Should I stop her dream feed? Does she need the nutrition?

My DD is 11 months and she goes to bed after dinner (solids) and a bath (and of course a cuddle), but I haven't been giving her a BF for about a month now. She was sick and just wanted to go to bed one night, so I put her down without a BF and I have continued to do this as I thought it would be a good idea to get her out of the habit while I had the chance as I didn't want to have a problem where she wouldn't go to bed without a BF as she got older, if I wanted someone else to put her down, etc.

She goes down about 7pm but then I give her a dream feed at about 8.30pm, just before I go to bed. I was doing this originally so she would sleep 'that little bit longer', but now I think she is eating so much for dinner, she will sleep through without the dream feed. Now my question is, do I do it anyway for health reasons, or not. I don't know how I feel emotionally about giving up her dream feed, I'll cross that bridge when I need to.

She normally feeds 3-4 times a day (NOT including her dream feed) and she is eating normal food (vita britz w cows milk and yoghurt for b'f, fruit and cheese for m/t, bread for lunch, fruit for a/t, what ever we have for dinner she has). So should I still give her a dreamfeed at night?

Thanks :)

My DD is a similar age to yours and is feeding about the same amount 4 - 5 times per 24 hours. Personally I would think that your DD is getting all the health benefits of BF from your other feeds and that she won't lose out if you skip the dream feed. I would give it a go - my DD was down to 3 - 4 times per 24 hours but has recently decided she wants more again due to her finally crawling I reckon (we have never done a dreamfeed because I didn't know how to do it so she gets last feed after stories about 7:30) - so I would think if your DD needs the dreamfeed she will let you know.

Only way you will know is if you stop the dreamfeed and see what happens. As for nutrition, i dont think it would make a difference. She has a pretty good diet by the looks of it.

One other thing... I still don't have AF back and we would like to try for another baby. I am not prepared to put this before the nutrition requirements of DD, so if, nutrition wise, it is ok to stop the dream feed, I think I will as this might help AF return a little quicker maybe. ??

I was never that successful with a dreamfeed... we tried ours a bit later though, we were going to bed around 10.30pm. I think 8.30pm is quite early for a dreamfeed - the idea of the dreamfeed as I understand it is that it is great while they are still feeding regularly overnight (4-6hrly) as you give them a feed about 4hrs after they have their last feed, when you go to bed, so that you are only woken once overnight.

We were doing last feed at around 7pm, then dream/rollover feed at around 10-11pm, then one feed around 2-4am and then awake for morning feed around 7-8am.

Mind you we started this when DD was around 4mths and it only lasted til about 7 or 8mths - she started waking up when I attempted the dreamfeed so I stopped doing it and went by when she woke for feeds and she was waking 12-1am, 4am, 7am. Sometimes she'd last from 7pm til about 3-4am... at this point I began to realise she didn't need that 3am feed, it was more of a comfort thing, so we stopped and went with other forms of comfort... and bingo, AF returned and now we're on our way to number 2 bubs!

Does she feed in the wee small hours of the morning? Is she waking 4 or 6hrs after the 8.30pm feed? It sounds like she's not - which means she possibly doesn't really need that last feed. If she's sleeping without waking til the morning, she might not need the dreamfeed anymore. "They" say that from about 6mths they don't really "need" to feed over night.

I put that in talking marks because it is really up to you - my DD was on the larger side so I was happy to keep up the night feeds a bit longer, regardless of what the maternal child nurse said, as I felt she still needed it. Its completely up to you!

But yes, stopping night feeds is apparently supposed to encourage the return of AF...

Good luck!

Thanks OceanPrincess. Lily has her last breastfeed maybe around 5pm (if she reminds me, sometimes I forget) and then she has dinner with us around 6pm and then into bed around 7pm. I was then feeding her around 8.30pm and she would then sleep through until about 6am. It is a pretty good feed though. Better than her others during the day (as there is much playing to be done LOL). Every now and again she will wake in the night and I will feed her, just so she will go back to sleep easily. As I am only up for about 10-15 mins and she doesn't do it regularly, I don't mind.

I just want to make sure that I am not taking anything away from her, nutrition wise if I give up this feed.

Thanks!!

I'm still giving Tom (12 mo) a dream feed at about 10.30pm, but that's only in the pointless hope that he might actually sleep a bit better. (Hardy har har.) If I thought he was sleeping through, I wouldn't bother. Sounds like your bubby is getting lots of nutrition - and if she isn't, she'll let you know by waking up for a nightfeed again. They are pretty good at training parents in what they need ;)

Well Lily has been waking once in the night, anywhere from 2-3am for that feed. But she is also cutting her 3rd bottom teeth AND it has been quite cold, so I don't know if she is waking for the feed or other reasons. I will keep skipping her 8.30pm DF and just see how we go over the next week or so. If she's still waking, I'll go back to giving her the DF and see if she goes back to sleeping through, then I will know for sure.

Thanks for everyones input :)