Waking at 6am - up for the day or 'night' feed?

[Amyellow]

My DD is 8 months old, goes to bed at 7pm, and has slept right through the night a handful of times. Most nights though, she wakes for a feed sometime between 12 and 4am. Her weight is a big concern - she's only 11lb and gets high calorie milk on prescription - so I don't want to cut out that feed. Much as I'd love the extra sleep

She sometimes sleeps til 7.30am, and seems well rested. But often now she wakes by 6am - so I get her up for the day, nappy change etc, and feed her in the living room...but then she's falling asleep again around 7.30 for a 30-40min nap.

So my question is: should I treat that 6am wake up more like another night feed (give her a bottle in her room with curtains closed, and put her straight back to bed?) Feels like we're going backwards to increase night feeds, but if both of us get better sleep, could it be a way forward?

Our cut off is 6.30. If ds woke at 6 we'd try to get him back off with milk in our bed.

Ps - ds was tiny too and on prescription milk (infantrini) he's just showing 'longitudinal catch up growth' now at 2.4 years.

I too stressed over the calorie intake and fed him at every opportunity - this parenting stuff is hard work sometimes.

My ds started to wake earlier at 8 months, very annoying as even 630 feels more humane than 6 . Advice I was given was that if he needed a nap within an hour of waking then treat it as a night waking, if not then he's ready to be up for the day. Makes no odds to us, I shan't tell you what time he now wakes for the day

Thanks both. After some experimentation, it seems she won't go back down at 6 even if I feed her, but if she feeds at 5 she'll then sleep through to 7.30! Oh well.

BobPatAndIgglePiggle Nice to hear about someone else on infatrini! What does longitudinal catch up growth mean - is that getting closer to the normal range? DD is below even the 0.4 centile; her growth chart always looks a bit depressing.