4.5 month - should she be able to sleep through the night? Any tips?

[CricketsMum]

My 4.5 month daughter still only sleeps 4-5 hours in a stretch at night. She goes down when she falls asleep on the breast sometime between 9 & 10pm (she has always been wide awake from 7pm till 9pmm - generally cluster-feeding then) and wakes somewhere around 3am for a feed. Sometimes takes alot sometimes not. Can't work out if she really needs the fed or it is just habit. Started weaning her and although she takes a good amount of food at about 6.30pm she still wakes for a 3/4am feed. Until weaning she has been exclusively breastfed - won't take a bottle now, and doesn't use a dummy. Should I being trying to sleep train her? If so, what methods? Or should I just resign myself tobroken sleep for a while longer? (Not a big sleeper during the day - usually 1 1.5 hour nap and 30 min one).

This is normal for this age. Sorry!!!

My 7 MO DS is still waking in the night 2-3 times, they vary with the weather (hot/cold), illness, teething, growth spurts, there's no continuum that you imagine before you have a baby of not sleeping through to sleeping through and staying that way. There will probably be posters on here saying that their toddler still wakes in the night, etc.

This is totally normal, it's more unusual for them to sleep through, despite what others may say!

She sounds absolutely average for her age.

My dd was still waking every 2 hours at this stage! I think a 4-5 hour stretch is very good indeed. Milk will form the basis of your dd's diet until she is 1 and I would not attempt to restrict or sleep train before then. This doesn't mean you can't gently encourage a nightime routine but 'training' this young may be futile.

It helped me to keep at the back of my mind that sleep is a developmental thing. It's like walking and talking. They do it when they are ready and able to. You can encourage and guide your baby but sometimes it takes longer than seemingly everybody else whose babies were apparently sleeping through at 6 days old.

My dd never slept a lot in the day either, still doesn't at 15 months but she has slept through since being 10 months ish and reducing her need for milk at night. HV always said that 'classically intelligent' babies don't need a lot of sleep. It's probably tosh but I clung to this 'fact' for dear life.

Oh and shh! We co-slept so I could feed lying down and sleep through the early morning feeding. It made it soooo much easier.

I would be delirious through lack of sleep. Both of mine have slept from 7pm-7am (with a 11pm dreamfeed) from 2 months, but I really pushed for it!

Have you a routine during the day? It might be that she has got used to nighttime milk, so isn't having enough during the day and is having to top-up at night.

This is a bit early to wean her. I'd stop the solids and concentrate on getting her into a routine of feeds and sleeps instead. This is working for my 6 month old, who was hopeless at daytime naps till just the other day!:

7am feed
9:45am nap; wake up at 10:30am
11am feed
12:30-1:30pm nap
2pm feed
4:45pm nap
5:30pm feed
6pm bath
7pm feed and bedtime
11pm dreamfeed

I just read that solids are no substitute for milk, and a baby will wake up at night if they're not getting enough milk, even if they're having solids. That seems to be true of my DS2, who dropped a milk feed after we started weaning and began waking up at 4am again, despite getting big suppers at 5:30pm. Since I started making sure he'd had his milk first and then offering him solids, he's sleeping through again.

Hope this helps, and that I'm not sounding all preachy!

OMG, I have thick babies!

I agree with Beautiful about solids too. Your baby does not need them. Milk, milk and more milk.

Also would agree with Beautiful about the solids, it seems to be a myth that babies sleep better on solids!
I sympathise though. I had 2 who slept through 9 hours at niught from 8 weeks old despite being BF, then had my youngest, who never slept for more than three hours together at night til he was 14 months old.

Beautiful, I just had a classically intelligent hv who knew how to get me through the long days/nights/evenings/mornings etc

Oh, OK then!

Completely normal. Why ahve you weaned her? it's too early and no more calories in it than milk.