Transcript:
Welcome back to the Milk Minute Podcast folks. Hey everybody. I’m excited to be back in the studio, our new studio. It’s just a studio. For those of you born in the two thousands and up, you won’t know what I’m talking about. Oh my goodness.
Well, how’s the kids, Heather? Kids are pretty good. They are getting excited about this baby and mm-hmm harass me endlessly to look at my tummy and kiss the belly. And Heidi constantly has like some condiment on her face. So she’s trying to kiss the belly with ketchup on her face. And I’m like, ha ha.
You know? Yes. So yeah. And Heidi’s told every single person that mommy has growing a baby in her belly and she froze up. What? Oh, she throws up, she froze up. Yes. So, yeah, that’s and we’re, the kids are starting to play outside a lot more cause the weather’s getting a little better. So nice. Yeah. Yeah.
So we’re just kind of, we’re chilling. I’ve still done nothing with the baby room and Good. Really, all my extra efforts are going towards just getting my new office set up and running efficiently and insurance billing, and we’re going forward. We’re like in a forward motion moment in our lives or, yeah.
It’s not like, I feel you exciting. We’re just taking one step at a time. Right. And it’s like it’s building two exciting things, but you’re not feeling it yet because there’s too many like executive functioning steps in between. So much executive functioning, all of that. Yeah. What have you guys been doing?
Well, I’m trying right now to get a new office. Oh, which would be great. But it’s like at a local like school that’s closed, you know, and it’s now like a community organization and the board is full of very esteemed older community members mm-hmm. Who don’t agree on things. And I like had to go to a board meeting to like pitch renting.
It was not the way it’s usually done, you know? That’s funny. And. It was very, it was like almost like an interrogation where they were like, well, you’re gonna get liability insurance, right? And I was like, yes. And if you have requirements, can you put them in your rental agreement? Yeah. That’s how this goes.
Like I’m happy to look over a rental agreement and probably comply with anything you’d like, but I just need it written down. Yeah. But like, yes, I’m sure I, yes, I will be getting general liability for an office space. Yes. I’m happy to clean my own space. I know there’s not a janitor. Like Yeah, okay. Like you’re, like, you guys do know that control’s an illusion, right?
Well they, so they’ve never actually rented one of the classrooms before. Oh. But they’ve been wanting to for a while and I had heard like, oh, a bunch of people had kind of wanted to, and it never came through. And I left the meeting and I was like, I see why. Yeah, this has never succeeded, but it is 10 minutes from my house right on the main road.
Hopefully will be cheap. Oh my god. Those old, retired people are gonna stop by all the time. Yeah. But just to say hi and see how it’s going. We’ll see it has like a private entrance and a ramp and all that stuff, so it’d be really great. It’s much bigger than any office space. Okay. I would feasibly rent anywhere else cause it’s like a huge old classroom, you know?
That’s great. So I could do like classes there. I just have to slog through this like unconventional thing. Mm-hmm. Where I’m probably gonna end up having to write like my own rental agreement. I’m sure that’s fine by the end of it, which is just gonna be ridiculous. So anyway, in two months I’ll let you know.
Okay. That sounds perfect. Good luck with that. Thank you. New things. There’s always new things. It just, yeah, and I, I just like, I don’t, I don’t wanna have to pioneer it myself. I know there are some days where I’m like, I don’t want to. And then I remember what it was like to work for someone else. Mm-hmm.
Exactly. Oh yeah. At least I don’t wanna do the things that I ordered myself to do. Yeah. That’s easier. Well, you know, my husband is taking a greater like, Involvement in like helping me with business finances and stuff, which is so nice because I suck at it. I’m just horrendous about that. Well, you don’t suck at it.
You just don’t like it, so you don’t put your efforts towards it. Yeah, and like I’m just, even if I tried really hard, it just wouldn’t be great. Mm-hmm. It would be good enough. Mm-hmm. Which is fine, and you’re really robbing somebody else who loves spreadsheets of the joy of doing it for you. He does not love spreadsheets, but he’s gonna help out more to make sure, like I’m not like missing deadlines and shit like that, which I always do.
Shout out to my bookkeeper, Rebecca, by the way, who literally keeps this ship floating and she calls me with like, oh, I made you a spreadsheet and I did this amazing thing. And I’m like, oh, God bless you. Yeah, that’s awesome. I know I’ll probably hire a real bookkeeper someday, but not now. So today we’re gonna talk about dream feeding.
Oh, this is a great topic cuz we get interesting questions about this one all the time. I, in fact, have questions about this also. Yeah. So you know what’s really confusing about dream feeding? Mm-hmm. Is that everybody throws it around like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Just like this random suggestion.
Like, oh yeah, why don’t you dream feed? And then the person on the receiving end of that is like, oh yeah, yeah, I’ll try that. And then they’re like, what? The hell is dream feeding, you know? So it’s like, does anyone really know what it is? Is it a real recommendation? And I was like, let me look into this.
Well, before we hop into answering your questions, we do have a question from a listener. Okay, this question is from one of our members of our Facebook group. This is from Anna, and she said, are there any good baby carriers that allow for nursing while baby wearing preferably one for a plus size mama, that’s not gonna take me forever to learn how to use.
I think I know what you’re gonna say. Can I guess? Sure. Ring Sling. That is my first recommendation, yes. Okay, good. Yeah, I think they’re super easy to use. They’re easy to feed in cuz you can like loosen and tighten easily and they come in a couple of sizes, but like you can fit most people into most sizes, especially when you’re baby’s small.
