to wonder if the 4 month sleep regression is due to the advice to delay weaning till 6 months?

[Fairylea]

Genuine question.

For the record I am not planning to wean ds until 6months.

When I had dd 9 years ago there was no mention of a sleep regression at 4 months. Or if there was it wasnt widely acknowledged or talked of.

Standard advice was to wean at 4months and if a baby who had previously been sleeping through started waking during the night then this was a sign to wean.

Now all the advice says 6 months (I understand and have read the advice) but everyone seems to talk of this 4 month sleep regression which just wasn't mentioned much when the guidelines were wean at 4 months.... coincidence??

Just curious really. My ds has gone from sleeping 6 to 5 most nights to now waking at 1, 3 and 4 for feeding (formula). Ten years ago the advice would be to wean. I'm not going to but I find the ever changing advice difficult.

We co-slept for about 4 months from this point. This was after making a point of always starting him in his cot (unless things absolutely went pear-shaped).

I agree with those who've said that weaning didn't help their babies to sleep. Mine's a year and he's still plodding along in his own little time. He's slept through a total of I think 6 times since being born. On most of those occasions he was ill.

My ds didn't sleep through till he was about 2 years old, I weaned him quite a bit before that

pilchard the WHO based that guideline on research largely done in the third world.

studies in the UK and Europe have not shown negative effects - or benefits - in weaning between 17 - 26 weeks

so when the WHO guideline was adopted in this country, it was not as an upshot of new evidence.

I thought people mistakenly thought the sleep regression was a hunger thing and so weaned early when in fact it is to do with brain development and sleeping patterns changing and so weaning doesn't do much at all to alter sleep at 4 mo.

DS had first solids just before six months as had reflux. I had great hopes as he was a shit sleeper. His reflux improved a bit but he remained a shit sleeper until he was 17.5 months old.

I weaned ds1 at about 4 months who slept great.weaned ds2 at around the same age he never slept no matter what you did.
Ds3,4,5 weaned arouned the 6 month mark but its the guidelines now to do that.They are great sleepers i think weaning is more to do with babies being able to swallow better rather than sleep.
Ds1 is 17 and ds 2 is 16,ds3 is 4/12,ds4 is 2/12 and ds5 is 16 months.
I dontk know what to advise but trust your instinct.

" My HV told me the BS about WHO guidelines being for 'African babies' which apparently are very different to the European variety"

even if the populations had identical features (which i would doubt, given the vast difference in parental nutrition) - the situations they are in are very different.

we have clean running water and electricity in (almost) every home - that makes a huge difference.

tea if you notice, Kellymom puts the calorie value of baby rice at about the same as BM, but if you look, they are counting that as mixed with water which would b against the instruction to mix it with baby's usual milk...

avocado v. calorific but some babies just don't like it!

linky do

"4 No evidence of harm in early weaning
In developed countries there are no reported disadvantages to beginning weaning onto solid foods between 4 and 6 months compared with waiting until 6 months"

sorry tea linky was for pilchards

WHO guidelines are based on global population studies though, they are not aimed at the third world in particular.

My DS is 7 months and stopped sleeping through at about 4.5 months. Weaning did not help him sleep through again at all. But he has now started slowly to make progress back towards it.

sorry, I havent got the links but I have read them myself (not hearsay) - yes it is the WORLD health organisation, which is why it is considering the needs of disadvantaged citizens of the world when it wishes to make an advisory statement for all world citizens about breastfeeding.

The message I took from it all was that it isnt babies as such which need to avoid weaning at 4 months, it is babies in third world conditions (and I would guess some other categories eg allergies in family, I cant remember) who need to avoid it as weaning introduces more dangers to them (ie lack of nutrition and hygiene) ,whereas these dangers are absent in the West.

And before assuming that I am anti breastfeeding or some such, I am not. I breastfed my babies for between 12 months and 24 months each. But I am very much PRO women informing themselves and taking as much responsibility as possible for their own choices.

To be honest, breastfeeding support strategies from the midwifery profession and sadly lacking and failing - a stint on a newborn ward will tell you that.

