5.5 month old not sleeping through night

[meera21]

hi my little girl was sleeping quite well til she reached 4.5month when she was waking just once in night for a feed around 3/4am. She is now waking up at 2am and then early morning around 5am for feeds, she seems to be hungry. I give her a late evening feed when she stirs anywhere between 10-11pm. but she still wakes up at 2am...what am i doing wrong? I am exclusively breastfeeding, should I try giving her a formula bottle at bedtime or should i first start weaning her and see if that makes a difference?

This is perfectly normal. There is a huge growth spurt at around 6 months and babies will often stop sleeping through. The good news is that it only lasts a few days. If you can cope with a few more days then there is no need to give formula, just keep offering booby all the time. Formula isn't always a magic answer to sleep problems.

As for weaning, I am a believer in BLW which means the baby decides when they are ready for solids. That way there's no guesswork involved. Do you hold your LO on your lap when you're eating? That might give you a clue as to whether they are ready for weaning - if they grab the food and put it in their mouth they are, if they don't, they're not.

You're doing nothing wrong at all. If she's hungry then feed her. She might be going through a sleep regression (rubbish sleep linked to developmental events) or a growth spurt :)

Formula won't make a difference. Weaning won't make a difference.

If it did, all formula fed babies would sleep through, as would all weaned babies. But they don't

thanks for the advice, this makes me feel a lot more confident reading this! I'll just continue with what i'm doing, if she's getting up a couple of hours after a feed then i'll just shush her back to sleep (often now with a dummy) or just feed her. I started weaning her today, like you said Flisspaps she shows a lot of interest in putting things in her mouth and watching us eat etc..She wolfed down the baby rice today! :)

she sonds absolutely normal!
my dd only managed to sleep through much later than that. if she is generally happy and thriving try not to worry too much and be best friends with the coffee maker