When to stop dreamfeeding?

[elly75]

My husband and I have been dreamfeeding Christian each night but wondering when that should be stopped. The reason why we're asking is because he's becoming a little big (he's weighing in at about 15lbs when he's about 2.5 months old).

Any thoughts or insights that you ladies could provide would be wonderful! Thank you in advance.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

We still dreamfeed Ruby at 6 months and a week. We offer it every night and she sometimes refuses it, but usually drinks it all (9oz). We're BLW so we're introducing solids very slowly (none are being swallowed yet) but when solids are firmly established is the usual advice about when to stop offering the dreamfeed. I def wouldn't stop at 2.5 months.
It is also very helpful if LO hasn't taken much milk during the day for whatever reason, the likelihood of which will prob increases as your baby gets a bit older.
Oh and by the way my LO was a v similar weight at 2.5 months, which is perfectly healthy.

 

[NatalieW]

You normally slowly stop the DF at about 7months, when they are on solids and having protein in their diet. When you do stop you slowly drop an oz at a time, but put that missing oz in the morning bottle.

 

[faille]

We dropped it when Violet stopped taking it (which is about a month ago).

We used to give her 5oz but she'd only take 4oz so we dropped to that and gave her that until she stopped taking 4oz. She'd start only taking 3oz's for a good few weeks so then we dropped to 3oz as it was a waste doing more. Then again, she stopped taking as much for a few weeks so we dropped an oz again and then again until we just stopped giving her a bottle.

She did start wanting a little bit more during her day feeds tho, she has 4 bottles during the day and they each went up by about an oz.

We just followed her and she's fine, sleeps thro for easily 12hrs at a time and is very content during the day. We're BLW and she's not swallowing anything properly yet but she's fine. HV is v.happy with the amount of milk she's getting so I'm not going to 'force' her to have a dreamfeed, following the same principal as BLW with her milk feeds - let her decide if/when/how much she wants.

 

[purple_socks]

I think its just a case of trial an error.
We stopped at about 6 weeks for a while because he always woke at 4am (with the DF) so we thought we'd see how much of a difference the DH made...turns out it made no difference! He still woke at 4am and drank the same amount with or without it! . Then after about 2 weeks of no DF we started offering 1 again and he slept through til 7am. Then at around 10 weeks we missed his DF by mistake but he slept all the way through so since then we haven't done it as a regular thing. We do still offer him one if he's hardly drank much during the day (he has the odd day when he's really not very hungry) and recently he went through a week long fad of waking at 4am (growth spurt me thinks ) so we offered him a DF until that stopped.

unfortunately i can't help with the weight side of things coz i don't get Kian weighed (well i did when he was very little)...I don't feel the need to worry abt his weight. I've always trusted Kian to regulate himself and i judge Kians growth by looking at him!

I'd say experiment with the DF to see when its no longer needed

HTH x

 

[purple_socks]

oh also...i never stopped the DF an oz at a time....i know quite alot of people do but coz i never really planned to drop it (i.e phase it out) it just kinda happened in one big go!

 

[elly75]

Thank you again, ladies. This was all really helpful. I'll talk with hubby about this tonight and see what we'll do going forward.

The litttle guy didn't take much in his DF last night (40 mL) but I think that's because he had a lot of food for supper (he downed over 200 mL). He woke up at 4 am as per usual but gave him his dummy and he went back to sleep shortly after. He woke up at about 7 am but ended up keeping himself content until hubby and I woke up ten minutes later.

 

[snettyb]

I stopped when jake was about 4 month. One night we had some friends over and they left at about 3am, he had slept soundly till then so i thought i'd see how he went without the DF. He didn't wake untill 7am so we only gave him the dream feed after that if he woke for it before we went to bed. He soon dropped it all together xx

 

[x-Rainbow-x]

we still dream feed alex not but thats mainly because he dosent drink much at all he has about 3-4 oz