5.5 months night feeds

[KittyKat19]

My 5.5 month old is still feeding 3 times per night (EBF). On the advice of the HV we have started weaning early as he's showing all the signs of readiness, and he's taken to it like a dream! He still gets milk every 3-4 hours in the day. But it's made no difference to his nighttime feeding which is also every 3-4 hours. We've tried to settle him when he wakes but even if he drifts off, he's up again in 10-15 mins and will only fall back to sleep for 2-3 hours once fed. Please tell me this is normal? My older child slept through consistently from 10 weeks so I may have unrealistic expectations, but the sleep deprivation is killing me and I'm just after a bit of reassurance this won't be forever. I should add he can self settle for all naps and bedtime. He won't take a bottle. Thank you!

I started weaning at 4 months as DS just didn't seem to be drinking much milk (EBF) and like you said was showing signs. He's literally just having a spoonful of different veg a day so won't impact his sleep it's just a taste at the moment.

He still feeds every 3 hours during the night so approx 4 feeds per night. I am starting to realise its for comfort now so I am trying to stretch it longer by using his dummy. He was waking due to sleep cycles rather than hunger and once I realised this I have been able to stretch the feeds to every 4hours.

Count your blessings he is able to self soothe my DS is an avid contact napper and sleeps in bed with me otherwise its hours of screaming!!

Your previous dc sleeping through at 10 weeks HAS given you unreal expectations.

In my experience until the food intake increases a lot then bf babies will still need overnight feeds. But 3-4 hours between feeds overnight is still good - bed at 7, feed at 10-11pm when you go to bed, another at 2-3am and the next feed is an early breakfast. I reckon that's not really too bad (I would have killed for that in those dark dark days...)
I'd put the above schedule down as needing one overnight feed, not 4!

So, in my head, 'sleeping through' is eg 7pm to 7am. Higely unrealistic to expect an ebf/early weaning baby to go for 12 hours overnight. I would class waking at YOUR bedtime as completely normal, and again for an early start at 6am ish. Leaving only one true night feed that you're waking up for