Weaning from dream feed - help

[Sofasch]

I have been dreamfeeding my LO since 2 months old - he's now 6 months and has slept well since then due to dream feed. Now in his own room which went well and he's been sleeping from 10pm dreamfeed consistently, so I decided to try start weaning. I moved the time by 15 mins every night few weeks ago and started dropping the feed amount slowly....he was fine until we got to 9pm and he started waking before feed time. Then starting waking at 3 and 5 am. So I tried to move it back. He now Wakes atb8pm wanting a feed after feed at 6pm and bed at 6.30. last night was the worst he woke at 7pm, 9.30 and 10.30....i did the feed at 8 as he wouldn't settle without. Can anyone give any advise or have any experience with weaning from the dream feed. He's also teething ATM and started eating less at most feeds last few days.....

I assume you're starting to wean onto solids? This makes 6 months old a not-ideal time to drop the dream feed because weaning often results in fewer daytime calories, as milk feeds drop but solid foods are low calories.

I would suggest your night wakes are probably hunger related. You want to try and increase daytime milk to allow for the amount of milk he would have in the night to be included in the daytime.

Early weaning can certainly feel like newborn in that so much of your day is filled with feeding!

For example, if your pre-weaning schedule was 6oz milk at 6am 10am 1pm 4pm 7pm 11pm (36 is total)

Post-weaning without a dream feed might be:
6am milk
7am "breakfast" solids
8am milk
(Nap)
11am milk
12pm "lunch" solids
1pm milk
(Nap)
4pm milk
5pm "dinner" solids
6pm milk
Bedtime milk

That's 7 milk feeds per day, as opposed to previous 6 with a dream feed. It might be that the amount of milk per feed goes down, but overall the amount of milk given over 24h want a to be maintained and may be even increase (to account of growth and development).

Thanks @FATEdestiny that's really helpful. Yes I now realise was a silly time to try drop it. We started solids 3 weeks ago...just doing a lunchtime solid ATM. I'm not sure when to start introducing other solid meals. Will try to introduce less quantity more frequency of feeds. Before we were doing:

7am feed
9am nap
11am feed
12.30 solids
1.30 nap
3pm feed
5pm feed
6/6.30 feed
10pm dream feed

So maybe altering this should help to counteract hunger waking in evening. Really regretting having changed anything now

He was sleeping so well before. Thanks for the detailed advise, exactly what I was looking for

I didn't drop the dream feed until 10 months. She definitely didn't need it that long but I just thought what the hell, she's sleeping well and it's no skin off my nose. So I don't think be in a hurry to do it unless you have a reason to.

@Heepers Thanks yep I think thats good advise. gone back to dream feeding again and hes sleeping well again, apart from the odd teething night. Sometimes he wakes before dream feed....did you ever have this?