Some babies sleep through the night from an early age. But, some babies will eat in the middle of the night until 9 months old or longer. Some parents swear by a “dream feed” to help their babies sleep longer while others don’t like it. But, what is a dream feed and at what age should you try it?
What Is a Dream Feed?
A dream feed is a feeding you give your baby while he or she is asleep before you go to bed yourself so they won’t wake up in the middle of the night.
Some moms breastfeed before they go to bed and others (or their partners) give their baby a bottle, sometimes without even picking up the baby.
The theory is that you will get a longer stretch of sleep, yourself. After all, if your baby can go 5 hours without eating, but goes to bed around 7 PM, that means you will need to feed the baby around 12 AM. That means your sleep is disrupted since you’ve possibly gone to bed at 10 PM.
That’s only two hours of sleep!
If you give a feeding to your baby around 10 PM, then it’s possible your baby won’t wake again until 3 AM giving you both a 5-hour stretch of sleep!
The questions are: Is it a good idea? Will it work? And, should you do it? For some people, a dream feed will be a Godsend. Not for others. Let’s explore further!
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- Night Weaning Quiz: Is Your Baby Ready?
At What Age Can You Dream Feed?
Most parents will start using a dream feed any time between 6-8 weeks old and 4 months old, once your baby no longer needs to eat every 3 hours at night. However, it’s not too late to try a dream feed even at 6 months old since many babies will increase their caloric needs around this time.
Most parents will continue to offer a dream feed until they are confident their baby can go all night without eating AND sleep a total of 11-12 hours without eating. Therefore, there’s no reason you couldn’t try it at 8 months old if night weaning isn’t working.
Keep in mind that if you stop the dream feed before your baby is ready, he or she may start to wake up too early for the day.
In my 10+ years of experience, most formula-fed or bottle-feeding babies can stop around 6-8 months old, and most breastfed babies can stop around 9-12 months old.
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How To Dream Feed
To give your baby a dream feed, you simply feed your baby while he or she is still sleeping.
For example, your 5-month old baby goes to sleep around 7 p.m., you feed them around 10 p.m. before you go to bed, and your baby might sleep until 4 or 6 a.m. or later. This gives you a glorious 6 to 8 hours of sleep! If you go to bed early and have your partner/spouse give the dream feed and you can get even more sleep!
If your baby wakes up during the feeding, soothe them back to sleep as you would at bedtime. It may take a few nights for your baby to get used to it.
When it works, a dream feed is completely safe and a wonderful thing!
Sample Dream Feeding Scenario
Here’s an example of how a good scenario might look:
- Baby goes to sleep around 7 p.m. after your regular bedtime routine.
- You dream feed around 10 p.m. before you go to bed.
- Baby sleeps until 4 or 6 a.m. or later, giving you a glorious 6 to 8 hours of sleep straight. When your baby is older, they might even sleep through the night.
What Time Do You Dream Feed?
What time you do a dream feed will depend on your baby’s schedule as well as your own.
Usually, the dream feed is between 10 and 11:30 p.m., at least 3 hours from the bedtime feeding or longer. This is based on the assumption your baby is going to sleep between 6 and 8 p.m. and you plan to go to bed between 10 and 11:30 p.m.
As you can imagine, if your baby goes to bed around 8 p.m. and you go to bed around 9 p.m., you will not likely be able to do an early night feeding.
However, some parents will do a dream feed between 4 and 6 a.m. if they are trying to stop their baby from waking up too early. For example, your baby might be able to sleep through the night until 5 a.m. but then wakes up for the day. Way too early! You might set an alarm to feed the baby at 3 or 4 a.m. such that your baby sleeps through 6 or 7 a.m.
Full or Partial Feeding? How Many Ounces?
Should you offer a full or partial feeding as your dream feed?
A partial feeding might be just fine if your baby is only missing a few ounces of milk during the daytime. Perhaps they don’t need a big feeding and will sleep through the night afterward. In that scenario, it’s just fine to give your baby a partial feeding.
For a breastfed baby, that might mean a 5-minute feeding or just one breast. For a formula-fed baby, that might be a half-bottle which is usually around 3 ounces. If your baby needs less than this then it’s probably time to drop the dream feed (see below.)
However, in some cases, a partial feeding could mean the dream feed won’t work and your baby will wake later in the night or too early in the morning. In general, if your baby still needs a night feeding then you want your Dream Feed to be a full feeding.
