Dream Feeds
Dream feeds! Oh, the elusive dream feeds!
I am going to take a few minutes today to chat through the theory behind doing a dreamfeeds, what’s realistic, why it works and also to debunk the myths, because there are quite a few of them.
So, in order for this to make sense, I want to go back and really be clear about some newborn sleep + feeding expectations.
If these three things are not happening during the day, then dream feeds don’t work because logistically it just doesn’t equal a dreamfeed.
A dream feed is meant to be when we wake a baby up to feed them; that typically happens around 10pm, and that’s all by design, because that’s 3 hours from their last feed at 7pm.
So imagine this scenario: I know my baby is capable of sleeping 5 hours in a row. So all day I feed them every 3 hours to make sure that they don’t sleep for 5 hours during the day because that means they will not sleep for 5 hours overnight. So I put them to bed at 7pm, and I go to bed at 10pm -- I will then be woken up at midnight, because that’s their 5-hour stretch for the day, and again at 3am, and again at 6am, best-case scenario, for feeds.
BUT!! If I put baby to sleep at 7pm, wake them up at 10pm for their dreamfeed, then they will more likely sleep until 3am-ish, because I’ve re-started the clock for that long sleep by waking them up and feeding them -- which means they’ll now get 5 hours of sleep unbroken while I also get 5 hours of sleep unbroken... and that is the purpose of the dreamfeed.
Purpose 1: Break up their early evening sleep with a feed around 3 hours from whenever they fed last so that,
Purpose 2: Their longest stretch of sleep matches with your longest stretch of sleep
And there’s a lot of ways this can go wrong. For example, if your baby can’t sleep more than 3 hours at a time, then it does not matter when you do a dreamfeed because they are going to be awake in 2-3 hours. So until they can consistently sleep for a longer stretch than 3 hours, there is no real reason to be doing a dream feed.
Another way this can go sour, is if parents wake up the baby for a dreamfeed at 10pm, and instead of having a feed and then going right back to bed, they’re awake for an hour or two, potentially become overtired, and now absolutely nobody is getting any sleep.
Deamfeeds become useful when we know baby is able to settle and sleep for 4, 5, 6, 7 hours at a time and we want to match that up with OUR bedtime so that we can also subsequently sleep 4, 5, 6, 7 hours at a time.
That’s all a dreamfeed is -- wake baby to feed when they otherwise would be sleeping for potentially their longest stretch of the day so that we hopefully get that long stretch of sleep when we too go to bed because their bellies are full and they’ve had some non-stimulating awake time and are ready to go back into that place of deep and restful sleep.
I personally find dreamfeeds to be useful week four and after -- the reason being I usually assume a baby can only sleep for MAX number of hours as they are weeks old. So a four-week baby may give me one four-hour stretch a day, so I’m going to wake them up whenever I am ready to go to bed -- around that 2.5/3 hour mark since their last feed -- so that hopefully they can give me another juicy stretch of sleep overnight.
A dreamfeed also doesn’t have to happen at 10pm. For example, let’s say baby fed at 8pm, and you know they can sleep for four or five hours, then I’ll wake them up at 11pm to do the dreamfeed so that I get that longer stretch overnight. The issue with this is you then needing to stay awake until 11pm unless you’re okay with sleeping from 9pm until 11pm, setting your alarm to wake up, doing the dreamfeed, and then heading back to sleep.
10pm isn’t necessary for the dreamfeed BUT doing it at 10pm also means that baby is in a good sleep rhythm and a good sleep routine because they have that 7pm bedtime which we know is super ideal for newborns and babies and toddlers. I find the dreamfeeds are only really successful if we’re in that 7pm-10pm zone, but go for it.
Any questions remember that yes you have these videos but you have ME, in live and living colour so please reach out if there’s anything I can do to help.
Dream feeds! Oh, the elusive dream feeds!