Also, if you are doing a buckle carrier like the Ergo or something, they are not all plus size friendly. There are three that I recommend offhand. The Ergo 360 with the Velcro waistband has the biggest waistband. It’s like 52 inches or something. The Tula has a big waistband that fits like a lot of larger people, not everybody.
And then the only true plus size buckle carrier I have ever found is the kinder pack. Hmm. And you can order it with plus size straps all around. Nice. The problem I have is the shoulder straps are sometimes too small, especially like if my baby’s on the front with my boobs. Oh yeah. And then they like dig into my armpits.
So with that one, you can order plus size straps for the whole thing and it actually fits a variety of larger people, not just like, oh, well just maybe two x. Yeah. It’s like, oh man, I’m large and tall. Yeah, exactly. That sucks. Yeah. Those like take a little more practice to feed and I think, but they’re also tend to be something you can feed in like.
When your baby’s older. I love that. And I love baby carriers and I look forward to having them in my retail shop. Mm-hmm. Hopefully in the fall. Yay. Yeah, that’s the goal of ours is to have all kinds of stuff like that at the Breastfeeding for Busy Mom’s store. But let’s take a quick break and when we get back, we’re gonna thank a patron and we’re gonna talk about dream feeding.
What the heck is it? Have you guys ever been listening to our show and thought to yourself, man, I really wanna work one-on-one with Maureen. I do. Every day that I sit here, podcasting across from you, well lucky for you and everybody at home. I offer both in-person and virtual support. Through my business and in my business.
Highland Birth Support, I’m dedicated to mentoring you guys through your childbearing year. So that could start with fertility all the way through pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum. I offer home birth, midwifery services, doula services, lactation support, herbal support, anything you guys need. You even do miscarriage support.
Absolutely. I do. That’s one of the biggest things that is so hard to find, and I think that your people that are local to you are so incredibly lucky to have this service. Thank you. And I just feel really happy to serve everybody and I’m so happy I can expand my services virtually as well. Yeah, telehealth for lactation has been really important through the pandemic, and I think we just about Got it.
Perfected at this point. So if you guys wanna work with me, head over to highland birth support.com and check out what I can offer you. That’s H I G H L A N D, birth support.com.
Welcome back, everybody. Before you begin, I’m just gonna jump in and thank a patron. Thank you Jade Noir. She is our newest patron. Thank you so much for joining and supporting us. I really, really appreciate everything, all that. We’ve had some messages already. It’s so exciting. I’d love to talk to our patrons, so if you guys wanna join.
Especially if you wanna listen to our new podcast Beyond The Boob. You get that on Patreon. It’s patreon.com/milk minute podcast. Beyond the Boob is our new podcast, following my pregnancy week by week as Maureen helps me prenatally. So she is my midwife and she’s gonna be giving me all the prenatal education that you might be missing.
Okay, here we go. Okay. Let me just not shock you here. I bet myself $5. That dream feeding would not be listed in ABM Leche League, or my breastfeeding Bible, which is called Breastfeeding, A Guide for the Medical Profession by Ruth Lawrence and Robert Lawrence. Mm-hmm. I was correct. I. Dream feeding is not listed as a topic in the lactation resources, A to Z on the Leche League.
Mm. It is not listed in a protocol for Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and it’s not mentioned at all. Not even a little bit tangentially in that book, the textbook that we all read as much. Okay. But I feel like it’s probably in a whole lot of books that are like written Mother to mother about breastfeeding.
Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. And it’s a, a sleep thing, so Right. It’s probably more in like sleep consultant. Yes. Interesting. So this is coming more from like the sleep arena and then lactation consultants are like the last to know, and we’re like, what? What are people doing? Oh, okay. I guess we can do that. How’s it working?
Is it working? Yeah. What, define what you think it is. What are you doing and what do you think you’re supposed to be doing? So as Jamie Williams from our Facebook group asks, what the hell is dream feeding and where did it come from? I would love to know. Great question, Jamie. So the first that I found of the term dream feeding was from 2005, and it was a research article by Tracy Hog where she defines dream feeding as feeding a young infant while he or she sleeps.
And in order to do this, you would gently hold your sleeping baby in a feeding position and try to stimulate the rooting reflex by stroking the baby’s mouth and offering your baby a breast or a bottle. And many babies can feed in this way without fully waking up. Okay. Okay. So yes. Okay. Can this happen?
Absolutely. Because babies have a lot more levels of sleep than adults. Mm-hmm. So adults have like three levels, light deep and r e m and babies have like, Six different levels. Right. And they spend a lot more time in like lighter sleep stuff. Yeah. So your reflexes are gonna be working at that time. They have some muscle coordination depending on when you catch them.
But how do you know? I, I have literally no answers for any of this. Yeah. So in general, and what I’ve found as a lactation professional is that people use this for many different. Things. But in general, the purpose of a dream feed is to get your baby to like, essentially tank up on calories, okay. Before you go to bed.
And the theory is that it’s gonna help your baby sleep for longer stretches so you can sleep longer. But I already have a counter argument. I, I feel like I have several. I don’t think we’re hating on dream feeding. If it’s like your jam at home, actually I would love to hear why you love it if it’s your thing.
So, We’re just trying to understand it. Yeah. We’re just gonna wrap our heads around it today. But my counterargument to this tank, your baby up before bed, is back in the day when it was standard to co-sleep or breast sleep with your baby, every feed overnight was a dream feed. Yeah. And that, I think that’s why I am like, why would you do this?
