How Much Should Your Baby Eat Before Bed? A Helpful Guide

By Sarah Mitchell, founder of Helping Babies Sleep and author of The Helping Babies Sleep Method

It's 6:45 PM. Bath is done, pajamas are on, and you're settling into the glider with the biggest bottle of the day. Or you're nursing on one side, then the other, then back to the first, until she's limp and milk-drunk in your arms. The plan is simple: fill her up so she sleeps longer. Then at 9:30 she's awake, squirming and arching, and by 11 she wants to eat again.

If you've ever wondered how something so logical can backfire, you're in good company. "Tank her up before bed" is one of the most repeated pieces of baby sleep advice there is. I believed it too, with my own son. It just isn't how babies sleep through the night or get long stretches of night sleep.

Short answer: there's no magic bedtime number. Your baby should take a normal, full feed before bed, about the same size as her other daytime feeds, offered as a top-up feed about 30 minutes before she goes into the crib. For a bottle-fed baby that's usually 4 to 6 ounces around 4 months and 5 to 7 ounces from 5 months. For a breastfed baby it's a normal feed, draining one side and taking at least half of the other. What gets her through the night is her total daytime intake and her ability to fall asleep on her own. An extra-large bedtime feed more often causes wakings than prevents them.

As a Certified Lactation Counselor and sleep consultant, I look at feeding and sleep together in every family I work with. This is Pillar 3 of The Helping Babies Sleep Method, Intentional Feeding, applied to the last feed of the day.

Why doesn't a bigger feed before bed help my baby sleep longer?

Because hunger is rarely what's waking her. In my book I put it this way: there's a common belief that we have to fill our babies with calories right before bed to get a good night's sleep, but your child's ability to fall asleep on her own is the biggest factor in sleeping through the night.

The research lines up with what I see in practice. In a study of 715 babies aged 6 to 12 months, those who took more milk and solids during the day were less likely to feed at night, but not less likely to wake. Calories take away hunger. They don't teach a baby how to get back to sleep. And the old trick of adding rice cereal to the bedtime bottle was tested in a randomized trial of 106 babies: it made little difference to whether babies slept through the night.

So the question isn't really "how much should she eat before bed?" It's "is she eating enough across the whole day, and can she fall asleep without the feed?" As I explain in The Feeding and Sleep Connection, those two pieces work as one system.

How can overfeeding at bedtime cause night wakings?

In my practice, a too-big bedtime feed shows up in three ways.

1. Discomfort in the first part of the night. The American Academy of Pediatrics compares a baby's stomach to a gas tank: fill it too full, or too fast, and it comes back up. An overfull tummy means spit-up, gas, arching and a baby who wakes squirming 30 minutes to 2 hours after you lay her down. That first stretch of the night should be her deepest and longest, so a waking at 9 or 10 PM is a clue worth paying attention to. If spit-up is a big part of your story, read How to Help Your Baby with Reflux Sleep.

2. A feed-to-sleep association. The longest, biggest feed of the day is also the most relaxing one. When it's the last thing that happens before the crib, she drifts off while drinking or is barely awake. At 11 PM, when she surfaces between sleep cycles, she looks for that same feeling to fall back asleep. That waking isn't hunger. It's how she learned to fall asleep at 7 PM. I walk through how to tell the difference in Hunger vs Habit Night Wakings.

3. Chasing the last ounce. When we're determined to get a certain number in, we jiggle the bottle, switch sides again and again, or wait until she's drowsy enough to keep sucking. She learns that feeds end when the bottle is empty, not when she's full, and the extra ounces often come back up an hour later. This is mistake #1 in Bottle Feeding Mistakes That Disrupt Sleep, and it's most common at bedtime.

Signs your baby's bedtime feed may be too big

• She often spits up after the bedtime feed, or more than after other feeds.
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• She wakes squirming, gassy or arching within the first 2 hours of the night.
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• You regularly coax in the last ounce or offer "one more side."
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• Bedtime is by far her biggest feed of the day.
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• She's falling asleep during the bedtime feed most nights.

