Five MO waking up more and more and more....

[notenoughsocks]

Hello Mumsnetters,
Hoping someone can advise, or at least offer reassurance.
My LO is 5mo. Exclusively BF on demand. Last week we started baby led weaning on advice of HV (as his weight has platued and he was waking up more and was pretty good sitter). Although some bits are going down, obviiously, nothing is beting digested yet.
Anyhow, until two weeks ago he was a pretty good sleeper. 7-7ish with only one waking, one feed, one nappy change. Never any crying.
Then it got to twice a night, then every four hours, now every three.
I feel he is too young to sleep train, and have no idea how I would say 'no' to some feeds and not others without confusing him (although some of them are not real feeeds). As he has never been a nightime crier (really, never ever) I don't want to risk that now.
Help....

If you have started weaning then can you do BLW plus give him some purees also. Maybe he is a bit peckish? There are some on here who seem to think feeding a baby food with a spoon is the work of the devil , i found that with my two a mixture of both puree/mash plus finger foods early on worked a treat. Until they really got the hang of eating themselves mine didnt seem to get enough sustenance from finger foods as they just kind of sucked/chewed/dropped them.

I think this would be preferable to sleep training anyway.

Thanks for getting back so quick hairy (is that ok abbreviation or impolite?).
Originally I did think that I would use a mix of the two weaning methods (I am no BLW evangalist by any stretch of the imagination) and do find myself wondering if LO is just a bit hungry. However, when I posted a thread over on the BLW forum about 'coming out same as it went in' I was told that this is because it takes a while for baby's digestion to get up to speed and that it is the same with purees it is just that you don't notice it som much. Would be interested to know if your experience suggests otherwise.

I think hungry babies don't sleep well, pure and simple. Milk is calorific but it's not filling enough. I agree with the above. Purees and finger food combo to make sure he's getting a full tummy will probably do the trick.

Hmm, wouldnt know about that, mine still have stuff that comes out as it goes in and they are 4 and 2...not that i investigate as they are not in nappies but sometimes you just notice , thats green face for sick feeling not envy!! Cant remember exactly what the nappy contents looked like then. Personally i wouldnt worry too much re undigestediness. If not all the food is 100% digested then that doesnt matter does it, the body will take what it can. I think their guts are short in length so wont alwways be fully digested. Also ds1 pooed 3-4 times a day and ds2 less often and he could sometimes get constipated so i would say more poo-ing is better than less IYSWIM (?)

I weaned my ds1 at 4.5 months (old guidlines) and ds2 at 5.5 months as both had gone from being reliable all night sleepers (7-7) to starting to wake up. They werent that fussed for more milk though it was as if they wanted something more solid.

DS1 went to 3 meals a day quite quickly of puree, but he was that bit younger so didnt offer finger foods til 6 months. ds2 didnt eat as much. Both then started sleeping again after a few days of food.

No problems re digestion and they are both v. healthy boys now and eat a good range of foods.

Just remebered as well, it is not until they eat meat that the poo looks like poo rather than mush if i remeber correctly.

I am not Gillian McKeith by the way, just read my post and it is a bit poo obsessed

Thank you so much for that. OK also re: poo mentions. It is only when I talk among non parents that I remember poo isn't normally an acceptable topic of conversation [grin[]
Thanks again.