Because I co-slept with my babies, like I bed shared with them. Mm-hmm. So I’m like, we just. Yes, I understand dream feeding, but also, no, I don’t understand it because I feel like that truly is just most of the feeding we do at night for our babies anyway. Right. And like me personally, I’m a little afraid to wake up a sleeping baby.
Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. And like do not touch that bomb. Yeah, exactly. And so like, same goes for potty training where people like, you know, my big thing right now is trying to get Heidi to quit peeing in her pull up. And people are like, oh, I wake my kid up at 11 and I potty them and then put them back to bed.
And I’m like, fuck no. Do you know what I don’t know if you have what size bed she’s in, but Little Helper makes a, not only a waterproof like crib sheet thing, but it’s also absorbent. Oh, so nice. Yeah, I could probably plan better for it, but also my son peed in his pull-up till he was seven. Yeah.
And I was like, you know what, some kids also just wet the bed and it happens. Yeah. Anyway, that’s a separate thing. Yes. But I also wanna say separately from this, that I don’t use dream feeds for sleep purposes as a lactation professional. I, yeah. I use them. For other reasons, which I will get into in a little bit.
Okay. And I’m curious to see if you agree and if you also have any to add. Because I, and also I feel pretty confident using them that way, especially now that I know that all the major lactation organizations have nothing to say about it and no guidelines. So it’s not like I’m breaking any rules, but I think I’m just kind of using dream feeding as a different tool for other things.
Sure. I’m not a sleep consultant. I have read a lot, strip out sleep. I have read a lot about it, but I cannot claim to be a sleep consultant. I just honestly, like, I would have such a hard time if that were my job because I, I would have a much harder time dealing with parents’ expectations mm-hmm for their children.
Yeah. I don’t know. And, and I guess the main question that we should just answer right off the top is, does it work? Do these kids actually sleep longer? And it’s debatable. Of course. The sleep is so complicated. Yeah. And you know, here’s the thing. I think a lot of proactive parents will order a sleep training course for their newborn to try to get ahead of it because everyone is scared the shit out of you about sleeping through the night and how hard it’s gonna be.
Sure. So like, of course you’re gonna wanna do the appropriate research and get ahead of it. But I do kind of have a problem with them dangling this carrot of sleep mm-hmm. In front of new parents. Mm-hmm. Where they’re like, if you do this protocol, you’ll get four hours of sleep. It makes you feel like it’s your fault when your kids don’t sleep well.
Right. When really, like sleep is not just behavioral. Mm-hmm. It’s genetic, it’s environmental, it’s, it’s like, it’s developmental. There’s a whole lot more to it. And I, I don’t know the way I approach it, especially prenatally when working with pregnant folks, like. You know, I’m like, Hey, let’s set really reasonable expectations for kind of our worst case scenario.
Mm-hmm. And we’re gonna set up safety nets. Mm-hmm. And like, talk about ways that if your baby is one of those that like wakes up every hour, which sometimes, as we talked about in one of our last episodes with like I G T and we’ve talked about for folks with lower storage capacity, sometimes that’s necessary, right?
Mm-hmm. So like how do we then manage that and keep you healthy if that’s what’s happening? Right. Which is not necessarily a sleep problem. Right. You know, it’s like, Anyway, it’s, it’s not straightforward. Yes, of course. But also I have a problem with this because a lot of it is inevitable. Mm-hmm. Where they’re like, if you do this, and if you wake your baby up at 10 o’clock at night and you top them off before bed, they will eventually sleep four hours and it’s like, yeah.
Eventually they’re gonna sleep four hours. Anyway, my seven year old sleeps through the night. He sleeps in now. Right. Guess what? I did none of those things. Right. And so for me, it’s kinda like a great recipe for a sleep coach mm-hmm. To be like, yep, this is gonna work. Eventually, it’s like, well, yeah, obviously, and, but then people get stuck dream feeding.
Mm-hmm. And then they don’t know when to stop. Yeah. So we’re gonna talk about that in a little bit. I also wanted to mention, I, I’ve had questions about people who ask like, well, Like, can baby eat while they’re sleeping? You know, especially like when, not even just related to dream feeding, but you know when your newborn falls asleep and they’re like, how are they still eating?
So reminder that for a young baby, eating is reflexive, so they don’t need conscious thought to do it. Mm-hmm. And suckling is also reflexive? Yes. Just in general. And you can kind of tell if they’re transferring milk. Mm-hmm. Versus just suckling to soothe. If you see the jaw rocking. Mm-hmm. And you hear audible swallowing.
Yeah. So if you can literally see them chugging milk, let them drink, you know. But if they’re sitting there and just every once in a while they’re chin quivers and they just seem like they’re sucking on a pacifier and you’d like to go to bed, now you can detach them and see what happens. You know, if you’re wondering what it’s.
Sounds like for a baby to swallow audibly while eating. We have some really great episodes. When Lyra was like two months old. Oh yeah. For the mic was picking it up, you know, so like whatever came out in like June of 2021, you can listen to. Yeah. She’s in there on every one of ’em. And okay. Other questions?
And thoughts and comments. Yeah. You know, tryptophan and melatonin does pass through our breast milk to our babies. Sure. Does. It does also pass into bottles, so it’s got a life of about four to 24 hours in pumped milk. Okay, so. Whatever that’s worth for you. If you are an exclusive pumper, I don’t think you need to be obsessed with it because we don’t have hard data about when like when you give it, if you give melatonin full milk in the morning, will they sleep all day?
