Dropping The Dream Feed

21/10/2020

Still dream feeding after 6 months and don’t know how/when to stop? I understand that fear. Your baby is sleeping through it’s not a big deal you can stay up until 10.30pm to give a quick bottle feed right? If it’s not a problem to parents I usually say no problem carry on. However it’s not so tricky to stop it if you want to. Fully weaned babies who are getting enough calories during the day do not normally need a dream feed. By 8 months they definitely don’t need it and you could find some earlier wakening’s due to digestive discomfort or wet nappies actually disturbing your babies sleep. Their whole digestive system has to wake up and go to work to breakdown this bit of late food. When I stop a dream feed it’s usually a rip the band aid off situation as I’m not with parents long enough to wean off slowly. This is a very (very) simple plan to drop the dream feed;

• Dream feed should start no later than 10pm
• The first night – reduce bottle amount by 30mls (1 oz) or breastfeed by 3 mins
• Feed at the reduced amount for 4/5 days
• Night 5 – If sleep pattern has not changed or disturbed reduce the amount of milk by a further 30mls (1 oz) or breastfeed by 3 minutes
• Continue with the same schedule until the last 30mls or 3 mins breastfeed remains.
• It is very rare that a baby will wake missing out on 30mls or a 3 min breastfeed

Shouldn’t take more than two weeks to say goodbye to dreamfeeding and hello to 12 hours of blissful sleep a night.

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