A full feeding usually means a full 6-7-ounce formula bottle, a 4-5-ounce breastmilk bottle, or two breasts if breastfeeding. If your baby is younger and not yet taking larger feedings, then their feeding will be smaller. In other words, the Dream Feed should be the same size as a typical daytime feeding.
Do You Pick Up the Baby?
If you are breastfeeding, you will, of course, need to pick up the baby unless you are quite the acrobat!
If your baby is taking a bottle of breastmilk or formula, some babies will stay in their bed, finish a bottle, and continue sleeping. So, there is no need to pick them up, and it helps keep them asleep.
But, it’s not mandatory that you NOT pick up the baby. Most babies will be fine to be picked up. You should do whatever will keep the baby asleep and get the feeding done as fast as possible.
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Do You Burp the Baby?
Yes, you will still burp the baby as usual. Keep in mind that as babies get older, they don’t always need help burping so you may not actually get a burp out of them. But, spend the normal amount of time you would burp the baby at a regular feeding time.
Do Dream Feeds Work?
Sometimes, yes. Unfortunately, not always.
As I explained how babies sleep at 4 months old, the first part of the night is the deepest sleep of the night for all babies and children over 4 months (approximately). Therefore, it might be very difficult to rouse your baby enough to feed any time you want to.
Some babies will awaken just enough to eat and stay asleep, but others might not wake up enough, and others will wake up too much. This might make them cranky that you woke them up (especially if they aren’t hungry!).
Dream feeds also seem to have a bit of an “expiration” date – generally speaking, they are most helpful for babies under 6 months old who may still require multiple night feedings.
Another way they sometimes “don’t work” is when you feed your baby before turning in for the night and they STILL wakes up an hour or two later.
Some babies also tend to wake up even more frequently after the initial night feeding, so dream feeding does the opposite of what is intended.
Should You Dream Feed?
I don’t recommend dream feeds as a solution for ALL families, but they do work well for some babies. And, in the end, we need to find the “right” solution for each unique baby even within the same family.
Some people believe it goes against the idea of demand-feeding and is not respecting the baby to force a meal on him. If it feels “wrong” to you, then skip it. If you view it as helping your baby as much as it helps you, give it a try!
A baby’s tummy is small and as I always say, there are many adults who can’t go 11-12 hours without eating, so I am not sure why we expect our babies to.
If you decide not to try it, or it doesn’t work, I typically recommend night-weaning to the appropriate number of night feedings for a baby your age and according to your baby’s capabilities.
How to Drop a Dream Feed
When you feel your baby is ready to drop the dream feed which is usually between 6 and 10 months old, it’s usually easiest to gradually make the dream feed smaller over a period of days and then stop it altogether. For example, if you are bottle-feeding, you might reduce the Dream Feed by one ounce per night for 3-4 nights and then stop offering it. If you are breastfeeding, try unlatching one minute earlier every night for a few nights.
The idea behind this method is they will curb their hunger with a smaller feeding but not get full. Then, they will adjust and eat more during the day to the point they won’t need the Dream Feed at all.
I hope this article has helped you decide whether you want to try a dream feed. Good luck!
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Laura says
How do you burp your baby after a dream feed?
Debbye says
Hi Laura,
You can gently burp your baby without too much stimulation by laying her on her side, and rubbing her back instead of patting, or gently laying her on her stomach with pressure on her belly and rub gently.
Simon says
As a rough guide how much you can take your baby probably will be during the day by taking an average of 70 g a formula for every 450 g of weight of your baby. For example, babies 4500 g heavy will eat about 700 g formula for 24 hours. Keep in mind that this will not apply to smaller babies, premature babies or babies over 6 months of age.
It is also important to remember that all babies are different, some have a greater appetite than others bearing in mind that your baby is still physically progressing and if your pediatrician is satisfied with his / her progress, then why you do not have to worry about.
You will notice that generally baby taking less milk you do not feel good, and more milk when you grow faster (this typically occurs between 2.3. and 6 weeks and 3 and 6 months of age), and this is completely normal.
Melanie says
I have an 11 week old who was sleeping fine (waking up just once a night and around 6:30-7 in the morning) but I thought I would just try the dream feeding just for fun. I guess I thought it might somehow help him sleep the entire night through. I’ve done it for 3 nights now and he hasn’t slept better. Actually, he’s waking up more often and earlier in the morning. Also, he’s been really cranky during the day–he was never like that before I tried dream feeding. I wonder if it’s related. After reading people’s comments, I think I’ll just stop and hope he goes back to his old routine and his happy self. I kind of wish I wouldn’t have tried it because he was doing just fine before.
