Did solids help/hurt with sleep?

SBear12

I'm sure this has been asked before, so I apologize in advance!

Did starting solids affect your baby's night-time sleep? Lyla is not quite 5 months and EBF, so we haven't started solids yet. She's up every hour to eat, all night long... people keep telling me to either let her cry it out (which I'm not ready to do right now) or try solids. She's in the 75th %ile for weight, so doing fine on just breastmilk. She's hungry a lot though, every 2 hours all day.

Just curious what other people's experiences have been?

Tinsleigh75

i tried solids when DS was about your DD's age because i was *hoping* it would help him sleep. ?i think it actually made things worse at that time because it upset his tummy.

he really wasn't ready, either. ?he pretty much just pushed it all back out with his tongue.?

so after about three days of rice cereal, i stopped and started back with him after he turned 6 months. ?it went a lot better then - he was definitely ready at that point.

clayswife

solids didn't change DSs sleep one bit.  He was still waking every couple of hours to eat.

IckyThump

Solids had absolutely no effect on DS's sleeping habits. He was up 2-4 times a night before, and was still waking up that much until we started Ferber a month ago.

Amy Schramm

It helped. ?He STTN shortly after starting solids. ?He was a big baby, 90-95% height and weight and I think it made a difference for him. ?He was hungry 3-4 times/night and now sleeps from 7:30 pm to 5 amish and then gets a bottle and goes back to sleep til 8 or so. ?

Temp174496125006552

Solids didn't have any impact on his sleep.

blackphoenix

I asked this very question a while back and you wouldn't believe the amount of flames I got.  We started solids when DS was four months, after getting the go ahead from the pedi, and also making sure DS was ready.  (He was showing all the signs that he was ready for something "more")  With us, it helped.  He started STTN within days of trying the food.  But that was our baby.  Most people say it makes things worse, in our case it made things better. 

SBear12

This is really helpful, thanks so much.

I don't know if she's "ready" yet. She's 16 lbs, good head-control, no family allergies, etc... but doing great on just breastmilk (other than eating often). The pedi said it was totally up to us, but I told him we'd prefer to wait until 6 months. Partly because it's cold/flu season, so we want her to be getting as many EBM antibodies as possible, and I don't want to screw things up with BFing. So we're definitely not in a rush... I just keep hearing the "start solids and she'll sleep better" advice, and it made me curious about other people's experiences.

So keep it coming... thanks again!

madison

Solids didn't make a difference for us sleep-wise, and we started when DS was 5 months. What helped with sleep, though, was Ferber. Highly suggest reading the book.

Skipperg82

If she's up every hour to nurse at night, it sounds like more of a sleeping issue than an eating one...my baby did this too and once we solved his sleeping issue, he STTN and this is before starting solids. I think it is a myth that babies sleep better once they start solids - most of the time when babies are at the age when they are ready for solids, they are at a certain weight/can hold more food/more developmentally advanced and that is why they STTN... We did sleep training with Baby Whisperer and it was really wonderful! It sounds like your baby could be ready to start solids, although I would try to tackle the sleeping issue by maybe starting sleep training (BW is anti-CIO if you're not comfortable letting her cry) and seeing if that helps before jumping into the solids thing...couldn't hurt to try!

smacb

solids made sleep worse.  If he's not constipated, he's gassy