Dream feed/Rollover Feed, When did you start - for those who have Options

[Kaz]

Hiya girls...

I am a HUGE fan of the rollover feed - I did it with Conor however I didn't start it with him until he was about 4 months old (mainly because he was a preemie bub and needed 3 hour feeds for so long)....I remember it took about 3-4 weeks before it worked with him....

Miss Emily is 3 weeks on Friday and I am just wondering when I should start the rollover feed with her....

If you did the rollover feed and it was a positive experience for you - when did you introduce it???

ATM we are feeding at around 8pm then 12am and then 4am....I'd much rather feed at 10pm then go from there...

Thanks in advance girls

[**** Sarah and Adam ****]

what's roll over feed Kaz?

[Kaz]

Hey hun - some people call it a dream feed and some people call it a rollover feed - I think a dream feed is when you don't wake your baby as I know I used to call the feed a rollover feed and used to make sure Conor was awake for the feed....

It is when you get your baby up (awake or not) and give them the last feed for the night. I had a mentor (so to speak) when I had Conor and I got the advice from her. What I did was got Conor out of bed at around 10pm changed him and fed him a bottle, wrapped him back and put him back down....for the first couple of weeks he continued to wake at around 2amish regardless but soon enough he stretched to 3am, 4am, 5am and then eventually 6am within a couple of weeks (it took about 1 month all up before he did the 10pm-6am sleep but it was well worth it).....

The idea of the rollover feed is so they learn to drop the middle of the night feed first (that is the 2am feed)as most babies learn to have there first big stretch of sleep before 1am i.e you might feed bubs at 7pm, then he might wake anywhere before 1am and then again at 4am etc,which means you are up more than once a night.

It worked for me as I was able to stay awake until 10pm, I was always in bed by half ten....for a month or so I was still getting up sometime during the night and then eventually I wasn't.....

When they drop the 2am feed you continue the 10pm (rollover) feed for a while and then slowly start to bring that forward (9.30, 9.00, 8.30 right back until bedtime that is 7pm) and all of a sudden your baby sleeps through.....

Keep in mind some people are against this or don't agree with it at all....some people say it never worked for them too.....my mentor told me to give it a good few weeks for it to work (I was ready to give up after 1 week) but am glad I persisted!!

I have rambled here and probably confused you - sorry

[Silvaa]

Hi, Sorry I cant help with when we started - as we don't do it, but I wanted to say thanks for the detailed information. I didn't realise it took time to establish and make the rollover feed work (though now that I think about it, it makes sense!)

[*Cherie*]

Wow Kaz.. that sounds like a definate idea.. Now that Caitlin has been going to bed earlier at night we are up having two to three feeds a night.. and it means less and less sleep for mummy

[patricia]

im not goin to be much help as i have never heard of this concept before but boy it sounds like heaven once it settles into the routine you want.

from reading your info and having a 4 week old i think you could start now or wait till she is just over a month old, im saying this though as someone who has never done it or heard of it, but looking at my son who is 4 weeks old he is begginning to get into a routine so it might be the best time to start so they learn without any major conflict to the routine they might already have stablished or are establishing which people say begin at around 6-8 weeks old

hope this he;lps

[~jabr~]

I am a HUGE lover of the rollover/dream feed. It kind of happened to us by accident really. At about 7 weeks, Bailey woke at some hour of the early morning for what I thought was a feed and it hadn't been 4 hours yet, so I gave him his dummy and went back to bed (and he did too). Then he woke at 7am!!! I figured at that time that he really didn't need the overnight/early morning feed. We started giving him the rollover feed after that... but to be honest, we probably could have tried a little bit earlier but just didn't think to.

We never woke him for it, just picked him up all wrapped - he drank it while he was kinda sleeping (opens his eyes and closes them etc..) then back into bed all wrapped up. I think we stopped it at about 4 1/2 months - then his last bottle was at about 6pm and he slept through to 7am.

[atua]

from birth thru to 5.5mths here

up until 6w they were feeding 3hrly round the clock, then to 4hrly

love it, totally recommend it - our dream fed from 6w was 10pm

[~steph~]

Another lover of the dreamfeed so much that we actually continued it till he was about 9 months old, it worked so well we were scared of stopping it and Hayden starting to wake at night again, he is also a lousy eater and day milk drinker so we kept it up to keep his intake up. We started it from 8 days of age (the day we visited the day stay place), and like sam our dreamfeed was at 10pm. I have no idea if it is related or not, but he started sleeping through at 7 weeks of age.

We would get him up with the lights off, give him his bottle, which he would quite often sleep through, change his nappy as he is a super wetter, then put him straight back to bed.

[~R~]

We tried this last night & I won't get my hopes up too high just yet but it worked! She went to bed at 8.30pm & I then got her up & fed her at 10.30pm, she slept through the whole feed then went down without a peep. She then woke at 4.30am for another feed ...... 2-3 hrs later than usual & then slept through to 8am! She was waking for 2 early morning feeds (about 2am then 5am) which is why I decided to try the dream feed.

[Kaz]

Great work Rachael, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you

[HayleyNZ]

I have never had a baby or anything but this idea sounds great! Just clarifing- Do they miss the middle of the night feed because they are half asleep when getting a dream feed? What is the reasoning behind this?

[~jabr~]

I have never had a baby or anything but this idea sounds great! Just clarifing- Do they miss the middle of the night feed because they are half asleep when getting a dream feed? What is the reasoning behind this?

Say you feed them at 6-7pm and then put them to bed for the night. Rather than waiting for them to wake up later - be it midnight or 2am, you just pick them up and give them a feed at 10pm. Then, later on they are not hungry and they don't wake for it. The beauty of it is that you are still awake at 10pm so you can just give it before you go to bed and you get more sleep because they don't wake later.

Also, for me... bailey has always been fussy with his bottle. The dreamfeed was the only one he used to drink all of because he was asleep while he was drinking it. It made me feel better because he was getting it all.

[~R~]

Great work Rachael, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you

Thanks Kaz, did it for the second night in a row & still had success! I don't want to jinx myself but I think I have a very adaptable baby

[Mistaken]

I've tried the dreamfeed (have been keeping it up for quite a few months) and it hasn't helped or changed any of her other wakings. But then again, my bubs has never fitted the mould of what babies are supposed to do!