Alyssa says
My baby, thank goodness, sleeps for 6 or more hrs. a night (from 7pm to anywhere from 1-3am) and goes right back to sleep. Unfortunately, he then wakes at 4:30 or 5am bright-eyed and ready for the day – way too early for mom and pop. Could dream feeding fix this?
Casey says
My son is almost 7 months and I dream feed him and it works great. He would get a bottle at 7-8 pm and go to sleep at 8:30-9pm, his dad or me would get up and feed him at 12-1am and he would continue to sleep throughout the night until 6:30 am and would want another bottle. Then he would play for an hour or so and then fall asleep once again for another hour or two.
Shannon says
My 3rd son is 4.5 months old. We have used the dream feed with all of our children and with our first two it worked great. By this point my older two would have their dream feed around 11pm (provided by my husband) and then sleep until 7-7:30 in the morning. Our 3rd child however isn’t on board with this plan. He has his dream feed and then will wake anytime from 2:30am – 5:30am to eat again and then sleep until morning. There is no rhyme or reason to when he wakes and his disorganization is making it difficult to maintain an eating schedule for him in the daytime (if he eats later he’s not hungry in the morning). We tested dropping the dream feed this past week and at first it looked great – only waking 1x to eat overnight, but by mid-week he was waking at least twice between midnight and morning. If he needs to eat twice I’d rather my husband keep feeding him before bedtime and then I take the middle of the night waking. Any idea what would be causing the random overnight eating pattern post dream feed (going 3.5 hours one night and then 6.5 the next)? Also, on a separate issue, any suggests for weaning baby from the swing? He has reflux and we got into a pattern of sleeping 1/2 the night and each nap in his swing early on and now we’re stuck.
Jonathan says
my baby son is about a week old have been waking up every 2 hours to feed
A. is this normal and
B. do you think dream feeding will help.
At the moment i dont really mind the every 2 hours but when i go back to work this will leave a lot of strain on my wife.
thanks for your help
Kimberly says
Hi Jonathan,
Newborn definitely need to feed on demand for about the first 3-4 months. At this age, dream feeding won’t really make much difference since he’s still to young to have any kind of schedule or pattern down for his eating and sleeping. As an infant, he’s still sorting just being out in the world. We don’t really recommend much in the way of sleep training or working extending their sleep until they are at least 4 months old.
Sally says
thanks for this article about dream feed – now i have a question. How do you correct it if you started the problem? should i let him cry through the old dream feed, since apparently it wasn’t a “necessary” feeding anyway?
we tried the dream feed for about a week with our 4 mo old son, who goes to bed at 6pm. I would wake him at 9:30pm for a dream feed, reasoning that would get us about 6 hours of continuous sleep from 9:30p on. (the longest he has ever gone is 6 hours). but, that’s not the case – instead he would wake after only 4 hours or less and then every 2 to 3 hours after that. I’ve stopped dream feeding, but he seems stuck in the 9:30pm wake up – crying for a feeding now. So now i have even more feedings in the night. What’s the best way to eliminate this wake up (that i caused!) Should i let him cry through this feeding in order to eliminate it?
Thank you for your help!
Kimberly says
Hi Sally,
Cry it out is a personal choice but a hungry baby cries a lot more than if it’s an issue of self-soothing. You might look at doing a slower night weaning plan. Nicole covers this in her book (www.babysleepswell.com) or you might consider contacting her for some sleep consultation services.
Ali says
I have been dreamfeeding my son since he was 2 weeks old. He is now three months. He is still waking up at 1 to 2 times a night to eat and its always at different times. Should I try skipping the dream feed and seeing if he sleeps better?
Mike says
Are you a doctor? If not, why would anyone care what you recommend (or not) as a solution to their child’s sleeping habits?
Nicole says
@Mike No, I am not a doctor and don’t pretend to be. People care about what I recommend or not because I am a mom who has gone through a lot sleep-wise and can give practical and realistic advice. Most doctors tend to have a “Do it my way or you will fail.” mentality and one way doesn’t work for all kids. I have now helped countless parents overcome very difficult obstacles even when their doctor wasn’t able to help them. Helping other parents has given me a wealth of knowledge and experience with a wide range of personality types that you can’t read in a book or get from a doctor in your 15-minute well-baby visit. You can read parent stories here: https://www.babysleepsite.com/testimonials Good luck in your sleep journey (if you have one) and thanks for commenting!