5 month old sleep.

[Celticlassie]

I'm sure this has been done to death but wondering if anyone has any words of wisdom re my DD and her sleep.

She's EBF, first of all, and am not trying her in solids till 6 months (3 weeks away!) Also don't fancy co-sleeping.

She was a great sleeper till the dreaded 4 months, but at the moment she goes down 7.30/8, then wakes for her first feed at 10.30, then roughly 1, 3.30, 5, 6 and 7.30. I generally try to settle her with dummy first but she won't settle without a feed and feeds all of these times, pretty well. She goes down pretty well most of these times but once or twice it'll take her a while to settle, so crying, fidgeting, banging her legs down onto the bed, etc.

She's not great at napping during the day - she generally has 3 naps, 2 of 20/30 mins, and one of about 45. (Something else we're working on.)

Any advice would be much appreciated - DH has been talking about formula but really don't want to go down that route.

PS - no sign of any teeth yet, but I think they're coming!

I had this at 5 months, it was the sleep regression for us. We chose to ride it out and it's much better now. We decided to cosleep though.

How often are you feeding her in the day? At that age, they need a lot of calories so I was offering a breast feed every 2 hours in the day. I then tried to settle each time in the night without a feed first which worked sometimes! Does she fall asleep when feeding? Is she using that to resettle? If she is then you may need to work on gradually settling her from more awake.
This too shall pass...

I could have written your post word for word. DS is now 6 months - we've started weaning... he has absolutely no interest (even after showing signs for weeks) and last night was horrendous. He went down at 7.30, was up at 9, 11 and 12.30 before I just burst into tears. The night continued as it started.

I'm at a loss .

If you follow the wonder weeks (I half do, half don't) they should be in leap 5 which is meant to be one of the worst. However DS was meant to finish leap 5 yesterday so we'll see how the next few days and nights go.

I feed her at least every three hours during the day but may try to up it.
Re the wonder weeks, she's supposed to be between leaps 4 and 5 at the mo. 4 was bad... I'm not sure I'll survive 5!
I keep waiting for it to pass but it's been a while now... bring back the early days. She used to sleep for 7/8 hours.

She also does fall asleep when feeding overnight, but not during day or during her last feed of the day. I know I'm making a rod for my own back but when it's the only way to get her to sleep it's very hard not to!

I generally try to settle her with dummy first but she won't settle without a feed and feeds all of these times, pretty well.

That sounds like reverse cycling - baby moving calorie intake to the night time when calorie intake should be in the daytime. Then baby isn't hungry the next day. It's telling that you mention baby averaging 3h between feeds in the daytime but your average time between feeds in the night is 2h.

So not only is your baby used to getting calories equally over the whole 24h period, is also used to getting more milk during the night compared to the day.

Compare to mine (and many other) babies who are either having no feeds at all firctge 12h overnight, or just having a single feed at some point in the 12h of the night. Such babies still have the same calorific need as yours (give or take), but all of those calories are taken during the daytime hours.

The answer here will come from both finding a way of settling baby back to sleep without feeding and at the same time finding a way to get baby to double (and some) calorie intake in the day. We are not talking a little extra needed here and there, it is a lot more, given your current situation.

Either that or just accept that your baby feeds equally over 12h and don't battle against that fact. There are ways you can alter your own sleep habits in order to accommodate your baby's sleep habits as they Are, without seeking to change them.