Dropping dream feed cold turkey?

[SofisMom]

Hi all!

I'm not sure where the other dream feed posts are, for some reason my search function isn't working. Feel free to re-direct me if this isn't the right place.

My daughter just turned 8 months old. She has 4 milk feeds a day + an 11pm dream feed. We started her on solids at 6 months, but up until a week or two ago, she was just eating 2-3 ounces of solids per day (split between 2 meals). She would drink 4-6 oz of breast milk during her dream feed. For the past 7-8 days, she started to eat a LITTLE more during her solids meals, closer to 2 oz per meal, so she probably gets 3-4 oz of solids per day now. At the same time, for the past week or so, she started to drink very little during the dream feed, between 1.5 - 2 oz (it used to be closer to 4-5 oz).

I've been waiting to see if this short dream feed would be consistent or not, it's been at least a week now.

My question is: if she is only drinking 1-2 ounces during her dream feed, would it be fine to just drop it cold turkey? Or would that have some negative effects? I just feel like it's so little now that I don't even know how to do it slowly really. Any suggestions? Should I keep doing the dream feed for a few more days/week to make sure her 1.5-2 ounces isn't just a fluke? Please let me know your thoughts on this. I would love to be done with the dream feed now but also don't want any negative effects like her waking up hungry or anything.

Thanks,
Mona

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, the dream feeding information thread is in FAQs here:

Cluster & Dreamfeeding FAQ's - Starting, how to do it, stopping & problems

When I dropped my DDs dream feed we did reduce the amounts slowly (which it looks like your dD has done naturally) but we also moved the time of it earlier so it brought it closer to BT slowly over a number of days.

I agree that it looks like your DD has pretty much phased out the volume of her intake herself, but if you're worried about dropping it cold turkey, you could bring it half an hour earlier every three days until you're giving her a tiny bit only an hour after she's gone to sleep. At that point dropping it should have very little impact.

Or you could just give it a go at dropping it CT and see how she copes, she's certainly old enough to manage without it, and you can always increase the offering at the morning bottle of you think she needs more milk to make up for the lost DF.

[Lolly]

How are things going?

Laura