It’s like, I don’t think so. So, no. But over time, con, if you do it consistently and you’re breastfeeding before bed and you’re passing those hormones along and the baby. Then grows neurologically and is then able to organize their sleep a little bit better. It just compounds on each other. Yeah. I, I usually try to tell people not to stress about like melatonin and cortisol milk, et cetera, but I do say, Hey, like if you’re consciously trying to change sleep schedules that are really not working for you, like that could be part of the puzzle.
Mm-hmm. It doesn’t have to be. Yeah, it doesn’t have to be. And of course there’s no random controlled trials. On this. Oh my gosh. Really? Yeah. None. I’m so shocked. So very insufficient data all around. But we do have a study from 2002. Mm-hmm. Where researchers measured the duration of infant sleep and found a clear pattern where babies who had been given a dream feed at bedtime at one month postpartum tended to sleep for longer stretches when they were six months old.
So, and this is with a bottle. Oh, so they could control like the amount and everything. Is it breast milk or formula? Breast. Milk. Okay. And they said the difference was actually very substantial. So compared with babies who hadn’t received these bedtime meals, the longest nighttime sleep average 62 additional minutes.
Question? Yes. What, like how did they define that in their study? Or were they just like, did you dream feed your baby? No, they were like, they ordered them to do a dream feed with a bottle each night. Okay. But like, when was like, I, I’m just, I’m so curious. I’m like, did they say like, put your baby to sleep at seven every night and then at 10 go in with a bottle?
So this is part of the problem. Mm-hmm. Is that These studies are really tough because there’s so many confounding variables. Mm-hmm. Surrounding sleep. Mm-hmm. So parents that are actively trying to get their babies to sleep by administering a dream feed are also minimizing light and noise, often swaddling and purposefully increasing intervals between feeds.
So like when baby cries, they don’t just go in and feed them. They will like turn up the sound machine and they’ll pat them and they’ll rock them and then they’ll feed them. So these parents that are really focused on sleep, of course, are going to have better outcomes with sleep as opposed to a parent who’s just like, I don’t know.
I left the cartoons on full blast till 1130 and baby passed out. Yeah. Like I, I, I, I just, it it’s interesting data. But I don’t feel like it’s enough for me to be like, oh yeah, absolutely. Dream feed your baby. I don’t, well, I have a counter argument. Okay. Okay. And I was really reading this, thinking about this, and it was just very frustrating because as kids near the six month mark, they become much more distracted feeders.
And are often not as efficient at eating solid foods yet and like ingesting them in their bodies at six months. So a bottle fed dream feed would be a good way to combat Yes, the distracted nursing and the calorie deficit during the day, which could probably help with longer sleep at six months. Right.
And that is probably the only time I have ever recommended dream feeds is if there is something. Like stopping us from either giving more food to our babies during the day or f stopping them from eating it. So like four to six months when they get really, really, really distracted during the day or say, you know, we’re at daycare, they’re refusing bottles at daycare.
Like, there’s lots of scenarios where that happens. It is typically 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 months. Mm-hmm. And you know, you can do that with a breast or bottle, but I just, I don’t find myself using this like as a tool in lactation very much. And also it’s like, is your kid neurologically intact? Yeah. Are they healthy?
They should be telling you when they’re hungry. And like all the way around, our research shows us that infant driven feeding mm-hmm. Is the best, healthiest way to grow their brains. Sure. And their relationships. With food. You know, I’ve also recommended this, it just popped into my head when we have like low milk supply issues and a really good sleeper, you know, babies that sleep like 12 hours at six weeks, and I’m like, what is happening?
What are you doing? Yeah. And, and it’s just like, then we have like 12 hours of no milk sim stimulation. Especially if someone’s like, A pump doesn’t really work for me. I’m like, cool, you have a baby. Honestly, just wake ’em up or that without waking them up. Bring that back up when we go over the mm-hmm.
The list. Okay. Of other ways. That sounds good. We use it at the end because I wanna remember that and I want people to have it in a list. Okay. Okay, so let’s talk about the risks of dream feeding, because I don’t think people talk about that a lot. Risks. Okay. I don’t know. Number one, what are the risks?
Number one, I would have to say straight out of the gate. Anxiety. Oh gosh. Maternal anxiety. So we have to address the underlying issue here. Like do you think they’re not getting enough food? Are you actually experiencing a level of postpartum anxiety where you can’t sleep? Mm-hmm. Unless you think your baby is over full.
Hmm. And why? And it’s like maybe your baby’s actually totally fine and you need a little help. So we don’t want that to go undiagnosed and untreated and just keep pushing food on a baby that’s like, I’m actually good, you know, I’m fine. Yeah. So there’s that. And then also training a breast sleeper by accident where a baby thinks they need a breast to go back to sleep.
Mm-hmm. So Right. Which is fine if that works for you. Right. But if you’re in the process of sleep training and that’s like the opposite of what you wanna do mm-hmm. Consider. Yeah. And we’re gonna need to put a buffer between when they wake up and scream and when you put a boob in their mouth, and it doesn’t have to be a big buffer, but something otherwise the baby, every time their eyes fly open in the middle of the night, which happens about as much as it happens to us, we wake up all night long, but when our eyes fly open, we don’t think, oh God, I have to go eat a bowl of ice cream to go back to sleep.
You know, we just. Turn over and go back to sleep. And that’s what sleep training is. It’s teaching them that they don’t need to scream for a boob. If they in fact do not need one in the first three months, they probably need one. And honestly, like we just have a so much evidence that feeding overnight is good for your milk supply.
Yeah. Like right. It’s, it’s the biggest gripe that I have a sleep training working in lactation. Mm-hmm. Now I agree. I would like you to get a four hour block of sleep. Mm-hmm. In a 24 hour period, hands down. Yes. So I would work with a professional before you start trying to pack food in L. Like let’s hear you out and see what the actual problem is, cuz we might be able to find a solution for you that’s better and less disruptive.
