six month old still feeding twice in the night

[JoC]

Can anyone answer a few queries;
I have just bought the baby whisperer book, and am two days into the routine, my very pleasant baby boy is 6 months old and until recently was not abig eater, however, over the last week he has been drinking over 40 ounces of milk a day, with around 16 ounces being drunk after his 7pm bed and feed. I have just started the dream feed, which he took no problem last night at 10.30, but he awoke at 1.30, was inconsolable with the pu/pd, til i fed him a full 7 ounce bottle at 2.45am. He then went straight back to sleep. Can he be this hungry? My health visitor thinks he should have 5, 7 ounce bottles a day and NO MORE but this is impossible. He has been on a few ounces of solids for a week now. Is this amount of milk normal, the BW book says they can eat around 44 ounces, so I don't feel too bad.
Also does the dream feed take a little time to kick in? He has never slept more than 5 - 6 hours in the night up to now and I am tired :|

[teezee]

imho i think it is a little late to start the df as if u have been doing this well without it so far - u are going to have to wean him off of it soon anyway.  i think the df (i had dd on it since just over 2 months) was causing more night wakings than not, only i didn't realize it til 7 months.  i think in the beginning it served it's purpose but i should have thought about taking it away sooner.  at 6 months lo's do go through a growth spurt, if this is an unusual amount of milk he's taking in it may be that.  u may want to try and up his solid intake as his milk intake is very very good.

[JoC]

thanks,
do you think i should stop the night feed? he will cry if i don't give him food, up to an hour or more, and this is with me holding him. Last night he woke at 1.30, i gave him 5 ounces of water, carried on crying,  then he drank 6 ounces of milk and went out like a light and slept til 7, from 3am.

[teezee]

so how much millk is he taking throughout the night would u say? do u think it is affecting his daytime intake of milk? let me know and i will get u a couple of links to look at. definately if your lo is taking full feedings at night DON'T stop them coldturkey as he really is hungry!  slowly stop them reducing the amount if bf, or watering it down if formula fed.  here are two links that i hope will help you!

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=46907.0

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52857.0

[JoC]

Well, he has 7-8 ounces throughout the day; 5 feeds, then a 6-7 ounce feed at about 12-1.30, then another 4-5 ounces around 5-5.30am. I was giving him 6 ounce feeds during the day, but have upped this over the last 2 days to 7-8 ounces to counteract the night feeds. Not worked as yet, but only been 2 days. He also has about 4oz of food in the day too, I have been feeding him solids for just under a week now. I will start to water down night feeds, I had been thinking about doing this.

Thanks.

[Colin Macs Mom]

I wonder too if your lo might be having a growth spurt. Just a thought.

I also wanted to add that I just recently weaned my ds off the one night feed he still had using the water-down method and it only took 4 days!!! He's bottle fed and we only reduced the formula by one scoop but I guess that was enough for him to lose interest. Unfortunately he still wakes around the same time  but he's not hungry. Old habits die hard I guess!

[teezee]

i too think that maybe u should hold off on weaning night feeds for now...it very well may be a growth spurt since his daytime intake seems be high and u don't want to deprive him if he needs it right now. give it a week and see if things calm down.