5.5month old, daytime sleep-feed-sleep-feed-sleep

[KittyKat1998]

5.5 month old here, usually 3-4 naps a day, all 30-40mins, usually breastfeed upon waking. Last few weeks, there will be one experience of her feeding after a nap, then falling asleep for another 30mins, then feed again, then sleep again... this has lasted for up to 2-3hours ! What is going on? Is she struggling to link sleep cycles and this should be a 90min nap? She is normally smiley when she wakes so difficult to know when this epic feed/sleep cycle will begin.

Should also mention, she has gone from waking for a feed 0-2x a night to up to 5l6x, with seemingly random times between the waking (I.e. no obvious pattern, up to 4hours or as little as 1hour). She takes a full breastfeed, both breasts, so makes me think it's hunger rather than comfort?

Have you started weaning? My baby is 6 months and she was suddenly very awake at night time and now we're 3 weeks into weaning she usually sleeps through the night or will wake up for one feed.

Also re the daytime napping - my baby is similar. What happens if you don't give baby the boob after 30min? Will she go back to sleep on her own? When my DC wakes up mid nap sometimes if she sees me in the room she'll drift back off to sleep, otherwise, if I give her a boob she'll also go back to sleep. I find it useful in terms of controlling how long I want her last nap of the day to be. If it's too long her night time sleep gets disrupted.

Sounds like a growth spurt. They want to eat and drink more so wake up a hell of a lot more than usual.

Thanks @Jelllytot
No, not started weaning yet. She has all of a sudden seemed very ready though- lots of reaching out/interest when we're eating/drinking. She was born at 42 weeks so 6months gestational age... the high chair is ordered but not arrived yet, guess that is all that's holding us back!

Interested to hear sleep improved after 3 weeks of food - was your little one ingesting quite a lot early on?

Thanks for this @Devilsmommy
How long do growth spurts last?! This has been going on 3 weeks now !

A week normally so I reckon you need to start weaning if she's hungry so much

@Devilsmommy thank you. Even though they're not ingesting much food to start with, does weaning make a difference to a hungry baby?

Yep.

One meal = a mushed avocado or a mushed banana or a mushed aubergine

All these she eats in their entirety. She is quite a small baby though.

The other thing is she has her last nap of the day around 5pm. If she naps any later then her night time sleep is a bit rubbish

Really helpful, thank you. Good to know.

Last nap finished at 530pm yesterday and bedtime usually around 7pm... that gap is too small, isn't it. Need to get a bit more organized on the nap front!

It's been a lot of trial and error! And do what works best for you! But yes, I think at least for my DC she naps best with ~3 hour wake windows

By the way the one meal examples I gave were when she first started weaning, now in addition to the above there might be a bit of chicken and broccoli etc.

I don't know about baby led weaning but obviously when you start they don't have alot as their tummy's are tiny. Mine started at 4 months so it was a while before he started dropping milk feeds. But you can tell when they're hungry and when they've had enough so I'd definitely try it as your little one sounds like she definitely needs to start