Because the other risk is that you’re interrupting a baby’s sleep cycle, which can actually lead to more wakefulness. Sure. Overnight. So this has happened to you, I’m sure, where like a car alarm goes off. Mm-hmm. Or one of your kids wakes you up and then guess who can’t go back to sleep? Mm-hmm. You? Mm-hmm.
Or you have fit full sleep and you wake up and wake up and wake up. So we do have some very solid research that shows us that sleep begets more sleep. Right. And so if you’re interrupting their sleep cycle, you’re kind of like limiting their growth potential. Mm-hmm. And their development, like sleep is a completely separate biological need.
Right. And this is depressing to hear, but we know this for a fact because there are starving children all over the world that sleep through the night. Mm-hmm. And, and we have babies in the NICU who are continually tube fed at a continuous rate day and night who don’t sleep through the night. Yeah. They wake up the same amount of times as any other baby because it’s a neurological, hormonal thing, so you can’t control all of that Friend.
You can’t. Mm-hmm. So if you feel like you need to latch onto control of something, phone a friend and see if we can help you out and really, like you can find ways for you to get more sleep, even if your baby is not sleeping for sure. That long. Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm. So let’s take a quick break mm-hmm.
To thank a sponsor and when we come back we’re gonna go through a list of ways I use dream feeding. Mm-hmm. In lactation. Mm-hmm. And I wanna hear what you have to say about it too, Morgan. Okay. Sounds good.
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Okay. Welcome back everybody. Oh, hey, we’re back. Oh, hey. It’s says I’m done talking about the research because it’s all bullshit research. Anyway, there’s the research and I just want to like get real about some of my actual recommendations for dream feeding with lactation clients. Okay. Okay. First time I would use this is when kids drop to five or six feedings per day as they get older.
Mm-hmm. But they’re not ingesting a lot of solids yet. Yes. And so these are very busy babies and this turns out to be a chicken or the egg scenario a lot of times where if you don’t feed them overnight, then they might eat more during the day. Mm-hmm. On their own. Just naturally they wake up and then they’re like, I’m starving.
As opposed to you stressfully trying to force feed a busy kid all day, like sit down and breastfeed, sit down and breastfeed. Mm-hmm. And that relationship gets really damaged sometimes. Yeah. Where then the mom feels rejected and then the kid gets super frustrated and doesn’t wanna be at the breast anymore because it’s stressful.
It’s not comforting. And so this kind of goes back to the infant driven. Mm-hmm. So if you can kind of, not wean them overnight, but not force. Dream feed them. They might wake up and be hungry and come to you for food. Yeah. And then you say, thank you so much and this was so nice, and you can change the dynamic a little bit.
Yeah, and I, I think for most people who have like a healthy, vigorous baby at that age, you know, you have a little bit of time that you can see what happens. You can be like, let’s see what happens for a week if I don’t do drink feeds, or let’s see what happens for a week if I do. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they’re yours to play with.
Okay. Yeah. All right. What next? Number two is when kids develop a bottle preference. Mm. And often fight mom at the breast unless they’re incredibly tired. And so this is a good way to keep breastfeeding in play if it’s still the goal. To direct feed. Yeah. Just to have that, you know, better emptying and to at least once a day get baby back to the breast to remind them that it’s nice.
Related. It’s like keeping your toe in the water. Yeah. Related is nursing strikes. Yes. Sometimes babies will accept a boob during a nursing strike when they’re sleeping and no other time. And that might help get them back on track. Mm-hmm. Yep. So we can use that. I will also recommend this when your kid is sick and you’re concerned that their diaper counts are going down.
Mm-hmm. And this kind of goes back to fighting at the breast when they have stuffy noses. Yeah. And they’re just like, I don’t wanna do it. And it’s like, but bro, you have to. And like those kids always sleep so hard when they’re sick. Like when your kid takes a good nap, you’re like, shit. Yeah. They’re gonna, you’re gonna wake up a beast.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And that kind of helps you feel a little bit better. Mm-hmm. Because when my kid is sick, you know, I don’t sleep well. Yeah. Because I, I just wanna keep checking their temperature. Oh, yeah. I, I put ’em in bed with me. I can’t. Yeah. I can’t deal with it. Yeah. It’s, it, it can be really stressful.
So sometimes knowing that they at least got some hydration mm-hmm. Is before bed is gonna be helpful. Yeah. Number four, I think is often forgotten and overlooked, which is when you are a working parent. Who works very long hours and your kid is asleep by the time you get home. Mm-hmm. But you literally can’t bring yourself to pump one more time and you miss your kid and you wanna have someone.
This is a great time. One I, I do recommend that too. I guess I don’t even call it dream feeding when I recommend it, I’m just like, oh yeah, you can just try and feed your baby. They don’t even really wake up usually. Yeah. And it’s not selfish. It’s for you. But it’s not selfish. It’s for them too. And it’s fine.
Like really, most babies, if they’re in a light sleep cycle, will latch on nurse for five minutes and go right back to sleep. And honestly, if you’ve pumped like five times at work that day, you’re done, you’re done with pumping. And it would be good to have a complete emptying by a baby’s mouth instead of a pump to help prevent blood dogs.
I, I still do that. So like on days like this when we’re recording, I’m up in Morgantown all day. If I don’t get home by bedtime, I wake my kid up. I, I mean, don’t fully wake her up, but I go in, I nurse her, put her back to bed because like at this point, like I didn’t nurse her before I left this morning.
