5 months and still having night feeds

[Laurawakey14]

My little one is 5.5 months and he is still waking for night feeds! Between him and my 4 year old I'm knackered!! HV suggested solids but he's not interested at all! Anyone else in same boat or is it just me? Ive had a few nights were he slept through but can't work out what I did differently on those days to ones he doesn't! Any advice/suggestions welcome x

Totally normal, my DD was 18 months before she dropped her last night feed, and my DS was only 12 weeks. The only thing I did differently was I just went with the flow with DS, after nearly giving myself a nervous breakdown trying to get DD to sleep through. I'm pretty sure nothing I did in either case would've made any difference, babies do it when they are ready.

Normal unfortunately. Waking once a night until after 2 years old here.

1 or 2 feeds here at nearly 9 months. Solids more often than not don't make a difference.

2-3 feeds at least here, on a bad night it's many more. 6.5 months old.

My elder one didn't regularly sleep through till well over 1. In fact at 3, she still wakes most nights, though we never offer milk any more.

Honestly, one overnight feed at 5mo is great.

I'm interested to find out why you think it's not normal? Certainly my DD2 was still waking once a night at that age. DD1 wasn't but she was a lazy bugger.

If it's that baby group mothers are all saying theirs don't wake then take it with a pinch of salt...

I was surprised when the hv said at 10 months they don't need night feeds but at 5 months? Definitely.

I fed dd through the night til about 19 months, HV told me they were likely to still need night feeds until 10/11 months

I had three children. 1. slept through from six weeks, 2. slept through from five months, 3 slept through from 7 months.

They will sleep through when the time is right for them not us unfortunately.

My 8 month old still wakes up at least three times a night for milk

My 9 month old wakes up for two night feeds, but I don't feed him during the day so I accept that he'll be making up for that in the night. I start him off in his cot at night and when he wakes for his feed at 1am he comes into bed with me and I barely remember feeding him and he sleeps happily until my other dc rush in and wake us up. Of course, if you do that follow safe sleeping guidelines, but you'll get a lot more sleep that way.

I sleep-trained my baby six weeks ago after being woken on average six times-a-night for eleven months. I went cuckoo with the chronic sleep deprivation and am still in therapy (but that's another thread). I cancelled my 17th December wedding only six days prior simply because I felt I was having a nervous breakdown.

The reason I'm telling you this is because the Controlled Crying method we used took only four nights to work and since then my son has slept through for 12/13 hrs every single night. How I wish I had had faith in myself and in my baby much earlier. However....I would not have been comfortable using CC on a baby under the age of eight months. Your baby is so young still, and waking for milk is normal. You are very lucky to be woken only once each night. But...as he gets older you can expect him to be sleeping through if he's eating three good meals a day and you are structuring his daytime naps and they don't exceed 2.5 hrs.

At that age I would wake her up late at night, maybe 11pm as I was going to bed to do a feed sort of in her sleep. Then she wouldn't need another till morning.

Sorry op but it's completely normal and you will have to wait for the solids to help you get a few hours uninterrupted. I don't think night feeds ever go away completely at least until a year old. That's if you are lucky.

Kellymom is an awful website, its been discredited hears agoIts not a myth that babies sleep through. Both mine slept through from 12 weeksvand that is not unusual.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8680184/

Many parents expect that the baby will be sleeping continuously through the night from a given age, often as early as six weeks old. The conflict between the parents' expectations and the baby's behaviour leads the parents to seek help. Analysis of the first 640 questionnaires received from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (ALSPAC). Study show that many six-month-old babies have broken nights. Only 16% slept through the night at six months old. Half woke occasionally, 9% woke most nights, 5% woke once every night and a further 17% woke more than once per night, ranging from twice to eight times. For 16% of six-month-olds there was no regular sleeping pattern.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8035724/

There is a wide range of normal childhood sleep behaviour. Circadian rhythm is not well established until four months of age. Daytime sleep becomes less regular with increasing age. Frequent night-time wakening is common from four to 12 months. Night-time settling requires more parental input from 18 months. A large proportion of parents (28.6%) have a problem with their child's sleep behaviour.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1934318/

Regular night waking was a common characteristic throughout the first year (46% at 3 months, 39%, 58% and 55% respectively at 6, 9 and 12 months).

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/2361072/

from 1 to 8 months, a decrease with age of the average number of hours slept per 24 h period; and from 8 to 12 months, and a continuing shift towards a dominance of night over day sleep. The frequency of night wakings was, on average, 77%

My dd is 8 months and feeds on average twice a night still, but always at least once. I think if it's just once a night then that's probably normal and your dc will grow out of it. No harm in starting solids now (if dc ticks all the ready boxes) to see if that helps though. My dd eats hardly anything

You might not like the kellymom website, but sleeping through the night is unusual for a five month old. It's still not "normal" for a 12 month old. Count yourself lucky that you had two sleepers, bruffin, and stop peddling nonsense that your experience is in any way average.

NORMAL

50% of babies as still waking at 1 year old. It's not an unusual situation at all.

Where do people GET this idea that babies should be sleeping through at this age?!

12 weeks sleeping through IS unusual bruffin you were lucky. Even on a very unscientific straw poll of this thread most babies aren't ready or able to sleep through at the 5 months the op has said or a lot later
Try to make things easier for yourself op and rest when you can - not easy with a 4yr old too but an hour of cbeebies while you rest won't do any harm! Mentally make it easier for yourself by not worrying aboit when your baby will sleep through. I'm sure it will come eventually

Eh? What a bizarre post. My 11mo still wakes for one night feed

You need to adjust your expectations, your baby is very young.

Both mine slept through from 12 weeksvand that is not unusual.

That's tripe, in my NCT group of 15 women only one baby consistently sleeps through.