How much should your baby eat before bed, by age?

Every baby is different, and if there's any concern about weight gain, your pediatrician's plan comes first. These are the guidelines I use with families whose babies are growing well, from Chapters 3 and 4 of my book.

Newborns (0 to 3 months): feed on cue, no limits

In the newborn months, follow her hunger cues and don't try to restrict or ration the evening feeds. Cluster feeding in the evening is normal, especially for breastfed babies. Bottle-fed newborns work up to about 3 to 4 ounces per feed by the end of the first month. The evening goal at this age isn't a bigger feed. It's lining up her longest stretch of sleep with yours. That's what a newborn dreamfeed is for: if she goes down at 9 PM and you go to bed at 10, you feed her once more before you sleep, so her first long stretch happens while you're asleep too.

An older study backs up this kind of gentle structure. In a small randomized trial of exclusively breastfed newborns, parents who offered a late-evening feed between 10 PM and midnight, made day and night clearly different, and gently stretched the time between middle-of-the-night feeds saw longer night sleep by 8 weeks. Those babies didn't eat less. They took more milk in the early morning instead. It was the whole routine that helped, not a bigger bedtime feed.

4 months: a normal full feed, 30 minutes before the crib

• Bottle-fed: 4 to 6 ounces, the same as her daytime bottles, which come every 3½ to 4 hours.
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• Breastfed: a full feed, draining one side and taking at least half of the other.
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• Daily goal for bottle-fed babies: 25 to 30 ounces in 24 hours from 4 months. Many still take night feeds until 4 to 5 months.

Around the 4-month sleep regression, sleep changes for good, and a baby who drinks herself to sleep at 7 PM will start looking for that same help at every sleep cycle. This is the age when moving the feed earlier in the routine starts to matter most.

5 to 12 months: same size as daytime feeds

• Bottle-fed: 5 to 7 ounces, usually 4 to 5 daytime bottles every 4 hours, for 25 to 30 ounces a day. The AAP notes that most babies don't need more than 32 ounces in 24 hours.
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• Breastfed: a full feed from both sides, as part of about 5 to 7 feeds in 24 hours.
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• Once solids are going: dinner is part of the day's calories, but the milk feed is still the main event at this age. A heavier dinner won't buy a longer night, and starting solids won't fix night wakings on its own. I explain why in Will Starting Solids Help My Baby Sleep?

After 12 months: milk is a snack, not a meal

For toddlers, dinner does the heavy lifting. A cup of milk with dinner or before the bedtime routine is fine, but keep it out of the bedroom and brush teeth afterward. A bottle or cup of milk in bed is hard on teeth and keeps milk tied to falling asleep. If bedtime has become a nightly negotiation for "more milk," that's often a routine issue rather than hunger, and the 15-month sleep regression is a common time for it to show up.

What is a top-up feed, and when should I give it?

The top-up feed is the last feed before bed, moved out of the bedtime routine. In my book I describe it like this: offer one last feed about 30 minutes before you plan to put her in the crib, even if her last feed was less than 3 to 4 hours earlier. Then leave about 10 minutes between the end of the feed and the start of the bedtime routine.

A simple evening might look like this for a 6-month-old with a 7 PM bedtime:

• 6:30 PM: top-up feed in a calm, lit room. Burp well and keep her upright for a few minutes.
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• 6:40 PM: bath or wipe-down, pajamas and sleep sack.
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• 6:50 PM: a book and a song in her room.
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• 7:00 PM: into the crib awake if she's an independent sleeper, or rocking or bouncing to sleep if she isn't there yet.

Moving the feed earlier does two things. Her tummy has time to settle before she's lying flat, and she learns to fall asleep without the breast or bottle. If the idea of separating feeding from bedtime makes you panicky, that tells me the feed is doing a lot of the work of getting her to sleep. That's exactly where "drowsy but awake" sets families up to fail. I did the same thing with my son, keeping the feed as close to bedtime as possible as "insurance." It wasn't.

