waking at 2.30-3.30am - 4 mth old - habit, hunger or ready to wean?

[carocaro]

DS2 aged 4.5 months and 19 pounds, is waking every night at this time and has about 4 ounces. I can't tell if he really needs it, or it's just habit, he has a 7 ounce bottle at 10.30 - 11pm, so should not be hungry. If I don't feed and leave him he is nuts within 5 mins and nothing placates him, dummy, ignoring, shhhhsing, reassurance and patting him etc. Is he ready for weaning? DS1 was weaned at this age and all this about 6 months now is hard to fathom, HV says wait but I think now. Hungry baby milk makes him constipated and miserable. Any ideas ladies?

I would say he is hungry as there is a big growth spurt at 4 months, so I would give it a couple of weeks at least and see if it settles back again.

I think that's why a lot of babies were weaned at 4months as they are showing all signs of hunger, but it is a growth spurt, and solids won't necessarily help as they have less calories than milk.

Good luck, I hate it when you start getting woken again after being sued to lots of lovely sleep!

My DD is now 6 months old.
At about 5 months she was waking more than I thought necessary. She seemed to want to drink for comfort and habit, but not out of necessity for hunger.
At that point, when she cried, I got up, gave her a cuddle and a nappy change and put her back down.
For the first couple of nights she cried, but she soon realised that she wasn't going to get fed and stopped waking.
If the time from her previous feed had been more than a couple of hours, of course I fed her, but often it was clear that it wasn't really hunger.
I'm afraid I only BF so I can't really comment on the bottle and constipation issues.
By the way, DD was very interested in food, but BF seemed to keep her satisfied so I only started her on solids at 6 months. I'm worried about allergies because DH has eczma so didn't want to get into that too early.

sounds like hunger, feed him milk. hes only got a small stomach and its 4 or 5 hours after his last feed. Even tho hes " just asleep" hes still got a body to run and growing to do and it all uses energy.
Plenty of kids don't sleep through till well gone 6 months. Others will go through phases of sleeping through or not.

Hunger. Classic growth spurt time.

My DD woke at 3am on the dot at 4 months every night. It is just part of their sleep pattern. feed if they need it, reduce the feeds gradually and see if it makes a difference.

Try changing his routine during the day, even a little to start with

Agree with Corriedale, growth spurt and hunger

growth spurt.

There are far less calories in anything else than there are in milk so no point weaning. Your HV is spot on.

Unfortunately, babies often dont play by the 'rules'. They are funny little buggers

Hunger. A 3.5 hour gap between feeds is perfectly acceptable and if he drinks the milk you offer him, then it is hunger. He's only 4.5 months, so milk is all he needs for another while yet. Their demands for night time feeds chop and change constantly. It's normal and what babies do - as soon as you think they're able to go for 7 hours without a feed, they'll give you a couple of nights waking every 1.5 hours and floor shed loads of milk .

IIRC, hungry baby formula is not that great for them - it is made 'heavier', so just sits in their belly for longer and clogs them up. Nasty stuff. If he's hungry, just offer more milk. It will all be different in another week and different again another week after that.