Thoughts on dream-feeding 1yo?
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Anonymous
| My 13-month old gets two 8oz bottles a day - one in the morning, one in the evening. In between he is a good eater and eats a variety of solids. He has dinner around 5:30pm, sleeps from 8-6 and then 2ish hours of nap during the day. My question is: when we used to do the night bottle right before bed, he would often leave a couple of ounces and then wake up hungry around 4:30 or 5am which would disturb our sleep. So we tried dream-feeding him, ie putting him to bed without a bottle and giving him his bottle around 10pm right before we go to bed. That works like a charm and he sleeps soundly until 6 or later. Is it setting him up for any future issues though? Adult obesity does run in my family. Will ask ped at 15mo checkup but wanted to hear from DCUM experts first! |
Anonymous
| No. This is a terrible practice and will increase the risk to your child of both dental decay and ear infections. Bottles should be discontinued at 12 months and switched to cups. Best of luck—I know sleep deprivation is hard! I suspect if you can power through the wake-ups for a week or so without going in, your child will discontinue them. |
Anonymous
| He is too old for bottles. Use a sippy cup. Give him a healthy snack before bed. |
Anonymous
|
I wouldn't. You don't want to set a precedent for night wakings at this age.
As others have mentioned, bottles are bad for their teeth and it's time to cut them, but to me, that's less important than setting good sleep habits while he's still young enough to change them easily. |
Anonymous
| He should be doing 11-12 hours at night without needing to eat. I think you’ve created a habit for all of you. Brush his teeth/gums after right before bed. We used to do bottle, wash teeth/gums, sing songs, read books, then in crib. Bed at 8 and wake up around 7. |
Anonymous
|
We did this for our very under weight child who suffered from severe reflux with the ped. approval. I wouldn't fir a healthy weight child.
For our other child, before the last bottle, we would give a filling snack such as some yogurt or avocado. Something with fat. That would help them sleep longer. |
Anonymous
| Bad idea. You should be decreasing 1) the reliance on liquids for calories, and 2) the reliance on bottles if he is over the age of one. You may not want to do it, but try sleep training if he is up hungry at 4am. And/or shift his meals, maybe adding an extra snack, so he gets a final meal of solids and milk (in a sippy cup) at 7:00-7:30 before the 8:00pm bedtime. I’m theory, that would have him sleeping on a fuller belly and could buy an extra 2 hours of sleep. |
Anonymous
| Do you brush his teeth after the bottle? |
Anonymous
| How about giving him a snack of real food before bed instead of the bottle? |
Anonymous
| Give him a snack before bed. Maybe peanut butter crackers? Something hearty. |
Anonymous
| I wouldn't introduce snacks before bed (I don't like food in the bedtime routine) but just try switching him to a before bedtime bottle. At 13 months he should be moving away from bottles/formula/breastmilk/nursing/etc anyway, and you might find that he sleeps through the night without the dream feed now, even though he didn't a couple months ago. I have a similar aged kid who wanted to eat at night as recently as 11 months and I've recently dropped him to just an evening nursing session. If he wakes up in the middle of the night and cries, he just gets cuddles. I've been surprised at how easily he's adapted to the change; he just goes right back to sleep with a hug now. Weirdly, dropping the morning nursing session also seems to have helped with 5AM wake ups. I have no idea why. |
Anonymous
| I honestly forget when we dropped the dream feed but I think it was before a year. Maybe? I really don’t think it’s a big deal either way but you’re probably at the end of the run. Hopefully as you increase solids the transition won’t be an issue. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thanks all. We’ll work on dropping it. |
Anonymous
| We left a bottle in the crib for him to drink when he woke up around 3-5 am and then would go back to sleep. |