Starting Solids?

[1nceUponATime]

I posted a while ago about my baby (currently 4 and a half months) possibly going through a 4 month regression. She is EBF and only gets pumped milk during three days of daycare a week. Shortly before Christmas her sleeping habits deteriorated.... she's always been slightly hard to settle/needs comfort when wakes up.... but before Christmas she would give me a 5-6 hour stretch at night.... she has deteriorated into every two hours maximum !! And there's usually an hour long + period I spend trying to put her down that results in multiple nursing sessions.... I nurse her to sleep every time.

I didn't know whether to post this here or in the regular baby forum.... at her 4 month appointment the dr said I could start her on solids any time. Everything I've read says to wait 6 months before starting solids and I'm desperately trying to make it there. She has become distractable during the daytime hours while nursing.... she pops off to check any noise out or look at the lights or dogs or tv or anything. Is she not getting enough? Should I start her on solids now, to see if it makes her fuller at night? Or is this simply part of a four month regression?

Annnny advice is appreciated!

 

[staralfur]

Solids won't make her more full or improve her sleep unfortunately. Milk has way more calories and nutrition than any solid food you'd be giving her to start out with. If anything, I've seen people complain that weaning makes sleep worse for that reason.

My LO went through very distractable phases quite a few times. Their awareness is always changing and as they start to develop and learn how to sort and understand different things going on around them they tend to want to focus more on that. My LO's worst phase for sleep and not staying on the boob for more than five seconds without getting distracted was at 8 months when she was eating some solids, so that was definitely not a factor in my experience.

Hang in there, it will get better... and then probably worse again at some point, too. It's the nature of babies and children, things aren't always linear, especially sleep!

 

[noon_child]

she has deteriorated into every two hours maximum !!...

She has become distractable during the daytime hours while nursing.... she pops off to check any noise out or look at the lights or dogs or tv or anything...

These sound like absolutely classic developmental stages that are totally normal and not indicative of any problem with feeding method. At that age we'd never had more than about 3hrs between feeds anyway and when the sleep regression hit we had to take it in turns to hold her for the first 5hrs of the night for her to get any sleep at all, otherwise she'd wake every 30minutes or so. Luckily it passed within 2-3 weeks for us. The distracted nursing phase probably started at around 14-15 weeks and all I could do was persevere and where possible try nursing in a distraction free zone. There wasn't a single point where it suddenly stopped, it just slowly resolved when she started to get used to things as "normal" parts of her environment rather than "amazing new discoveries never seen my man!".

I personally don't think weaning will make any difference as these are such well documented developmental stages unconnected to nutrition. Weaning is also soooooooooo much easier at 6months IMO. Even if there was evidence that she wasn't getting enough nutrients (weight loss, lack of wet nappies etc.) I think adding more pumped milk or formula would be a better bet than food; as pp said they don't get much nutrition from food at first whereas breastmilk/formula is a complete food.

 

[1nceUponATime]

everyone around me in real life seems to think it's because I don't bottle feed her and shove a bunch of rice cereal in there, which is a big no no now adays. They just don't seem to get it.

She definitely is a nosey girl lol I love it... she notices the dogs and laughs at them now... like hey they been there all along and you are just seeing them! It's fun watching her see things for the first time, I just wish she had the same concentration she use to have lol I could try feeding her some pumped milk on a spoon at night to get some extra calories in. We've been spoon feeding her vitamin d supplement at night and she takes to it pretty well. She holds my hand while I spoon feed it to her lol

I just feel like sleep deprivation is really starting to hurt now.... especially since I'm working now, and she gave me a taste of what it was like to have some sleep back. And it feels like nothing I have done helps her. I'm too scared to sleep with her in my bed, and I don't give her bottles when I'm there so it just leaves me sleepless.

 

[Teri7489]

My son didn't go through a sleep regression but went through a few growth spurts. He used to get to a stage of being too hungry to sleep but too tired to eat. Although breastfed I introduced a dream feed of formula just before I went to bed. It worked great and he slept 8-6 at 4 months old (with a 11pm dream feed) maybe worth a try? I found weaning made no difference to his sleep at all and we started at 6.5 months c

 

[jessmke]

My daughter was a terrible sleeper and I would nurse her back to sleep every time she woke. Starting her on solids didn't change her sleep habits in the slightest.

 

[1nceUponATime]

Thanks guys