wahhh! too tired to think up feeding plan, 24 wk old, ds2, ideas?

[bright0nmama]

Would love advice and insights from all of you with more wisdom, sleep, experience and good humour than me right now... My ds2 has morphed from dream sleeper to awake-all-nighter over the last couple of months. He's small for his age (last time I weighed him he was in the 9th percentile -- that was a couple of months ago, he was born in the 50th). I've exclusively breastfed him up till now. He's a sunny and happy little chap usually so although I am no gusher, I figured he's taken what he's needed. Ds1 was humungous and I breastfed till 18 months. We did the whole baby-weaning thing with him, but with this guy I'm close to getting him onto formula, or mountains of baby rice, asap.

Questions:
-He's got 2 weeks till he hits the 6 month mark -- do these two weeks really make a difference in terms of eating solids, esp gluten (we are in France right now and he's been eyeing baguettes almost as much as I've been inhaling them).
-The French have no baby rice. They have 'soup in a bottle' which I'm not into, conceptually. I can't remember the pros and cons of baby rice -- ie should I bulk order from Amazon?
-What other tricks to get him to go back to sleep without boob at night, quietly? I confess I was all about CIO for a bit, but the house we're renting has the thinnest walls and there are too many other people he could wake up. I've really tried to get him to take a dummy but he is not interested. Positively refuses. Turns his head and protests.
-Any other suggestions to break the cycle? It feels as though I got a free upgrade to business class at the start of this journey, and now I've been relegated to economy. Or the place where they stash the suitcases. I feel as though I've read everything a thousand times and now I am just lost and wide eyed and staring into the abyss of not knowing anything or remembering anything and utterly incapable of making any decisions

THANKS!

You will get some people who say waiting to 6 months is vitally important, gut perforations and all that, but I don't think much bad will come of weaning him at 5.5 months instead of 6 months. The advice is to hold of gluten until 6 months, I definitely wouldn't if there are any coeliacs or gluten intolerance in your family. I started my DS at a similar time but to be honest I wish I hadn't bothered, because as I'm sure you remember the amounts they have at that age are miniscule and my DS only properly got interested in real food around 9 months.
I remember that the only weaning food with more calories than breast milk is avocado, so it's misleading to think that babies this age are not satisfied on milk alone. I definitely remember that because their sleep usually gets worse some time around 4 months-ish it's common for people to assume that it's because they're hungry, when really it's because their sleep cycles completely change as they get out of the newborn phase. Not sure if that's helpful to you but I remember finding it interesting!
IMO it can be misleading the whole "baby getting interested in food" thing. Of course babies are interested in what their parents are doing, and babies that age love to chew, and they might even like the taste, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are hungry for food IYSWIM.
The main argument against baby rice is that it's not got a lot of nutrition in it compared to fruit and veg, but it isn't poison. If you wait until 6 months then he can have oat porridge, which is better nutritionally.
Can't help you with the going to sleep without boob question, my one year old still does that.

IMO baby rice is crap. Will fill him up for no calories or nutrition so if you are worried about his weight, definitely steer clear.
I went for baby-led weaning as it's the ultimate lazy method. Sit him on your knee and let him grab what he wants! At this age most will end up on the floor anyway! I started DD on chunky-chip sticks of carrot and similar at about the same age. She felt like part of things, but wasn't actually eating until well over 6 months.
The sleeping thing: we are just working on this at 16months!

Are there health visitors there you could consult about his weight? Is dropping fro 50th percentile to 9th normal? Not to scaremonger, I really don't know, but it sounds a big drop.

Thank you all of you! @whatsgoingoneh I know! I have been worried about it but my (lovely) health visitor (and her various colleagues who I harangued no end too) were all v relaxed about it and just told me to keep on breastfeeding and not worry. So I'm not actively worrying but I'm also aware that I am willing to feed him a lot more often than I might if he were colossal like his bro -- in other words I'm a total sucker for planting him on boob at night.

Thank you for all weaning comments too. I've forgotten everything since ds1 (who is nearly 5) so this is great. Will get ready to roll with baby weaning. And meantime might get som formula for occasional top ups... Does that really work to get them to sleep longer at night??

I am afraid that no, formula milk does not necessarily = longer night sleeps, sadly.

Plough on you're doing great.

Thank you @donkeyoaty your last line was just what I needed to hear... !

I wouldn't bother with baby rice- I think it's only really used to make very sloppy fruit purees thicker isn't it?...and I'd be decidedly about "soup in a bottle" but I suppose French babies get on ok! I doubt very much 2 weeks makes any difference whatsoever but I'm a stickler for rules (weaned ds 3 days early and agonised about it!) so I'd wait a week then wean.
We did what I think would be described as "traditional weaning" (as opposed to BLW or purees) so I spoon fed anything I'd eat with a spoon and let him pick up chunks of everything else and didn't puree anything. He had everything except honey and choking hazard stuff straight away-fish pie slightly mashed up was a favourite.
We had a cracking sleeper (slept through at 12 weeks) who deteriorated into a up-every-90-minutes-er at 7 months. I think it was a developmental thing to begin with as it coincided with him crawling/pulling up etc and then became habit. I was broken by 11 months so we night weaned followed by cc-he's slept through ever since (he's 21 months now). I stopped bf at 6.5 months so f didn't help him sleep but in general I reckon it does help- it certainly helps my dd who's 11 weeks and has 1 bedtime bottle a day. It could be worth a try??? What have you got to lose?

I think 6-12 months is a nightmare sleep time-it sounds like you're doing really well!

Thank you everyone. Tonight's update: hé slept un a piecemeal way all day. Tried a tiny bit of French (non soup) formula on him at lunch for first time. I felt weird; he wolfed it down. So gave him some more at night before bf in the vain hope he'd sleep through. He's been up on and off since 9:30 so, er, no luck there. And now he's back on the boob and I'm making mental notes to sort out his daytime naps to make them a lot less random than they currently are...