5 month old sleeping and crying more

[BoSho]

My 23 wo DS has gone from being a lovely happy chappy to a grumpy one in the space of about 24 hours and I'm confused about how to help him. He's crying a lot (hunger? teething pain?) and has diarrhea but normal temperature.

I want to help him, but I don't want to jump to the growth spurt conclusion (again!) and overfeed him if it's not a growth spurt because he's a bit of a puker and we seem to have that under control now (using thickening powder (carob) and breastfeeding him in the Australian position to help keep the milk down), so I don't want to undo all that hard work, because he was so much happier for it, until now...

Normally, he feeds every 3 hours and sleeps for 1.5 or 2 hours after for about 1.5 hours of being awake, and I'm mostly sticking to that (so resisting when he wants to feed after 2 hours) but lately he's been too upset to go to sleep, and when he finally does get to sleep (after about 2 hours of being awake) he's sleeping right past his feed time, for about 2 hours or more, which is very unlike him.

This morning he woke at 6 to feed then got very sleepy at 6.30 and I put him back to bed and he slept until 9.30. And my breasts are engorged.

I haven't stared weaning yet. I'm going to do BLW, so am waiting until he's 6 mo. He is interested in food and really smiles when he sees us eating, but his hand-eye coordination isn't really good enough for him to be able to feed himself yet, so I took that as a sign that he isn't quite ready.

Can anyone shed any light on what might be happening please? Should I be feeding him after 2 hours? If it isn't a growth spurt, this will make him puke, which isn't nice for any of us. I want my happy baby back and I feel rotten incase he's hungry.

Maybe try a little food, it sounds as though he is ready for some, just a little.
My DS was the same at 4 months so I started him with some solids. Was very interested in our food and took too it so well. We just started with a little baby rice at night and first thing in the morning. My DS is now 6 months and we still feed him, I don't think he'll be ready to feed himself for a while yet. He's on 4 solid meals a day and 4-5 bottles. (He lost interest of the boob at 5 months)

I was told if he is interested in food and can hold his head steady then try him on solids. Made night feeds less and he was a lot happier :)

Thanks IMissSleep, maybe baby rice is the way to go. Wonder how that works with BLW though. From from what I've read, BLW is all about experimenting with food in the first few months, but nothing much goes down, so that won't really help if he's hungry. I was hoping the boob would be enough until I started BLW.