last week and a half it was right at 2 am and then she would sleep until 7-8. I got greedy on dropping that feed and read about dream feeds. So after we put her down around 8:30, we then did a dream feed (gently woke her just to eat) at 11:30. Unfortunately, it back-fired. She then got up at 3:30 to eat whereas she can usually go at least 5 hours. Then she got up at 5:30 and then again at 6:30. So last night, after I was so mad I tried to interrupt what was a good schedule, we went back to putting her down and letting her sleep. However, she got up hungry at midnight! Then, she woke to eat at 3:30. She had a dirty diaper during the feed, which woke her up. It took me until 5 to get her back asleep. Then she slept until 7:30. I'm so afraid I ruined her forever! I'm going to try not to feed her if she wakes close to midnight again tonight and see how that goes. Does anyone have any advice on getting her back to before? Do any of you do a dream feed? Thanks!

DMEL · August 2015

Dream feeds backfired for me too! We stopped them and then he started sleeping through the night shortly after

erin79 · August 2015

I'm not a fan of the dream feed. I feel like if your LO doesn't know they're eating, then I don't think it counts.

So much of baby sleep is mental, not just physical, so just because they eat a lot early in the evening, doesn't mean they can tough it out for longer. They have to be mentally ready to sleep for the long stretch, too.

rae430 · August 2015

Tried it once- huge failure. My LO is super bothered by even the smallest amount of gas, so if I don't burp him well, I'm up every hour until he gets that gas out. Couldn't dream feed him without waking him to burp, so I nixed the whole thing.