How to Stop the Dream Feed

A lot of babies have a late night feeding that is sometimes called a "dream feed".  That is because this feeding is supposed to be ideally when the baby is sleeping and you are just helping them fill up so they'll stretch longer in the night.  This is a feeding where it should be dark and no talking, no eye contact, just feeding and straight to bed (A hint here: I found when I would change my babies diapers they would wake up.  So I made sure to do this at the START of the dream feed rather than the end.  So they would wake up but fall back asleep when eating and then I just quickly laid them down.  You usually don't even have to worry about burps,etc as they are eating so slow because they are so relaxed they usually don't have gas).  This feeding for me was around 10 PM.  
Now some moms find that the dream feed interferes with their baby's sleep (meaning that they will actually sleep longer stretched at night without it) and that is fine.  For those moms I do think it is normal that it will take longer to reach a 7 AM start time (or whatever time they start).  A lot of babies do well on the dreamfeed until they get to a certain age and it then starts to interfere with sleep.  That was the case for me.  It was around 4.5 months and that is a notorious phase of sleep interruptions/poor naps.  My daughter was upset at having been stirred at night (even though I tried my best not to) and she wasn't drinking but several ounces.  And many nights she would eat so slowly as she was sleeping so soundly and it just took forever just to get her to eat (like 30-45 minutes!) We had introduced solids and were comfortable she was getting her calories.  We were decreasing that amount (and added it basically to her daytime bottles) and  just stopped it one night.  My second daughter had silent reflux and the dreamfeed was causing reflux issues so we pretty much dropped that cold-turkey around that age and she was fine.  So there are many approaches to take.  I do think the bottom line is that you view it not as dropping a feeding but more as rearranging the calories.  So they tend to just eat more at other times (like during the day) or even introducing solids, and they are getting adequate calories to compensate.

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 Here is some ideas on how to stop the dream feed…from Tracy’s Book “The Baby Whisperer Solves All of Your Problems”.

The process of cutting out the dream feed – usually around 7 months – is to be done in 3-day increments, to insure that your baby makes up during the day what you’re taking away at night.

Day 1: Add one ounce to the first feed of the day, and take away 1 ounce from the dream feed that night.  If you’re breastfeeding, go back to clustering so that you get more calories in.  Give the dream feed (now 1 ounce less) half an hour earlier, at 10:30 instead of 11.

Day 4:  Add one ounce to the first feed, one to the second, and take away two ounces from the dream feed.  Give the dream feed (two ounces less) at 10.

Day 7:  Add once ounce to the first feed, once to the second, one to the third, take away three ounces from the dream feed, and give it at 9:30.

Days 10 (dream feed at 9pm), 14 ( 8 :30) 17 (8:00 ) and 20 (7:30):  By continuing every 3 days to add ounces during the day and take away the same amount from the dream feed, you will end up doing a feed at 7:30 with only a few ounces.

Note:  If your little one doesn’t take that extra ounce(s) that is offered during the day, that is ok….they might not take to drinking more right away during the day, but it is there if they want it.

I suggest cutting out the dream feed at around seven months, as your baby starts to get solid food in him. If you continue to give it, you’re working against the introduction of solid food, because for every 25 5Th/Ounce of extra liquid your baby takes, he won’t be hungry for 25 gram/an ounce of solid food. However, as the box indicates, when you cut out the dream feed, you have to add the same number of ml or grams or ounces to the day feed. If you don’t, your baby will wake up at night.

Also...the above is taken from Tracy's book "SAYP - p123".  Every baby is different though so there may be variations of the above "how to" that work - including dropping it cold turkey