What if my baby won't take a full feed before bed?

Take what she takes. That's information, not a problem to fix with coaxing. The usual reasons are:

• She's overtired. A baby who has been awake too long often feeds poorly and falls asleep on the bottle or breast. Check her wake windows and consider an earlier bedtime. The most common mistake I see is a bedtime that's too late.
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• She ate recently. If her last daytime feed was 2 hours ago, the top-up will be smaller. That's fine. It's still worth offering.
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• She's snacking all day. If every feed is small, the bedtime feed will be too. Fix the day first by gently stretching the time between daytime feeds so she comes to each feed hungry.
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• The flow or position isn't right. A bottle nipple that's too slow, or feeding reclined, can turn the last feed into a frustrated snack or a gulp-and-spit. Bottle Feeding Mistakes That Disrupt Sleep walks through flow, position and the other common bottle fixes. For nursing, a sleepy, end-of-day feed can be shorter. Breastfeeding Patterns That Lead to Night Wakings covers what's normal and what to adjust.

If you're worried she'll wake hungry, a planned dreamfeed is a better safety net than a bigger bedtime feed.

Bedtime feed vs dreamfeed: what's the difference?

They're often confused, and they do different jobs.

• The top-up feed happens while she's awake, before the bedtime routine. Its job is to make sure she goes to bed with a comfortable, full tummy without relying on the feed to fall asleep.
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• A dreamfeed happens after she's asleep. You pick her up on your timeline, not in response to crying. When we start sleep teaching with The Helping Babies Sleep Method, we often plan one at 9:30 to 10 PM and one at 2:30 AM, so you know she's had her calories and can respond to every other waking with the same calm approach you used at bedtime.

Once she's settling well at bedtime, naps and overnight, we wean the 9:30 to 10 PM dreamfeed first, by reducing the ounces or minutes over a few nights. I wouldn't wake a baby for anything less than about 3 ounces. The 2:30 AM feed can stay until she's ready, especially for breastfed babies under 8 to 9 months. Sleep teaching doesn't mean taking away every night feed. It means shifting calories back into the day, at her pace. The Two Phases of Sleep Training covers typical night-feeding needs by age.

How the Helping Babies Sleep Method approaches bedtime feeding

Most sleep advice picks one side. "Fill her up" assumes every waking is hunger. Ferber and cry-it-out plans often assume every waking is behavioral and don't look at what or when she's eating. Neither asks what the bedtime feed is actually doing.

The Helping Babies Sleep Method starts with feeding. In Phase 1 we build the foundation: full daytime feeds at good intervals, a normal-sized top-up feed outside the bedtime routine, the right bedtime, and a plan for night feeds. In Phase 2 your baby learns to fall asleep, and back to sleep, on her own. Because hunger and comfort are taken care of first, you can be consistent at night without second-guessing. That's why sleep training fails when feeding isn't addressed. If you're not sure what's normal for her age, our Night Wakings by Age guide is a good place to start.

I walk through the full feeding tables, top-up feeds, dreamfeed schedules and gradual night weaning in my book, The Helping Babies Sleep Method: The Art and Science of Teaching Your Baby to Sleep for babies up to 24 months.

Get help with bedtime feeding and sleep

It's hard to see your own baby's pattern clearly at the end of a long day. As a Certified Lactation Counselor and sleep consultant, I look at feeding, timing and temperament together, so we know what's driving each waking before we change anything. Our certified Helping Babies Sleep consultants work in-home with families across the Bay Area, from Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Mountain View to San Jose and San Francisco, and virtually worldwide.

• Not sure where to start? Take the free Sleep Quiz →
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• Baby 4–24 months? Explore baby sleep coaching →
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• Newborn 0–3 months? See our newborn foundations support →
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• Ready to talk? Book your intro call →
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• Prefer to learn on your own time? Try the Baby Online Class →

A calm, normal-sized feed before bed, and a baby who knows how to fall asleep without it, will do more for your nights than any number of extra ounces.

Bedtime feeding FAQ

How much should my baby eat before bed?