I am going to take a few minutes today to chat through the theory behind doing a dreamfeeds, what’s realistic, why it works and also to debunk the myths, because there are quite a few of them.
So, in order for this to make sense, I want to go back and really be clear about some newborn sleep + feeding expectations.
- We are assuming that baby is feeding every 3 hours, or less, during the day
- We are assuming that your baby is physiologically, physically, mentally capable of sleeping more than 3 hours straight.
- We are assuming that baby is in a routine of going to bed at 7pm.
If these three things are not happening during the day, then dream feeds don’t work because logistically it just doesn’t equal a dreamfeed.
A dream feed is meant to be when we wake a baby up to feed them; that typically happens around 10pm, and that’s all by design, because that’s 3 hours from their last feed at 7pm.
So imagine this scenario: I know my baby is capable of sleeping 5 hours in a row. So all day I feed them every 3 hours to make sure that they don’t sleep for 5 hours during the day because that means they will not sleep for 5 hours overnight. So I put them to bed at 7pm, and I go to bed at 10pm -- I will then be woken up at midnight, because that’s their 5-hour stretch for the day, and again at 3am, and again at 6am, best-case scenario, for feeds.
BUT!! If I put baby to sleep at 7pm, wake them up at 10pm for their dreamfeed, then they will more likely sleep until 3am-ish, because I’ve re-started the clock for that long sleep by waking them up and feeding them -- which means they’ll now get 5 hours of sleep unbroken while I also get 5 hours of sleep unbroken... and that is the purpose of the dreamfeed.
Purpose 1: Break up their early evening sleep with a feed around 3 hours from whenever they fed last so that,
Purpose 2: Their longest stretch of sleep matches with your longest stretch of sleep
And there’s a lot of ways this can go wrong. For example, if your baby can’t sleep more than 3 hours at a time, then it does not matter when you do a dreamfeed because they are going to be awake in 2-3 hours. So until they can consistently sleep for a longer stretch than 3 hours, there is no real reason to be doing a dream feed.
Another way this can go sour, is if parents wake up the baby for a dreamfeed at 10pm, and instead of having a feed and then going right back to bed, they’re awake for an hour or two, potentially become overtired, and now absolutely nobody is getting any sleep.
Deamfeeds become useful when we know baby is able to settle and sleep for 4, 5, 6, 7 hours at a time and we want to match that up with OUR bedtime so that we can also subsequently sleep 4, 5, 6, 7 hours at a time.
That’s all a dreamfeed is -- wake baby to feed when they otherwise would be sleeping for potentially their longest stretch of the day so that we hopefully get that long stretch of sleep when we too go to bed because their bellies are full and they’ve had some non-stimulating awake time and are ready to go back into that place of deep and restful sleep.
I personally find dreamfeeds to be useful week four and after -- the reason being I usually assume a baby can only sleep for MAX number of hours as they are weeks old. So a four-week baby may give me one four-hour stretch a day, so I’m going to wake them up whenever I am ready to go to bed -- around that 2.5/3 hour mark since their last feed -- so that hopefully they can give me another juicy stretch of sleep overnight.
A dreamfeed also doesn’t have to happen at 10pm. For example, let’s say baby fed at 8pm, and you know they can sleep for four or five hours, then I’ll wake them up at 11pm to do the dreamfeed so that I get that longer stretch overnight. The issue with this is you then needing to stay awake until 11pm unless you’re okay with sleeping from 9pm until 11pm, setting your alarm to wake up, doing the dreamfeed, and then heading back to sleep.
10pm isn’t necessary for the dreamfeed BUT doing it at 10pm also means that baby is in a good sleep rhythm and a good sleep routine because they have that 7pm bedtime which we know is super ideal for newborns and babies and toddlers. I find the dreamfeeds are only really successful if we’re in that 7pm-10pm zone, but go for it.
Any questions remember that yes you have these videos but you have ME, in live and living colour so please reach out if there’s anything I can do to help.