5 month old baby

What a 5 month old baby is doing

Five months is a month of small, specific gains rather than headline ones. The HSE describes a baby who will lift their head when sitting, and whose hands have become genuinely useful: they can reach out and grasp a dangling object, and they start to look at small objects with interest.

The sounds are the fun part. Your baby will smile and make vocal sounds when they see themselves in a mirror, copy a person's voice by making vocal sounds back, and make raspberry or spitting noises. Socially they will smile spontaneously rather than only in response, and react to different tones of your voice, preferring a calm, gentle one.

Rolling and sitting are the two things parents measure at five months, and neither is a five-month milestone. The HSE places rolling front to back at around four months and back to front at around six, and sitting with support at six months. A baby who is not rolling at five months but who reaches, grasps and holds their head up is inside the described range. The HSE states directly that the ages given for its milestones are an average and that every child is different.

The month with no vaccination appointment

On the current UK schedule there is nothing routine at five months. Babies are offered vaccines at 8, 12 and 16 weeks, and then not again until one year. The gap is normal and it is not a sign anything has been missed.

It is a good month to check two things. First, that the earlier doses are complete: if your baby was unwell and missed an appointment, contact your GP surgery to catch up, because the NHS is explicit that vaccines should be given on time for the best protection but can be caught up. Second, that you are reading the right schedule — timing differs between countries, and in the UK the vaccines offered at one year and at eighteen months now depend on your child's date of birth.

Feeding at 5 months: interest is not readiness

A five-month-old who stares at your plate, grabs at your fork and chews their hands looks ready. The NHS is clear that these are not the signs. It names three clear signs which, appearing together from around six months, show a baby is ready for solid food: they can stay in a sitting position and hold their head steady, they can co-ordinate eyes, hands and mouth well enough to look at food, pick it up and put it in their mouth themselves, and they can swallow food rather than spit it back out.

It then lists the behaviours parents mistake for readiness — chewing fists, waking in the night more than usual, and wanting extra milk feeds — and says plainly that these are normal baby behaviours, not necessarily a sign of hunger or readiness. Starting solids will not make your baby sleep through the night; sometimes a little extra milk helps until they are ready.

The reason for waiting is not arbitrary. The WHO and UNICEF recommend that infants are breastfed exclusively for the first six months of life and then continue breastfeeding up to two years or beyond, with nutritionally adequate, safe complementary foods introduced from six months. The NHS reasons run alongside that: waiting gives your baby time to develop so they can cope fully with solid foods, and a baby who waits is better at moving food around their mouth, chewing and swallowing — which often means moving through textures faster later, and may mean skipping smooth blended food altogether.

If your baby was born prematurely, the NHS asks you to check with your health visitor or GP about when to start rather than counting from the birth date. Our weaning readiness checker walks through the three signs one at a time.

Sleep at 5 months

Still inside the NHS's three to six month band, which says only that fewer night feeds mean your baby may be able to sleep longer, and that some babies may sleep eight hours or longer at night but not all will. Short naps, waking at night and only settling in arms are all common at this age, and none of them appear in national guidance as problems to be fixed by a schedule.

The NHS frames the whole first two years as a moving target: as your baby grows their sleep pattern will change, and it can feel as though every time you have settled into a routine it changes again. Safe sleep is the part that does not move — our safe sleep guide has the full list, and it applies to naps as much as to nights.

Weight and growth at 5 months

There is no single average weight for a five-month-old, and a search result that gives one is usually quoting a mean without a spread. What matters is the line your baby is following on the centile chart in the red book, and whether they are following it. Our baby growth percentile calculator will place a measurement on the chart without producing a target to hit.

What is worth raising

The HSE's five-month prompts are short and specific: contact a GP or public health nurse if your baby does not chuckle or laugh, does not reach for objects, or loses skills they had before. Any concern about development is a reason to contact them; they may carry out more tests or refer your baby to a specialist.

When to get urgent help

For a baby aged three to six months, call 111 for a temperature of 39C or higher, or if you think they have a high temperature. Ring regardless of the reading if there are other signs of illness such as a rash, if feeding drops sharply, if wet nappies become far fewer, if your baby is unusually floppy or hard to wake, or if their breathing looks like hard work.