There is no evidence that babies benefit from early weaning and there is some evidence that the risk of developing allergies and other digestive issues is reduced if babies are weaned at 6mo. The WHO are able to issue different advise for different regions, but the weaning guidelines draw on studies from all over the world. Of course some children are ready sooner and some later, but to say that WHO guidelines are more applicable to poor countries is not evidence based, which is why I was so annoyed that a health professional gave me it as advice. I really wish that HV advice was based on good evidence, not on their own gut instincts.

"to say that WHO guidelines are more applicable to poor countries is not evidence based,"

well, you have to be sure the evidence you are using is relevant to the population you are using it for - so a guideline based on, say, 15 studies, where 7 of those were done in the third world (it is something like this, can't find the page i got the specifics from but am sure you can if you google)- isn't necessarily applicable to the first world.

where another body does research only in the first world, and does'nt find harm after 17 weeks - that would surely be more relevant ?

the evidence on allergies is so conflicted that really, that one could go either way - in favour of, or against earlier weaning.

Let's see what the EAT study comes up with on that one :)

do you know what, i really really cant stand it when people or organisations in positions that others look up to willfully or neglectfully deceive the common masses, i really hate that.

just look at all the weaning threads like this, loads of them, with 1000s of intelligent people having been mislead on this matter.

IME babies are shit sleepers end of

I could have given mine roast beef and Yorkshires at 6w and they still would have woken a million times a night

catstail yes, i think that Kellymom is a bit disingenous on that listing, and also I am tired of saying on these threads that there is no known harm in weaning in this country after 17 weeks.

yet it is still true.

of course the WHO could also clarify its position.

This has just reminded me of something my GP told me that I'd forgotten about until now.... She discussing weaning with her, she said one of the main reasons for saying 6 months is that people will typically always wean earlier than the advice, so by saying 6, lots of people will start at 4, which isn't a problem. When they said 4, lots if people started at 2, which is a problem. Irritates the hell out of me. Why don't they just say 4, but absolutely not before and the reasons why?? I personally didn't find weaning made any difference to sleep though.....

I actually kind of agree with the OP, based on my sample of my 3 children [purely anecdotal of course].
They were all started on solids between the ages of 3-4 months, all slept through at a few weeks old and none of them had a 4 month sleep regression. In fact I had never heard of such a thing until I came onto Mumsnet a couple of years ago.
If they did wake up on occassions it was usually due to teething or illness.

So am I harming my LO by waiting till 6 months?

My DDs both woke 3-4 times a night until weaned and gradually dropped night feeds as food intake increased. Both sleeping 11 hours a night by 2 months after starting weaning, by the time they were on 3 meals a day.

DD1 started weaning at 17 weeks (advised to due to reflux and it was like a miracle) and DD2 at nearly 6 months.

Anecdotal for sure but my little sample of two both started sleeping all night once weaned.

My two never had sleep regression as they fed a lot at night from birth.

there is absolutely no evidence of harm in waiting until six months.
there is no evidence of harm in starting at 17 weeks either.

(assuming term babies, in good health etc etc)

Interesting OP. I weaned DD at 4 months at the advice of her pediatrician and there was no sleep regression. In fact, she started sleeping through at this time because the other brilliant advice she gave us was to sleep-train her.

It was obvious to me that a more solid food than milk would keep baby satisfied longer, so I began giving my daughter solid - puree- food before bedtime at 10pm - my friend started at 6 weeks on solids - for me it worked that first night and she slept right through at 2 months. I had no more trouble until a phase she went through at 10 months old, when she woke at midnight for an hour to play, but only lasted a week or two.

Let's just hope you don't pay for that sleep in later life.

I'm still waiting to be convinced, in respect of my baby, that a full belly of solids makes a difference to his sleep. He's a year and I just don't see the pattern. We baby-led wean so there just wasn't a question of starting before 6 months. Besides which, he only started to take an interest in food from 5&3/4 months.

What you have is a toddler, not a baby. If he is still waking up in the night, that is pure habit. It is possible to break that habit, but you can also just wait for him to decide to sleep through on his own.