Alrighty, here's what I like you to try. We're going to do this in a two week block:
First week,
Move the dreamfeed to 11:00, and just view it as a top up feed. When a baby sleeps, their digestive system slows down and takes longer to empty. Basically, if they are on a 4 hour feed cycle (after 4 months old), then they can go longer periods between feeds at night (at least 5 hours). So that is why he will only take a few ounces less at the dreamfeed. But we don't want to wean this feed.. we want to eliminate the feed after. (which we will start next week).
I want you to keep a log for the next 3 days, of all of his feeds day and night. What will probably happen, since the dreamfeed is at a consistent time, the next feed will become at a consistent time as well. If he wakes up before 3 am, I want you to try to resettle without the feed. Generally, a infants night sleep looks like this: very deep in the first part of the night, then after 12:00, it gets lighter and lighter-- with awakenings at the end of a sleep cycle as the night turns to morning. An infant will also have partial awakenings every three hours (ie. asleep at 7 pm, awakening at 10 ish, 1 ish, 4ish etc) Sometimes we mistake this awakenings for hunger.. when really all he needs is just some patting to re-enter sleep.
So, for the next 3 days, just establish a consistent dreamfeed time, and log the rest, and then we will eliminate the feed after. I have a gradual approach that works well. But I just want an established dreamfeed in first.
If this works for you, great. If not that's okay :wink:
I'll check back!