And she’s two, she’s two. I feel fine now. Probably in like five hours I’m gonna start to feel a little too full. Mm-hmm. And if that went on another 12 hours, I would feel so bad in the morning. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We don’t want that. And also, when you’re basically like close to weaning, you don’t want to wash pumpers.
No. And you don’t really respond to them anymore. I, mm-hmm. Okay. We have to do a whole episode on this cuz I feel like this happens to people a lot. They just get to a certain amount postpartum and they’re like, are my pumps all broken or is it me? Like, yeah. Is it me or the pump? We should do, I think it’s episode on that, but yeah, let’s do an episode called that.
That’s funny. The last one that I had, and feel free to add more mm-hmm. Is when you’re trying to sleep, train a baby who is in the very low. Growth person tile, and I just have to acknowledge these moms are the real MVPs because it can be really, really freaking hard. Mm-hmm. To feel confident about sleep training when you have a kid who’s on the smaller side.
Yeah. So I see a lot of these parents like who have not slept in a million years. And they’re like, but I, I feel guilty not feeding them or dream feeding them because they’re in the fifth percentile. Right. Or they’re in the second percentile. And so dream feeding tends to give these parents the confidence they need to be consistent about their sleep training plan, right?
Because. My counter-argument is that kids in the lower growth percentiles, although that might be normal for them, sleep helps them grow. Yeah. Makes they grow with a tough balance, really. Yeah. And so there’s only one way to find out. Mm-hmm. And this means closer follow up. This means you’re definitely working with the pediatrician.
We’re also looking at diaper count. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. And also solids. Mm-hmm. Like are they eating solids yet? This really depends on the, on the age of the kid. But yeah, I just have to acknowledge this one because that can be a really stressful thing. Yeah. Well, related to this, one of the other times that I recommend dream feeding is if we have a parent with either low supply, like, you know, we just talked about this kind of stuff in our I G T episode.
Or like a small storage capacity in their breasts. If we wanna be encouraging milk supply. But we don’t wanna be pumping, maybe you don’t respond well to a pump or we don’t have one dream feed. That kit, especially if you’ve got one of those three week old set sleep for 10 hours and we’re like, oh my God, you still need to establish a milk supply.
What is happening? Yeah. You’re a one-off. Yeah. And though I mean, I come across that every now and then. I’m like, I don’t know what to tell you that your four week old sleeps for eight hours, but I do think you should wake ’em up. You should probably feed them and you know, is it a dream feed? Are you fooling the, waking them up?
I guess it depends on like what your baby’s doing at that point. Well also your baby’s sleep cycles when they’re little like that are shorter. Yeah, they’re much shorter. So like they might’ve completed a sleep cycle already. It’s like 90 minutes, you know? Mm-hmm. It’s not four hours like ours. And then after six weeks it gets a little better.
Yeah. And then when they start making their own internal melatonin around 10 or 12 weeks, it gets even better. Mm-hmm. So then they’re gonna be sleeping longer stretches, they got some meat on their bones. Mm-hmm. And of course, you know, We have a little bit more of a pattern in our life that’s established, which is helpful.
Yep. Well, we had some questions from the Facebook group. That’s fun. We don’t do that all the time. I know. I wanted to put them all in here cuz they were actually really good. Okay. I hope we have the answers. I don’t know if we do but go ahead. I’m gonna let you read ’em. Okay. Let’s see. This one is from Carrie Hek and she said I’ve been doing dream feeding all month and I still need answers.
Okay. We’ll see if we can help. Number one, bottle or breast doesn’t matter. Yeah, that’s kinda what I thought in my opinion. If your partner is the one that’s worked all day and wants to spend time with the kid, I would rather put that kid to bed at a normal time than keep them up to see your partner.
Mm-hmm. And just have your partner sneak in with a bottle. Yeah. And do that before bed and then that means you’d have to pump. So that’s a conversation between you guys. Like pretty much anytime you do a bottle, especially early on, you’re probably pumping. Yeah. But as far as the dream feed goes, it doesn’t necessarily matter bottle or breast.
Number two, how do you wean off of it? You just don’t feed them, and you have to be okay with the outcome. You know, you don’t really have to wean off of it. I guess I mean, I guess like you just have to stop one of them maybe and see what happens and then stop another, and or stop at cold Turkey. I don’t know.
I would recommend doing it over a weekend. Yeah. Like a Friday night where, you know, you kind of just don’t feed them at 10 and if they wake up an hour before they normally do. Okay. So that’s maybe their normal pattern and then you just kind of see how it goes all weekend. Okay. Last one from Carrie.
Does it actually work or do I just think it does. Your guess is as good as mine, Carrie? We don’t know. We do not know, but maybe, maybe, but the only way to see it is to stop doing it. Yeah. And, and the thing is like, we don’t, I mean, we could look at, you know, the one study and say, Hmm, maybe it affects sleep down the road.
But even like if we had really good data on it, that doesn’t necessarily mean that applies specifically to your baby. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know your baby better than anybody. Okay. You want me to read the next one? Mm-hmm. Okay. From Susanna Hahn, how do you keep them awake? Just enough to keep them feeding off the breast.
I. If I’m lucky, I can get a latch. So your baby is probably not into the dream feeding at that time. So you could try to bump the dream feeding up in time or down in time and just play with the time a little bit. If you’re really committed to doing it, you’re, it sounds like you’re catching baby at their deepest sleep.
