5 month old not sleeping through - any ideas

[JillyWells]

Baby was born healthy but small at 4lb 7oz. Everything is fine except hoping he would sleep through by now. He nods off about 8-9pm, wakes up to feed about 10pm then goes through till anything between 12.30 and 4 am. Can't seem to get it to be consistently 4am which I could live with for a while. He drinks about 5oz at this point.

He is my first born and I am expecting again (they will be about 11 months apart)

Is there something else I could do or I doing something wrong. Note he is still 12lb14.

Any advice would be appreciated.

You're doing nothing wrong. Everything sounds pretty typical, if exhausting, for a 5 month old.

No advice I'm sure you will be fine, my son managed to sleep through at 7 YEARS lol xx full tummy and winded and snug my youngest liked to lie propped in his sid (he slept it's just his brother lol)

I'm afraid that sounds like a totally normal sleeping pattern for a 5 month old, in fact many babies of that age wake up a lot more! Since he is small and (presumably) not yet on solids, he probably does need the night feed. Hopefully things will improve when he is 6-8 months and well established on solid food.

Hes' pretty small. I'm not surprised that he still needs feeding pretty often. Even much larger babies require feeding 2/3 times in the night. Neither of mine did until they were at least 8-10 months old.

You're not doing anything wrong. I'm afraid it's just the way little babies operate!!
Weaning might have a bit of an impact in the next couple of months.

I would have no expectation to have your baby sleeping through by now. My 19mo DD still wakes some nights!

Erm 5 months? Who told you most babies sleep through at that age?!

Thanks all - feel more reassured.

Just lots of mums with babies I know who's little ones a sleeping now and are much younger grrrh
Maybe they are fibbing!!

Trialling bits of food but not on full solids yet. Thanks

5 months is tiny. My baby didn't sleep through til he was 13 months.

My baby (not that small) is 9 months and the first night he slept through was 7 months- even now that's only 1-2 nights a week

DO slept through at 6 yrs It's perfectly normal at 5 months. Hang in there.

DD

If you're bottle feeding Id try and knock that night feed on the head, on most nights at least.

You could try making your daytime feeds closer together, to add more bottles per day. It's called calorie loading - getting baby to have her calories in the daytime so they are not needed at night.

For example it would be perfectly reasonable to do full feeds at 7am 9am 11am 1pm 3pm 5pm 7pm and then a dreamfeed at 11pm when you/DH goes to bed.

Then have an alternate way to settle baby back to sleep that isn't feeding. Dummy and shushing works for me. At any night wake ups, give at least 10 minutes to in-cot settling with the dummy and whatnot, without feeding. Only feed if not settling, but always try to resettle without feeding first.

Similarly, if you want to encourage sleeping through then baby should be going from awake to asleep in the cot at bedtime/naptime. So not being fed or rocked to sleep and out down already asleep, for example.

I really hope he is sleeping a reasonable night before baby number 2 - that's all I can hope for.

Otherwise he's an absolute treasure.

TBH it's pretty normal for most kids under 3 to wake in the night to some extent.

He is so cute!

My LO is close in age but isn't sleeping through either

has anyone tried hungry baby formula at night - does this help?

I will try feeding more in the day.

We already do the awake before sleep thing now

Hungry baby formula is a marketing gimmick - honestly I don't mean this horribly but I think you need to adjust your expectations a little. He's still tiny.

Thank you orangeowls he is developing such a personality - smiles sooo much
We went to a baby group today for first time - smiled through the whole session bless him

Tired me out! - lucky for me had a 2 hr nap whilst his nanny had him!

Yeah will do - feel better already

Sorry to be brutal but get used to being tired. It is just how it is. Baby is still so young. Add sleeps into your day and time to rest, that's your best bet

Agree with trying to feed more during the day - at night feeds try to feed just enough that he'll resettle - then he gets more used to having his calories during the day. I can't say for sure if this helped mine sleep though (starting at 4 months), and mine is a 95th centile chunk, but it certainly didn't do any harm. I found 90 mls (3oz) enough to get him back to go back to sleep.

But also agree that night wakings are totally normal at 5 months, so it's not that you're doing anything wrong. Sometimes they just need to reach a certain weight (and mine has enough chub in his cheeks to keep him going for a month!)

Please do not listen to the advice about cutting out the night feeds at this age, it is ill-informed and damaging. My 8LBer wasn't ready to give up night feeds until 10 months old. They have huge growth spurts and developmental leaps where they require more milk - and until solid food takes over as a substantial portion of his daily intake of calories, you cannot cut out his only supply of food for a huge amount of hours overnight.

@Saz467, not directed at you! My comment sounded like a response to you but it isn't.

has anyone tried hungry baby formula at night - does this help?

What you have to remember is that formula milk companies cannot advertise or incentive the first milk products. By law they are not allowed to. This has created loads of spin-off products that aren't first milk, mainly just so that they can advertise and offer money off incentives.

They are commercial businesses, I can see why they invent these needless products. Personally I think I think the Breast Is Best policy (which is behind this advertising ban) is unhelpful in this way.

Anyway, the way to reduce night feeds is to feed more in the day and not have milk as a comfort mechanism to get to sleep.

If you have a baby not getting enough calories in the day, then you'll need to give night feeds for longer. If you are able to get more calories into baby through the day (by more frequent and/or bigger feeds during the day) they shouldn't be needed at night. This is much more straight forward to do when bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding.

Just as important as calorific need...

If baby uses milk/feeds as a way to get to sleep, you need to expect to offer those comfort feeds in the night longer term (or until you establish an alternate comfort mechanism). Comfort feeding is more usual in breastfed babies, but you will get some formula fed babies who feed when not hungry for comfort.

"the advice about cutting out the night feeds at this age, it is ill-informed and damaging."

No it's not.

We cut out night feeds when add was 4 months old, on the recommendation of her paediatrician here in France. With a bit of sleep training, she was sleeping through the night in 3 days.

She is now a loving, happy 12-year-old, musically and artistically talented, academically at the top of her class.

I would be interested to hear how cutting out night feeds at 4 months has "damaged" her, in your layman's opinion