Having a new baby in the house means adjusting to his sleep schedule and figuring out how you can get enough rest while you care for him. But if your little one is past the newborn stage and still waking to feed more than a few times a night, a dream feed may help.
What is a dream feed?
A dream feed is a late-night feeding that you give your baby right before you head off to bed, usually around two or three hours after you've put your little one down for the night. Dream feeds are initiated by parents, not babies.
Dream feeding involves rousing your baby from sleep to feed him. The idea is that giving your baby a late meal may fill him up enough to get him to sleep for a longer stretch overnight, so that you can get more sleep yourself.
He might be too sleepy to make it through a full meal, but having that late-night snack could hold him off from wanting the next one for at least another hour or two. As a result, both you and your baby could have longer, uninterrupted sleep. So everyone wins!
Some babies who need to gain weight may require extra calories. A dream feed can help your baby get in the extra nutrition he needs.
Here’s a good breakdown of what a regular night of sleep might look like for you and your baby without a dream feed:
- 6:30 p.m.: Feed your baby before bed
- 7 p.m.: Baby goes to bed
- 10:30 p.m.: You go to bed
- 12:30 a.m.: Baby wakes up for a feeding
- 1 a.m.: Baby is back to sleep and you go back to sleep
- 3:30 a.m.: Baby wakes up for a feeding
- 4 a.m.: Baby goes back to sleep
- 6:30 a.m.: Baby wakes for a feeding
- 7 a.m.: Baby might go back to sleep or be up to start the day
And here’s what it can look like with a dream feed:
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- 6:30 p.m.: Feed your baby before bed
- 7 p.m.: Baby goes to bed
- 10 p.m.: Dream feed
- 10:30 p.m.: You go to sleep
- 4 a.m.: Baby wakes for a feeding
- 4:30 a.m.: Baby goes back to sleep and you go back to sleep
- 7 a.m.: Baby wakes for feeding and to start the day
When to start dream feeding your baby
Newborns have small stomachs and need to eat at least every two to four hours. Once your baby starts showing signs that he can sleep for longer stretches without a feed — usually around 2 to 3 months old — then you could give dream feeding a try.
It’s possible to start dream feeding older babies too, but by about 4 to 6 months, most infants will log around 10 to 12 hours of sleep a night (though it varies), with just a feeding or two during that time. So if you're lucky, a dream feed might not even be necessary at that point.
A dream feed in this age group could also do baby more harm than good because the first sleep is the deepest and most restorative. Consequently, interrupting it could cause your baby to have less quality sleep.
How to dream feed your baby
Dream feeding your baby is fairly easy. Here’s how:
- Try to dream feed when your baby is in an active sleep period. Known as REM sleep, this phase will be fairly obvious because your baby will twitch, move his arms, legs, fingers and feet, flutter his eyelids and sometimes even change facial expressions. If you can catch him at a time when he’s stirring, that’s ideal — he’s more likely to get a fuller feeding in that case.
- Time it to try to maximize sleep so the longer stretch of your baby’s sleep occurs when you want to sleep too. You shouldn’t dream feed your little one sooner than two to three hours after he last ate. Otherwise, your baby may be too full to take enough milk to make a dream feed effective. That could mean timing the dream feed to happen between 10 and 11 p.m., though it depends on your baby’s schedule.
- Dream feed shortly before you plan to go to bed. So if you go to bed at 11 p.m., aim to feed your baby at about 10:30 p.m. or so.
- Gently pick up your baby from the crib or bassinet. If he doesn’t wake up, slowly unswaddle him if he's swaddled. You can also try changing his diaper, undressing him down to a diaper, holding him upright, flickering the lights a little, talking and singing softly, or gently massaging him.
- Put your breast or the bottle to the corner of baby's mouth. This should stimulate a latch and the sucking reflex, so your baby will get in a late-night snack. Make sure to prop your baby up in your arms when you're feeding him.
- Once your baby is finished taking milk, put him back in the crib on his back. Whether he's fallen asleep during dream feeding or not, try burping him to relieve potential gas before putting him back to bed.
Does a dream feed really help baby sleep longer?
While some parents swear that dream feeding helps their babies sleep longer, there isn’t a lot of research to support it.
One study had 279 mothers with young babies either undergo a sleep education program or serve as controls. The families in the education program received information on dream feeding, bedtime routines, self-soothing and using swaddles, pacifiers and white noise to help their babies sleep.
The babies in the families who underwent the sleep education program ended up sleeping longer, but it’s difficult to say how much dream feeding played a role.
Another small study found that breastfed, newborn babies who were given a dream feed between 10 p.m. and midnight (along with strategies to lengthen the time between night feedings, like reswaddling, diapering and walking) slept well between midnight and 5 a.m.
Risks of dream feeding
The choice to dream feed or not is ultimately up to you, though it shouldn't be forced if your baby doesn't seem interested or hungry.
It isn't considered safe to feed a baby who is completely asleep or lying down on his back. So you’ll want to wake your baby up enough for him to take a bottle or do another nursing session. Your best bet is to try waking him a little when he's already moving around in his sleep, as you'll have more luck getting him to take milk that way.
Dream feeding might wake up your baby more and lead to trouble falling back to sleep, or result in more night wakings because you disrupted that first very restorative period of sleep. Dream feeding may also backfire in the long run because baby will get used to having an extra feed overnight.
Dream feeding is considered to be a safe practice as long as you take your baby out of the crib, wake him up enough to eat and avoid feeding him flat on his back, especially if you're giving him a bottle. It's best to dream feed your baby in a semi-upright position, with his head cradled into the crook of your arm.
While dream feeding is generally safe, there are some risks to be aware of:
- Overfeeding. Your baby may not need that extra feed or may not even be hungry during a dream feed, so there's a chance of feeding him too much by adding a dream feed. Plus, as a result, he could spit up, get fussy or have more dirty diapers overnight, increasing the chance of diaper rash.
- Choking. If you prop your baby's head up slightly when you're dream feeding him, as recommended, this shouldn’t be an issue. But there is a risk of choking if you feed baby lying flat on his back.
- Middle-ear infections. Bottle-feeding a baby on his back can allow milk to run into the Eustachian tubes in the ears, possibly leading to an ear infection. Hold baby at an incline in your arms and you should be fine.
- Gas. Babies are usually gassy because their digestive systems are immature and they tend to swallow air during feedings. Doing a dream feed can make your baby gassy, especially if attempts to burp him afterward aren’t effective.
When to stop dream feeding
By 6 months, most healthy babies don’t need dream feeds anymore. But age alone shouldn’t be your only barometer for when to stop dream feeding. Sometimes dream feeds just don’t have the desired outcome.
The goal is to fill your baby up so he’ll sleep longer at night. But some families find that it does nothing or even that it leads to baby waking up more often. If that’s the case, it’s probably a good idea to stop dream feeding.
When to call the doctor
If your baby isn’t interested in dream feeding, that’s okay — it’s not something that’s required for you or your baby to get a good night’s sleep.
But if you’re interested in trying dream feeding, it doesn’t hurt to ask your pediatrician at your next checkup about whether to incorporate a dream feed into your baby's schedule.
Dream feeding doesn’t work for every baby, but if your little one is a willing middle-of-the-night snacker, it could help you both get a little more quality shut-eye.
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