Did weaning help your DC to sleep better?

[YellowAndPinks]

I'm starting to wean our 6 month old DD and hoping it will help her sleep. Did it help any of you? What kind of foods if so?

[FartnissEverbeans]

No, sorry. It got a bit worse because he wasn’t eating enough calories at first so he woke more frequently than he had before. It got better though. Porridge before bed helped a bit.

[Yogurtcoveredricecake]

No, made it worse. He was up farting all night.

[Soubriquet]

It did for my dd who had colic. As soon as we introduced solids, her colic disappeared and she slept lovely

It made no change with our ds. He still woke up several times in the night

[Fatted]

No. My DC slept through before they were weaned.

[QuickRedFox]

No, it was the other way round with both. Sleeping better made them start eating properly.

[MancaroniCheese]

Sorry no, not with either of mine

[SparklesandFlowers]

Yes! It took a couple of weeks but since starting weaning DS has slept on average 6 hours in one go, up to 8 hours a few nights! Before that he was up anywhere between 3-8 times! So last night he gave me 11pm-4am, whereas previously he'd have woken up at least at 1:30am and maybe 2:30am as well.

Fingers crossed her sleep improves for you, OP! It's amazing how superhuman you feel when you suddenly get a better night's sleep!

[user1488622199]

Not for my 2 I’m afraid. Both are amazing eaters, shit sleepers.

[BertieBotts]

Nope. Still only getting 1-2 hour stretches at 11 months, unless he's in next to me when he might do 3-5 in one go. It's not hunger that wakes them but does seem to be correlated with breastfeeding in general. I do believe it's physiologically normal infant sleep though. Sorry!

[Kokeshi123]

No, no particular difference. Still waking about once a night at 8mo.

There is some evidence that EBF babies who start food at about 4mo tend to be better sleepers in the long run compared to those who start at 6mo however (this was based on a very large randomized control trial, by the way). The average difference between the two groups was small, but the group who started early were a lot less likely to be terrible sleepers as the months went on.

I suspect that starting small amounts of food subtly changes the parenting "style" by making mothers feel more confident about not breastfeeding every single time the baby wakes up ("She had some food this evening, she can't be hungry yet!"), which may reduce the chance that a baby develops a strong "suck to sleep" association.

Also, if you are planning on night weaning/sleep training, IMO sleep training is far more likely to work once the baby is eating a reasonable amount of food, in the case of a EBF-as long as they are overwhelmingly dependent on breastmilk, very few mothers are going to have the nerve to deny the breast when the baby cries, and you can't start giving a EBF baby water until they are taking some food, but if you cannot offer water in the night then you have no way to rehydrate them without the breast, so again, you will just end up caving and getting a breast out, and so night weaning/sleep training will probably simply not "work." So weaning is "helpful" as a step that will enable night weaning/sleep training, if you were planning on doing those things. On the other hand, if you were not planning on doing night weaning/sleep training, food will make no differenceI don't think the food in and of itself has much effect.

[Pineapplefish]

No, sorry, I was hoping it would but it didn’t make any difference!

[user1493413286]

It did coincide with my DDs sleep getting better but I think that was in part because I stopped her bottles in the night around that time. I think it was more coincidence though to be honest.

[Thegracefuloctopus]

Yes it helped ds loads. He had bad reflux so solids solved so many problems for us. We started with giving dinner which meant he was full at night time. He then went from 2 night wakings to 1... he still wakes for 1 and hes 9months (yes, im exhausted!)

[TinyMystery]

Not even remotely and he has always eaten like a horse. Teaching him to sleep without needing to breastfeed and therefor learning to self settle was what worked eventually.

[Tigger001]

Sorry another no here. It didn't make any difference at all. I think dome babies are just good sleepers and others not so much 💐

[UnaOfStormhold]

No,and nor did night weaning and stopping BF.

[ysmaem]

Nope, unfortunately. Sleeping patterns stayed exactly the same.

[georgialondon]

It made it much much worse!

[georgialondon]

She slept through before being weaned and stopped when she started eating!

[Littlebird88]

yes with my eldest 2 the guidelines were weaning at 14 to 16 weeks.
A weetabix mushed up before bed worked great.
I know guidelines change but thats what we were told then and for us it worked with settling

[Pippinsqueak]

We ve been weaning since 5 months, just hit six months, shes end and wasn't the best sleeper before, the last week she's reverted to sleeping like a new born :'(

[NigesFakeWalkingStick]

Nope, if anything it made him worse - he was farting constantly.

[mindutopia]

No, it usually makes it worse initially because the extra work of digestion disrupts their sleep. Beyond that, sleep between 6-12 months is often rubbish for lots of reasons, so it will get worse before it gets better no matter what you do, but no reason to rush into it getting worse!

[Teddyreddy]

Another no here, like others if anything it made it worse - and then teething hit.....

[TillyTheTiger]

Not here. DS could eat for England but he's still only slept through twice in his life and he's 3yo.