Dream Feeding

What is "dream feeding"? It was new to me also just a couple of weeks ago. It is where you feed your baby while they are still mostly asleep. Why would you want to do this? Well let me share why I tried it....

As a second-time mom I find myself unconsciously comparing my two boys and their development. The biggest one I was looking forward to was how at around 6 weeks old my first son started sleeping at least 6-10hr stretches at night. My new baby was very cranky and I kept holding on to that glimmer of hope that he too would start sleeping longer once he got closer to two months old.

The 6 week mark came and went and my little angel was still waking every 2-4hrs at night. He had a rare 6hr stretch once or twice that got my hopes up but I could tell his routine was going to be different. Thankfully around 7 weeks his fussiness got better so that made the days easier to get thru, and he started developing his own schedule of short naps during the day.

Here we are today at 10 weeks old now and he continues to wake every 3-4hrs at night. He typically goes to bed between 8-9pm, and I go to bed around 10:30pm. So that means just about the time I am finally drifting off is when he wakes up ready for a snack!

As a momma who hasn't had a good night sleep in 3 months, I started doing some research on baby sleep tips and such. Evidently with my first son I was just really lucky to have a great sleeper! One of the tips I happened up on was "dream feeding". At first I thought it was silly to WAKE up your sleeping baby just to see if they would eat! But a few nights ago I figured What the heck? and decided to try it. He would be waking up in an hour or two anyways and I was sick so I could really use a longer stretch of good sleep.

I put him to bed at 8:30pm. I came to bed just before 11pm but before I crawled under the covers, I gently picked him up and sat with him in the rocking chair with a dim light on in the background. I gave him a kiss on his furry head to stir him just enough to get him to nurse. And he did! He quietly nursed on both sides with his eyes still shut, and after about 15 minutes he was done and I GENTLY laid him back down in bed. He passed out as if I had never bothered him, and God bless America he slept until 3:30am! That means I got a strong 4 hour stretch before I had to get up with him again that night. I was sold!

I did it again the next night and had the same results. So I take back what I said about this being crazy and such because in my case it was just what I needed!

Obviously it depends on your situation if you should try this or not. Since my baby is still pretty young I know he will need to nurse at night for a while more. There are some nights where he goes to bed at 7:30pm, but then there are other nights where he will fight sleep until 10pm! Of course I wouldn't wake him up 30 minutes later when I'm going to bed. I just have to play it by ear and see how the evening goes.

Hopefully this helps any other new moms out there and gives you another option for getting some sleep at night with a little baby!