Yeah. And they’re just not gonna, they’re not gonna have reflexes at work at that time. Okay. So also what I’ve seen is that some babies will latch and suckle a little bit, but not enough to trigger a letdown. Mm-hmm. And so why would they like wake up anymore? It’s just like having a pacifier, right? So if you do a little bit of breast compression or like, you know, pump a little bit first, so you’re like right about to have a letdown.
Mm-hmm. And then just kind of like have that milk more ready, that might wake them up a little more. Yeah. And then Carrie Hek also says, tips for getting a sleepy baby to eat. So same issue. I have to work so hard to wake him just enough so he’ll eat more. And some bottles take over an hour for four ounces.
Dude, why are we doing four ounces for a dream feed? I mean, really you can, you can do four ounces for a dream feed. I just feels like so much, like I can see why it takes an hour. Yeah. I mean, but it sounds like they’re just not that hungry. Yeah, exactly. That’s why I’m like go to bed. I probably offer like an ounce and just go to bed, girl.
Go to bed. Go to bed. Makes you sleep longer, Joe to bed. Yeah. Let’s see. Sarah Miller says, how do we do it with bottle feeding? Honestly, It’s really the same either way. It just, where your body is, it’s different, right? You don’t have to like crawl inside of a crib. Either way, you’re gonna take the tip of the nipple and kind of gently stimulate baby’s upper lip.
Mm-hmm. Right? And that usually makes them open their mouth. And then you kind of, either way, breast or a bottle, drag it down so it touches their bottom lip and the nipple is pointing up at the roof of their mouth. And they should latch on. Yeah, but gentle, gentle, gentle. Brooke Morris and Gina Marie had similar questions and they said, when should you stop dream feeding?
And at what age do we stop? Does the dream feed hurt daytime feeds? Does it really need to be between nine 30 and 11:00 PM I wonder where they learn that. Okay. First of all, let me address this. Okay? At what age do we stop? It’s not recommended for everyone. Yeah. So like this is not something that is standard.
I, I mean, I like only do it if you need to. Right? Yeah. Like I will need to do it tonight when I get home. I’m not gonna do it every night. And she’s doing it for her, not for her baby. And like if we’re doing it for sleep training, we’re not gonna be doing it forever. Like maybe a month and then see what happens, right?
Like Yeah. And if you’re doing it for weight gain Yeah. Then it’s like, Then, well, you better be following up in a, in a month if they’ve gained weight, great. And if they haven’t, it ain’t working. Mm-hmm. So we need a new plan. So when should you stop? You should stop when, number one, it’s not working.
Number two, it’s not solving the original problem you wanted it to solve. Or number three, it’s driving you nuts. If it’s driving you nuts, stop it. Stop it, stop doing it. And does it really need to be between nine 30 and 11? No. No, it doesn’t. I think, I think I would guess like that timeframe applies to a specific sleep trending method.
Probably where you’re putting your baby to sleep at a specific time, you know? I have no idea why. Otherwise it would have to be there. I, I think, because in general, babies go to bed between six 30 and 7:00 PM mm-hmm. And then parents typically go to bed around 10. So if you feed the baby before you go to bed, then ideally you in theory, wouldn’t have to wake up until three for the next feeding.
Interesting. Two or three. Does it hurt daytime feeds? I don’t know. I have no idea. We don’t, it depends on your milk storage capacity. It depends on your kid. It depends if they’re eating solid. Depends on your kid, man. Yeah. I don’t know. Renee France and Meredith Nimitz ask, do you burp the baby? At the risk of waking them up more, does dream feeding increase, spit up?
Even if I hold him upright for five minutes and burp him, he still spits up when he wakes. Could be asleep half an hour to two hours later. But he always spits up after, you know late night musings. Maybe he has two stomachs. I don’t know. I don’t really think that if your baby is breastfeeding, they need to be burped.
No, some, some babies are really big air gulps cuz they have kind of like, not the greatest latch which you don’t always have to fix. But my thing is, if you know your baby has to burp, put them on their side. Not on their back and they usually burp. Mm-hmm. If they don’t burp, but they have to and it causes them pain, then maybe dream feeding is like not the best option.
Yeah. And then instead of like burping, you can actually rub your hand from their sacrum all the way up to their shoulder blades. Mm-hmm. Just gentle upward rubbing motion. And that can sometimes trigger a burp without making them. To actually wake up. Yeah. And if you’re actually picking up your baby to like dream feed from the breast or bottle, rather than just like sneaking in beside them, slipping a boob in you know, say you’re in a cradle hold, you can just like gently lower their butt a little bit and wait for them to burp usually.
Most babies don’t need like super vigorous burping interventions. They just need a little bit of gravity, you know, when the air floats up and it’s fine. But really, I, I wouldn’t bother to do that unless baby’s in pain. And you know, one of you mentioned your baby spits up every time he wakes. Okay. But he’s sleeping.
Yeah, so that’s the thing. Put a burp cloth down, I guess. Yeah. And this is what we do in the NICU because the NICU babies barf all the time. All the time. So instead of changing the entire sheet, we have a burp cloth that we lay and tuck in tightly on top of the crib sheet. Yep. And so they will spit up. On the burb cloth, we just change the burb cloth out and they don’t care.
You know, they’re, they’re like, oh, thank you. That was what? That’s what I do. Whenever my kids are sick and vomiting, I just like stick a towel under their heads and wait for them to vomit on it and go back to sleep as they do. Right. Which is wild. And then I like roll it up and, Stick another, but then again, like if your kid has true reflux, then you’re actually being treated with Pepcid and you’re positionally putting them upright for 30 minutes after feeds.
