5 month old waking every 2 hours at night...need advice on how to change this!

Hello,
My 5 month old boy is a good routine sleeper during the day - will have usually 4 -5 good naps during the day, BUT...during the night is our big problem. He'll go to sleep around 8.30, and wake up wanting a bottle at 10.30/11pm. He'll have around 200ml then wake again every couple of hours or so, having 150ml each time.
He goes off to sleep with a dummy, and putting the dummy back in when he wakes during the night doesn't work - he seems to always want a bottle.
he's formula fed and usually has about 5 bottles during the day. By about 8 or 9am when he's awake for the day, he's not very hungry....because he's had so much during the night!
Please..any suggestions on how to get him out of this bad habit...I need more sleep than I'm getting!

Hi, how long would you say his 'good naps' are during the day? This could be the problem. I was letting my NB sleep all the time during the day but he would get up all night and it wasn't until my midwife pointed out he only needs 'X' amount of sleep in a 24 hour period that I realized he was getting the majority of this during the day - hence being more wakeful at night. Do you wake him during the day for feeding? smile

thanks for your reply, he usually has about 3 x hour-hour & a half sleeps, and 1 x 2.5hr sleep during the day. He doesn't seem to last being awake any longer than a couple of hours usually.
Maybe I'll try cutting out one of his day sleeps and see what happens... ?? smile

Hey Jo, that does sound like a lot of daytime sleeping for a 5 month old. Usually around that age they have 3 naps a day and probably no more than 5 hours of napping during the day all up.

For my son at that age his day went something like this:

Wake 7am, Nap 9.00-10.30am, Nap 12.30-2.00pm, Nap 4.00-4.45pm, Bed 7pm

Around 6-7 months they usually drop to 2 naps a day (around 4 hours all up)

My 5 month old wont stay awake (or gets very cranky) if he's awake for more than 2 hours at a time.
He has a lot of day sleeps, but not for very long, probly half hour each time, he will nap at least 5-6 times during the day and evening and goes to bed for the night at around 9-10 pm as he's been napping in the evening so he's not that tired to go to bed as early as others have suggested. I find the later I keep him up, the better he sleeps coz he's more tired. Some babies are just not good sleepers. You can't really do much about it, just know that it won't last forever.

Hi Jo,

That does sound like a lot of sleeping during the day, but that can depend on the baby too. My boy will sleep for anywhere between 45min-1.5hours in a 3 hour 'cycle'. (about 3 naps between 7am-4pm) I began waking him 3 hourly to feed and this routine has worked really well for us. We feed him closer together for his last night feeds - just 2 or 2,5 hours in between. He goes to sleep between 930-1030 and to our surprise began sleeping longer and longer during the night smile

I got my boy's sleep pattern in place as soon as i possibly could. after about 6 weeks he was sleeping around 10 hours at night, 10pm-8am. He only had 3 naps 11am-12:30pm, 3pm-4:30pm and 6pm-7pm. Now that he is almost 2 he goes to bed at 8:30pm and gets up between 7:30 and 9am (except for last Saturday when he got up at 6 because of day light savings. Grrr. He only naps once a day now if we are lucky and that is only for an hour or 2.