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It sounds like he's genuinely hungry. Can you feed him a little more milk or solids during the day to try and extend nights? DS is 8 months and in the 25th percentile for weight (I think he's like 19 pounds or so at this point but almost 30 inches long). He takes about 25 ounces of milk and eats solids 3 times a day (probably about 4-8 ounces of baby food and then another 2-3 ounces of finger foods). He's not interested food in general, so we have to work hard to get him to eat/drink (he's always been this way and we've worked very hard to keep his weight up). He gets three 6 ounces bottles before solids and then a 7-ish ounce bottle at bedtime and sleeps through the night. His solids we try to keep calorie dense - he gets whole milk yogurt, I put coconut oil or olive oil or formula powder in his baby food, throw avocado in here and there, put olive oil and Parmesan on the little pasta shapes he tries to feed himself, etc. Perhaps you can try to get a few more calories in him during the day or add an ounce to each of his daytime bottles and try to see how that works for him?

It sounds like he's hungry, so I would keep feeding him. My DS has started waking up more in the middle of the night to eat at 8mo too, it's rough, but nursing is the quickest way to get him back down!

We had a very hard time having that feed disappear. I just continued with it because I did not care to start our day at 5 am. She eventually dropped it on her own, although not until 11 months. But, her wake time did move up about 30 min-1 hour.....so instead of waking at 5, nursing, and sleeping until 7, she is now waking 6-630.

MY LO is 9 months old and has recently regressed to needing a 4-5 am feeding as well. He used to sleep until 6:30-7:30. He is genuinely hungry (sucks down 6 ounces and goes back to sleep) so I can't bring myself to deprive him of it. He eats a ton of solids and has 30 ounces during the day, I think he is just growing and hungry. No real advice, just to hang in there!

I agree with PPs; sounds like he really is hungry. Since you've gotten rid of the other motn feedings, he probably is genuinely hungry. Does he normally go back to sleep for an hour or two after the 5am feeding? If so, then I'd just continue doing it.....

I agree with PP, it's most likely a growth spurt, and if he's hungry, feed him. My LO just now at 17 months went through a major growth spurt and needed to eat at 5 a.m. but would go back to sleep until about 8 a.m. I would tell myself as long as he slept over 6 hours, food was fine. I mean, I only sleep 7 hours at night and eat popcorn as a snack before bedtime, so asking him to sleep 10-12 hours without food is a lot.

That being said, we went through a period around 11 months where LO wanted to party at 5 am. and then crashed around 8 a.m. Not cool, but it thankfully only lasted about 3 weeks and we co-slept a lot to get through it.