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Breastfeeding
Starting Rice Cereal
DD is just over three months old, EBF to date, and we're thinking about starting her on cereal, just a little to help her sleep better at night. Its not so bad when she gets up once or twice a night, but she occassionally wakes up four-five times and that is no fun! Has anyone else started cereal yet? Any advice? Did it affect BFing (pros or cons)? TIA ladies!
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Re: Starting Rice Cereal
DD is a little over 5 months and we're holding off starting rice cereal until she's 6 months. You should do what you think is right for your family, but I wanted to point out a couple of things:
While people tell you to start solids so your kid will sleep through the night, I read that no studies have shown that starting solids made babies sleep longer.
Also, I know it's hard when a baby wakes up that often at night. If she's getting 8 good feedings during the day, it's very likely that she's not waking up for the calories. You might try some other things to help her sleep. DD went through a period when she got in the habit of waking up every 2 hours even though she was eating fine - and she always woke at 1am and 3am. Some things that helped: swaddling; rocking when she woke up (she cried for a few minutes while I rocked her because she wanted to eat instead but then stopped waking up at that time after that); if she wakes up consistently at 1am, go in at 12:15 and don't wake her, but take her out of deep sleep - it might just change the sleep pattern (our ped told us this and it worked too).
Basically, I think it might be a good idea to focus on the sleep instead of the food and see if it changes at all. Then if it's not, think about solids. I hope you get some rest soon!
I usually feed her right when she wakes up, but tonight I'll try rocking her a bit. She doesn't take a paci, and we do swaddler her...
She usually only gets up once, twice at most, a night; but there's always one night a week where she's up constantly.
The pedi said anytime after three months, but I need to research more. A lot of the feedback that I got today said solids don't help with sleeping. So I think we'll hold off a bit longer. Thank you for the help ladies, appreciate it!
Can't wait to meet my baby boy!
We started A on oatmeal at 4.5 months. He gets 1 tablespoon mixed with 2 tablespoons of BM. It did not help him sleep longer at night, and he still eats the same amount of BM (I EP, so I know exactly how much he eats) daily.
We started some w/ Buffy at 4.5/5 months...
and yeah, no changes in STTN. The peole who told us it woudl change were lying, the studies which said no difference were telling the truth, whoda thunk? :-P
info:
https://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/solids-when.html
No solids for us until 6 months.
DS started sleeping 10 hours at 4.5 months.
A baby wakes up after 4 or 5 hours at night. It is just part of having a baby.