Overnight Feeds: How to Know if Your Baby is Ready to Drop Overnight Feeds and Steps to Help Them
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If it feels like all your newborn does is eat, sleep, and poop, you’re right. Feeding a newborn is a full-time job, whether breastfeeding, exclusively pumping, or using formula. According to the Mayo Clinic, a newborn’s feeding patterns can be unpredictable, and your little one will likely be feeding on demand. Typically, that ends up being eight to twelve feedings a day, our roughly every 2-3 hours.
If your baby is 4-months-old or older, they are growing beatifully, and there are not weight gain concerns, you can help your little one drop to 1-2 feedings overnight.
Do they still need to eat every couple of hours around the clock?
Or can you start to help wean them from night feeds so that you all get some more rest?
If you have a baby who wakes up every 2 hours to eat, this blog post is for you! Follow this step-by-step guide to help drop overnight feeds.
If you have an older baby, meaning four months or older, who is gaining weight and growing beautifully, you can likely help them drop to just 1-2 feeds overnight. If you have concerns about your baby’s weight gain or growth, please always refer to your pediatrician.
The most important thing to remember when dropping overnight feeds is that you must replace those calories during the day. Babies are very good at regulating how many calories they need in a 24-hour period, so if you want to help drop overnight feeds you need to transition those calories to during the day.
As you drop overnight feeds, you must make sure your baby starts eating more during the day, either extra feeds or more volume of milk or formula at each feed.
Step-by-step guide to dropping overnight feeds
If your baby is currently waking up every 2 hours, for example at 10:00 pm, 1:00 am, 3:00 am, 5:00 am, and again at 7:00 am to start the day, we want to be gentle and conservative when transitioning calories from night to daytime, so start by dropping to 2 overnight feeds. Again, this guidance is for babies 4 months and older.
How to drop to two feeds overnight
1.The first feed of the night should be no earlier than 10:30 pm or 11:00 pm. If your baby has a good feed at bedtime, then it’s unlikely that they are waking do to hunger prior to this time.
The reason we want to push this first feed out until 10:30 pm is to help get to a time when your baby is more likely to take a really good feed rather than only eat a little bit and fall asleep during nursing or bottle.
If your baby wakes before 10:30 pm, use a settling technique that you are comfortable with to help your baby go back to sleep until 10:30 pm.
Curious what I mean by a settling technique? This can be any technique you use to help your baby go back to sleep without feeding them. That could include rocking and transferring back to the crib, replacing a pacifier, using a hands-on approach while they stay in the crib, or using a sleep training method.
If your baby is really hard to resettle back to sleep between these feedings, once your baby is 4+ months I recommend you pick a sleep training method that you’re comfortable with and use it consistently to not only help them go to sleep, but learn to go back to sleep, independently. This could include an in-room method or an out-of-room method.
If you are using a dream feed for this feeding that is totally fine, the same approach applies (more on dream feeds below!).
If your baby sleeps past 10:30pm, wait for them to wake up on their own. If they wake up anytime after 10:30 pm, wait just a couple of minutes to see if they fall back asleep. If they do not, quickly go and feed them.
Once your baby is done eating, place them back in their crib or bassinet and resettle them until their next feeding time.
2. Your baby’s second overnight feed should be no earlier than 2:30 am. Again, if your baby had a solid feed at 10:30 pm, it’s unlikely any wakeup before this is due to hunger.
Just like before, the reason we want to push this first feed out until 10:30 pm is to help get to a time when your baby is more likely to take a really good feed rather than a super small feed that they fall asleep during
I know this sounds scary if you currently have several wakeups before this, but I promise that if you are consistent with your approach to helping them fall back asleep in between feedings, your baby will not stay awake and cry for 4 hours from 10:30 pm until 2:30 am.
If your baby sleeps past 2:30 am, do not wake them, but wait for them to wake up on their own. Anytime after 2:30 am, wait a few minutes to see if they fall back asleep, and if they do not quickly go to them, feed them, and put them back in the crib.
After this second feeding, resettle your baby (again meaning help them fall back asleep) for any wakeups until 6:30 – 7:00 am.
Over the course of a few days to a week, you should see the stretches of sleep in between wakeups get longer (so fewer wakeups in between feeding times) and the amount of time to resettle them (the amount of time it takes for them to fall back asleep at any wakeups) should get shorter.
If you do not see any improvement over a few days to a week, then really evaluate if you are being consistent with a resettling technique at wakeups when it is not time to eat. If you’re not sure, then you call me. 😊
How to drop to one feed overnight
Once your baby is doing well consistently on two feeds a night, you can start to evaluate if they are ready to drop down to just one feed overnight.
