She is exclusively breastfed and is only 5 months old. Waking to eat and eating round the clock is part of the game mama! And perfectly normal. It is perfectly normal for her to wake at night to nurse/feed. She is growing by leaps and bounds. Absolutely *DO NOT* water down a feeding. That won't do anything except give you a baby who isn't getting their nutritional needs met.
I understand being tired and looking for ways to make changes. Read my story at the bottom. But bottom line is your baby is telling you what she needs and she is very little.
Every breast fed baby is different. My first could go 10-13 hours a night (at 7 months old) without waking to nurse. My second woke to nurse most nights her entire first year. And you know what? THat was ok! She was telling me what she needed and I was a wise mama to follow her cues.
This is expected and what we sign on for when we become parents to a newborn. Parenting doesn't stop at night, doesn't stop because we are tired, sick, want a few minutes to ourselves, had a date night planned. Baby's needs come first.
I don't understand what the problem with feeding a tiny infant at night is. You are talking about being awake with her to rock her, bring her to bed but not feed her?!? That doesn't make any sense mom. Babies are very adept at telling you what they need. If you have no problem bringing her to bed why not bring her to bed and nurse her there? Co-sleeping was a life-saver when I was pumping round the clock (every 3 hours day and night) for my high needs preemie and was desperate for some sleep.
Wanna talk no sleep? I would have to bottle feed my preemie, then hold him upright on my legs after due to reflux while I pumped, get him back down to sleep, wash and sterilize my pump parts for the next session and then try to grab about oh, 45 minutes of sleep. And this went this way for 12 weeks. and after that he woke to nurse every 3 hours till he was about 7 months old. My point is we do what we need to do for our babies. They are small for a very short time.