About the same as her other daytime feeds. For bottle-fed babies that's usually 4 to 6 ounces around 4 months and 5 to 7 ounces from 5 months. For breastfed babies it's a normal full feed, draining one side and taking at least half of the other. Offer it as a top-up feed about 30 minutes before she goes into the crib.

Will a bigger feed before bed help my baby sleep through the night?

Usually not. Sleeping through the night depends on enough calories across the whole day and her ability to fall asleep on her own. A very large bedtime feed often causes spit-up, gas and wakings in the first part of the night.

Can overfeeding cause night wakings?

Yes. An overfull tummy can lead to spit-up, gas and a baby who wakes squirming within the first couple of hours. Overfeeding at bedtime also tends to mean she falls asleep while feeding, which can lead her to want a feed to get back to sleep at night.

Should I feed my baby right before putting her in the crib?

After about 4 months, it helps to move the last feed out of the bedtime routine. Offer a top-up feed about 30 minutes before the crib, leave about 10 minutes before you start the routine, and put her down awake if she can fall asleep on her own. That way she doesn't rely on the feed to fall asleep.

What's the difference between a top-up feed and a dreamfeed?

A top-up feed is given while your baby is awake, about 30 minutes before bed. A dreamfeed is given after she's asleep, on your timeline rather than in response to crying. Dreamfeeds are often planned at 9:30 to 10 PM and 2:30 AM during sleep teaching, and the 10 PM feed is the first to be weaned.

How many ounces should my baby drink in a day?

From about 4 months, most bottle-fed babies who are growing well take 25 to 30 ounces in 24 hours, and the AAP notes most don't need more than 32 ounces. Your pediatrician's advice comes first if there are any concerns about weight gain.

Should I put cereal in the bedtime bottle?

No. A randomized trial found that rice cereal in the bedtime bottle made little difference to whether babies slept through the night, and the AAP advises against cereal in the bottle. Offer cereal on a spoon once your baby is ready for solids.

Why is my baby not hungry in the morning?

If she barely eats at her first feed of the day, she has usually shifted calories into the night, or had a night feed just a few hours earlier. The morning feed should be one of her biggest. Building fuller daytime feeds and gradually reducing night feeds usually brings her morning appetite back.

Keep Reading

• Hunger vs Habit Night Wakings: How to Tell the Difference
• Bottle Feeding Mistakes That Disrupt Sleep
• Breastfeeding Patterns That Lead to Night Wakings
• The Snacking Cycle: Is Daytime Feeding Affecting Your Baby's Night Sleep?
• The Feeding and Sleep Connection: What Parents Need to Know
• Dreamfeed: The Ultimate Guide

About the Author

Sarah Mitchell, Kin, DC (retired) is the founder of Helping Babies Sleep, a Bay Area sleep consulting agency based in Palo Alto, and the author of the Amazon bestseller The Helping Babies Sleep Method: The Art and Science of Teaching Your Baby to Sleep. A retired chiropractor, Certified Lactation Counselor, RIE Foundations graduate and member of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine, she has supported more than 1,000 families over 13 years and has spoken to Google parent communities worldwide.

Sources

• Brown A, Harries V. Infant sleep and night feeding patterns during later infancy: association with breastfeeding frequency, daytime complementary food intake, and infant weight. Breastfeeding Medicine, 2015;10(5):246–252. DOI
• Pinilla T, Birch LL. Help me make it through the night: behavioral entrainment of breast-fed infants' sleep patterns. Pediatrics, 1993;91(2):436–444. PubMed
• Macknin ML, Medendorp SV, Maier MC. Infant sleep and bedtime cereal. American Journal of Diseases of Children, 1989;143(9):1066–1068. PubMed
• American Academy of Pediatrics, HealthyChildren.org: Why Babies Spit Up and Amount and Schedule of Baby Formula Feedings
• Sarah Mitchell, The Helping Babies Sleep Method, Chapter 3: Newborns and Chapter 4: Babies (4–24 Months).