Why Dream Feeds Don't Get You More Sleep

I had a client that I was talking to about dream feeds recently. She was telling me that she was dream feeding her child at about 10 o'clock every night but that she hadn't seen a difference for how long they were staying asleep after and that they were still waking additional times in the night. She was confused about why that dream feed wasn't really working.

I, personally, am not a fan of dream feeds and there are two reasons behind that…

1. You Can’t Really Dream Feed

No one can actually eat while they are asleep. So, the dream feed is actually waking your child up at a particular time each night to eat and then go back to sleep. I don't like it because it's interrupting their natural sleep cycle where they probably would extend that sleep but they're kind of being conditioned to wake up at the same time every night.

2. It’s Adding in a Feed 

Your child may not actually need an additional feed because their body isn't telling them they're waking because they are hungry. So when they are waking up other times at night and they are feeling like “I'm not hungry but when I wake I eat even if I'm not hungry so this is now what I'm looking for”. 

It creates a confusing message to your little one of “I eat when I’m not necessarily hungry”. Their sleep gets interrupted and they are not able to link those sleep cycles and learn how to continuously sleep for long chunks of time.

Give It a Try!

Dream feeds aren’t typically helpful. You will probably see as your little one gets older that they still wake up around that same time each and every day because they're just used to it. Their body clock has been set to wake up at that time. You are probably a creature of habit like I am and go to bed around the same time so you're always waking your child before you go to bed around the same time every night. Take stock of that - if you are doing dream feeds right now really think about why.

Are they not getting enough food during the day? Is it because you feel like you want to get a longer stretch of sleep after this?

I think that sounds like it could be helpful but it probably isn't so if you are doing a dream feed experiment a little bit. Don't do the dream feed - does your child still naturally wake up at that time or are they able to sleep through and do a longer stretch of sleep after bedtime? If so they probably do not need that feed until later on in the night. 

Let me know your thoughts! Come back and comment after you experiment with not doing the dream feed and let me know what you found.