I would not freaking do a dream feeding. Me neither. No, thank you. That does not sound like it’s saving me any stress or time. That sounds awful. Yeah, and I’m sure whatever problem it’s solving can be solved another way. Right. All right. Sonny says swaddle on or off during the dream feed swaddle on. Unless they have, yeah, don’t touch that.
Swaddle shut themselves. If they have ped, then you have to change, but yeah, and it, I, I think for most babies in a swaddle, you can pretty easily roll them to their side to feed. And then roll them back to their back. Cuz side feeding is usually gonna be a little bit easier mm-hmm. For both of you. Or like gently pick them up and put them back down if you’re some kind of magical parent who can do that, my, my children just know.
But yeah, definitely keep it on. If we’re trying to get them to mostly stay asleep. Okay. And other thing, if your baby poops every time they eat, this might not be for you. Don’t. Yeah. And also gets ’em Evivo because your baby is probably stooling way more than it needs to. Yeah. And really, once stool a day is great.
Yeah. We don’t need to be pooping. 14 times a day. Yeah, that’s a babysit every time they eat. Yeah. That was highly, you just always have a chronic rash too. Yep. It was bad. It was bad. So if that’s, you get some Evivo, change the frequency of pooping and then you can consider a dream feed. Yeah. Okay. Melissa Lee says, what if we had a rough night?
It takes a long time to go to sleep initially, so maybe the baby. Only falls asleep like an hour before we were supposed to dream feed, you know? And they ate a while ago. Do you still dreamed? No, because your kid is probably gonna wake up frequently that night anyway. Exactly. Those are the nights from hell and you just have to buckle up and deal with it.
It doesn’t matter how well sleep trained your baby is, it doesn’t matter how old they are. It’s like. At least once a month this happens. Right? Have you ever fallen asleep for a late afternoon nap? Like way too late? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then someone wakes you up and goes, you better wake up. So you’ll sleep tonight.
And you’re like, I like you. I you. Yeah. I am a terrible napper. I wake up like nauseated every time I nap. Ugh. That sounds like my worst. I, I, whenever that happens to me, I just wanna die. If someone’s waking me up, they better be waking me up with food. You better be about to dream. Feed me. Swear to God.
Samantha Mint Steele says, what time is too late to start a dream feed? I think the limit does not exist. The limit does not exist. I mean the reality is why are you doing it right? Are you doing it cuz we’re trying to boost a little weight gain for a small baby or something? Then you do it whenever you wake up.
Are we doing it to help baby sleep more because then we’re gonna have like a more regimented schedule for it. You know, are we just doing it because like you have to go to work at 6:00 AM then you dream feed your baby before you leave. Five. That’s when you dream feed. Yeah, exactly. When you have full boobies and then you pump right before you leave the house and there you go.
And the last one is from Kay Ann, who says, this was an absolute lifesaver for me. I go to bed about 1130 ish, so I fit one in and that is why I’m scared to drop my night pump. Hmm. This, I have heard a lot mm-hmm. Where people are afraid to drop their pump during that time. Yeah. Like babies start sleeping through the night, but they still pump because they’ve been doing a dream feed.
Hmm. And then they’re like, I’m literally just staying up late so I can pump. And I’m like, okay, do you need, do you have a vacation coming up? Where you’re gonna need the milk. Do you have a dwindling freezer? Stash is your baby Right? Not accepting bottles at daycare or like, right. Like why? What’s going on here?
Because, yeah, because there are some reasons that we might wanna keep doing that. Like say you come home with 10 ounces of milk every day, but your baby ate 14, like mm-hmm. Okay. We might need to pump once at home, but phone a friend. Yeah, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about that. Oh gosh. Who is that it?
All the questions. That’s okay. Did we get to give an award now? Yeah, but let’s take a quick break to thank a sponsor and then I’ve got a really special one for you today. Yay.
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And this is how we make change Y’all, Aviva is amazing because it’s gonna safeguard your baby’s health today and give you peace of mind in the future. Check out Evivo probiotics through the link in our show notes and enter code Milk minute for $10 off.
Welcome back. It’s time for the award in the Yako Award. In the Yako. On the Yako. All right, today’s award goes to my good buddy Lisa Day, and she posted in the Facebook group. Just wanted to share this. I’m in love with this picture, and I’m not sure why you can see it on her Instagram. It’s so cute. My poor girl was diagnosed with meta Pneumo virus the other day.
Thankfully, she’s still nursing like a champ with her oxygen on and all. She’s so strong and improving every day. Aw, yay. Good job. And the picture is her nursing with her little baby’s nasal cannula on. Which is so impressive and she’s holding the booby like, mm, I loved the booby hugs. I miss those. Yeah.
So Lisa, we’re gonna give you the Milk is Medicine award because Lovely, perfect. You are crushing it. And your little baby, I love her Spunk, baby Stella. Absolutely wonderful. Well, awesome. I’m so happy we finally did this episode cuz now we never have to do it again. Good luck out there, people. It’s, it’s gonna be a rough night.
I’m kidding. Oh goodness. It’s gonna be fine. They’re gonna flee eventually. You’re eventually gonna have a teenager who can’t wake up, so Controls an illusion and it’s fine. Well, thanks for listening to another episode of the Milk Minute podcast. The way we change this big system that is not set up for lactating families is by educating ourselves, our loved ones and our friends.
And please don’t forget to subscribe to our new show Beyond the Boob. You can do that on Apple Podcasts or on Patreon. It’s so good. Guys. Do it. Do it. Do it. All right. We love you. Goodbye. Goodbye.
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