4 Month Old Waking to Eat 2X a Night Now

I've been told by my daughter's pediatrician that until well into 8 mos or so, one cannot really expect a pattern to the sleeping/feeding habits in a baby. So, any abnormality or break from pattern, is still normal.
Best is to attend to their need at earliest.

Also, if I were you I'd refrain from giving cereal out of a bottle. They need to learn from the beginning itself, to discriminate between liquids and solid foods, and must learn to make association between bottles and spoons.

Sorry but it's normal and you do what you are doing - feed her when she is hungry. Many people will define 5 solid hours of sleep as sleeping through the night anyway. And if you were putting her to bed at midnight (when my son went to his crib at that age) and she slept until 5 am, that would be pretty close. She will probably go back to what she was doing but I sure couldn't predict when.

Waking every 4-5 hours is totally normal, and actually pretty good! Don't try to force anything, but feed her on demand. I can't stress enough that this is normal, good and healthy! Go with the flow and let your. Little one find her groove.

Waking 4-5 hours is exactly what she should be doing right now. Babies don't eat more to feel satisfied longer, they eat what they're supposed to in order to fill their little bellies and that's it. It's completely normal. Everything I've read is that it's NOT normal for them to consistently sleep through the night. For her healthy development this is perfect. Actually, I'm a little jealous, my 5 mo old wakes every hour! LOL I know you're tired, but try to hang in there. It's for such a short period of time in the grand scheme of things.

Children will go through times when they are hungrier. If she's hungry, feed her, especially since there's no concern that she's getting too much. I can't believe she was sleeping that well at 4 months old. You are lucky to have gotten some sleep. My son didn't sleep all the way through the night until 1 year old. He slept in 3-4 hour stretches up until 9 months.
Your child sounds very normal!

forget the cereal in the bottle....use a spoon. At the doctors' request, both of my sons were eating spoon-fed cereal at 1 month. (& yes, Mamas, I realize the rules are different now.....) They both were very capable of eating from a spoon, & at 4 months your daughter is old enough to do this. Just keep trying & she'll get the hang of it! Good Luck!

When she's hungry, feed her. Even when it's the middle of the night. Go to her quickly, and feed her quietly, in the dark, so she won't fully wake.

If she's clearly hungry, then feed her when she's hungry, IMO. I wouldn't try to give her cereal in the bottle if she's not ready for it by spoon. It may just be what she needs right now. With my daughter, I would nurse her before *I* went to bed. Can you try something similar, basically a dream feed? Might catch her between wakes for a few extra minutes for you.

My daughter is 6 months and started doing the same thing at 4 months. She still wakes 2-3 times a night (sleeping roughly for a 12 hour period). At 2-3 months she woke only once. As mine is 6 months, she has started solids and that has not helped at all. I have read that cereal doesn't help, it's a myth. We've had issues too such as a cold, when she woke every 1-2 hours for about 10 days. Also, she started to flip to her belly to sleep and would wake up unable to flip back. She goes to sleep on her own, but needs help when she wakes up. It is frustrating! I too hope it does not create a bad habit. However, my son still woke once a night to breast feed until 7 or 8 months then stopped...so maybe things will improve in a few months. :)

Sounds like a growth spurt or the illness caused the initial situation, but then she got into the habit of getting up. My first two babies slept through the night (6+ hours) when they were 8-9 weeks old. My third baby has never been a good sleeper and at 21 months old, he still gets up some nights (like last night) He gets into habits of getting up in the night, and will just be awake for hours. When he was still an infant, I would feed him, but then he wouldn't go back down. After days or sometimes weeks he'll get back into the habit of sleeping through the night. Usually an illness like an ear infection will prompt the night waking, but even after it clears up, he is still waking up. So frustrating. I don't know what you can really do since she's only 4 months old. It would be hard to shorten her naps which is what sometimes helps my son get back on track. Good luck!

Oh my I'm jealous! I just posted about how my 4 month old is waking every 1-2 hours at night. I so wish mine would sleep in 4-5 hour stretches. You are lucky, Mama!

I would suggest that you get up and feed her. It is entirely likely she is in a growth spurt, and while it might be more convenient for you if she ate more at earlier feedings, she clearly won't. I would not worry about "normal" or "not normal" - she is unique and she is letting you know she is hungry

She's still so young that she HAS to eat at least two or three times a night. She's breastfed so she only eats as much as she needs and her body is efficient at digesting it... plus her stomach is very tiny so it's not as if she's filling up like a gas tank that you can stretch out for 8 hours.

If you give her cereal in a bottle to keep her asleep rather than allowing her to wake up to feed, that's a real problem. It puts her at higher risk for developing Type 2 Diabetes later on in childhood and adulthood. It puts her at higher risk for obesity as well. But the immediate concerns are that she would be forced to sleep through times when she ought to be waking to eat much-needed feedings for growth and brain development. And the reason that babies stay asleep when they're given cereal in their bottles is because while they're sleeping, the cereal is sitting like a lump in their bellies and not digesting so that they feel full.

Avoid the cereal. Feed her when she wakes and know that it's normal. She could be having a growth spurt and/or making up for not eating well while she was sick. Babies know when their bodies need food and when they need sleep. It's our job to read their cues and not suppress them or teach them to ignore their body's cues.