Here are signs to let you know your baby may be ready to drop down to eating just one time overnight:
They fall asleep very quickly at one of the feeds and it seems non-nutritive. If they are only nursing for 1-2 minutes or only drinking one ounce from a bottle before falling asleep, that’s a sign that this wakeup is probably more out of habit than hunger. If you notice this, try resettling for 10 minutes at that normal feeding time to see if they go back to sleep instead.
They start to refuse their first feed of the morning around 6:30 – 7:00 am, or they drastically reduce how much they drink at this time, that is a sign that we can start to transfer more calories during the day and cut out of their night feedings. If you reduce the feed they have at 2:30 am or later, then the morning feed should get larger.
Remember, babies are very good at regulating how many calories they need, so if we can increase their bottle in the morning they will not need those calories overnight.
Once you feel confident that your baby is ready to drop to one feed, you will start to reduce the second feeding (that’s likely occurring around 2:30 am or later).
The reason we drop this second overnight feed instead of the first is that we want them to have a great appetite and feed at 6:30 – 7:00 am. Having a great nursing or bottle in the morning to start their day is one of the things that will help reset their biological clock.
There are several different approaches you can take to help your baby wean down to one feeding overnight:
If breastfeeding: Time and note the length of the feeding currently. If your baby nurses for 10 minutes currently, start to reduce the length of the feed by two minutes a night.
For example, 10 minutes turns into 8 minutes, and then the next night you reduce by another 2 minutes and nurse for 6 minutes. After you feed them, return them to the crib and resettle them until 6:30 – 7:00 am when they get a nice big feed.
If bottle feeding: Reduce the bottle by one ounce every night. After you feed them, return them to the crib and resettle them until 6:30 – 7:00 am when they get a nice big feed.
Whether breastfeeding or bottle feeding: You can gradually push the feeding out by 30 minutes a night.
For example, if you currently feed around 2:30 am most nights, resettle your baby until 3:00 am. Then continue to push that back by 30 minutes every night until you reach 6:30 am. If they fall asleep and sleep beyond the 30-minute stretch for that night, use that as your new starting time to move back from for the next night.
In my opinion, I think the first two options are easier and more gentle since this is a gradual way you can wean the night feeding while replacing the calories in the first feeding in the morning.
Over the course of a few days, you should see the first bottle in the morning increase and your baby should seem satisfied and go back to sleep easily after eating overnight. If you do not see any improvement over a week then your baby may not be ready to drop to one feeding.
While you work towards this, continue to increase how much they eat during the day. The more calories they get during the day, the less they need at night!
The best sleep environment when feeding overnight
When you feed your baby overnight, keep the lights off, the sound machine on, and do not remove their sleep sack. If you need to change their diaper, do so before feeding them.
Keep interaction to a minimum and keep the environment conducive to falling back asleep.
Should I do a dream feed?
A dream feed is when you feed your baby when they are still asleep, usually around 10:30 – 11:00 pm. If your baby wakes up during this feed, it is not a dream feed.
You should have no trouble putting your baby back to sleep after a dream feed since they technically do not wake up during the dream feed.
If a dream feed is working your baby should not wake up again to eat until 3:00 am or later. If your baby is waking multiple times before 3:00 am after a dream feed, then I would recommend you not interfere, lose the dream feed, and let them wake naturally around 10:30 pm or later to eat.
I usually recommend clients drop dream feeds by 6 months old, since we do not want to disturb their deepest sleep or encourage wakeups. If you drop the dream feed, likely they will eat sometime after midnight and then again at 7:00 am.
When will my baby sleep through the night without waking up to eat?
A lot of the babies I work with naturally drop to 0-1 feedings overnight when they are close to 5 months old since they learn how to fall asleep on their own at wakeups. I always incorporate overnight feedings at this age in sleep plans, and think it’s best to let your baby lead the way to tell us if they are hungry or not.
It’s very important that if you sleep train on your own and your baby drops all of their overnight feeds to replace those calories during the day and increase their morning feeding and/or offering more throughout the day.
You can 100% still feed your baby overnight and sleep train. The goal after feeding is to just put them back in the crib and resettle using your preferred sleep training method.
Many babies still need 1-2 feedings overnight until they are well established on solids. Some babies will be ready at 6 months old to drop all overnight feeds if they are well-established on solids and have a protein source at lunchtime.
However, it’s not uncommon that some babies still want a feeding overnight until 9-12 months. Every baby is different, but hopefully this helps you decide if it is an appropriate time to help your little one wean from an overnight feeding.