Is she hungry or just waking up?

[Joy27]

My baby is 17 weeks old and usually- odd random horrorshow night aside- wakes for one feed in the night. This is her normal routine:

6.30pm- feed
7pm- goes to bed
10.30pm- Dream feed
Any time from 2am - 5am- wakes for a feed

When she wakes for her night feed, she sounds quite urgent and sort of bleats, and always seems to feed properly.

The thing is though, she did sleep through the night for two weeks from 8-10 weeks(blessed, glorious time). So I know she can do it. I'm just wondering whether I'm misreading the hunger signals when she wakes in the night- it seems odd that she wakes at a different time each night. How can I tell if she's genuinely hungry or waking for some other reason

It's so easy to feed her and it only takes 15 mins all in. So should I bother taking the time to try to settle her without a feed when she wakes in the night, do you think? And if so, how do you do this? (I've never had to settle her just because she's awake and not hungry).
Or is this just totally normal behaviour for a four month old?

All I seem to hear/read about (apart from on this board!) is how everyone else's baby is sleeping through...

If you use a dummy you could give that instead of a feed and see if she settles.

Those with 17 week old babies who are consistently sleeping through are lucky. Most don't IME.

There is a massive developmental leap and growth spurt at around 4 months which means sleep goes out the window and they are more hungry plus their brains are going 10 to the dozen as they're learning new skills.

My DS woke up several times a night at that age and I just fed as much easier to settle. No point having a screaming baby for hours when you can settle much quicker. After a while, you get a feel for whether it's become habit or not (usually they start to wake at the same time) and you can stretch out the feeds by getting DH to resettle. If they resettle quickly for him then you know they're not hungry. We did this and DS started to go longer stretches again. Although at 8 months he's not slept through, but that's just life

Babies change so much in the first few months so they might sleep through sometimes, then teething/growth spurts/developmental leaps hit and mess everything up!

My theory has always been that if the waking is random and they can get themselves to sleep at other times, then it is hunger. Both my DD, who were pretty good sleepers, woke more from 4 months. If feeding for 15 mins is working as resettling i'd stick with it, easy then to cut it down and drop the feed once on solids. I've had to start using a dummy for my 4mo DS as he doesn't resettle after feeds, but i do worry about how i stop using the dummy in due course.

I'm sure there's some stat somewhere that 50% or 70%?, some big number, don't sleep through before 6 months. And it's still huge after 6 months too...

Thanks for the advice all. Of course, as soon as I posted this thread, my baby's sleep went haywire. She's now up for 2 feeds in the night and multiple whimpery wakenings. I'm crap at settling her without a feed, having rarely had to do it- until now that is.

How I wish for the days of one 15-minute feed now! That'll teach me for complaining.

I guess this is the four month sleep regression. Good times.

It will pass Joy! Doesn't seem like it now but it will.

Blimey. I feel waves of envy/alarm when I hear people talking like this. My baby is 16 weeks tomorrow and has never woken up fewer than 3 times in the night. And 3 times would be a good night.

I see things like this and think I must be doing something wrong, but I don't know what it is! Seriously, I would be ecstatic if my baby only woke once.

Sappholit- you're not doing anything wrong! I didn't realise how spoilt I was until she started waking up more again these past couple of nights.... I will never, ever complain about one night feed again.

As Igglybuff says, it will pass...

Info on the 4 month sleep regression:here, here, here and here.

IgglyBuff is right, and I'd also vote for NoSleepTill Weaning's approach (although my DH hasn't ever been able to settle DS except in sling or pram, and DS won't settle at night without me feeding him, so I just go ahead and feed him even if I'm pretty sure he's not hungry). It hasn't led to him waking up any more often than he already did.

I did a quick Google and something on the BBC said that 22% of 9 month olds have difficulty settling to sleep, and 42% wake frequently through the night. (Although apparently from 6 months 50% of babies who were sleeping through suddenly start waking at night again so I guess those figures would include some of them). So not sleeping through is totally normal IMO.

Hang in there...they'll all get there one day (I hope!).