Should I feed 6 month old (solids) in the night???

[singsong]

I can?t believe I?m asking this as it?s not something I would have previously considered but now I?m getting desperate. 6 month old ds has a good appetite. He is weaned onto 3 meals a day and of course still continues his regular milk feeds. He has never slept completely through the night although previously he has been a good sleeper, waking at around 4 am for milk and then settling back off for another few hours. Now at 4 (or sometimes even earlier) he still has milk, settles only for about half hour then has more milk, then is still not really contented and is agitated on and off until I get up and feed him breakfast. After breakfast he is ready to sleep again! This morning I did give up by 6 am and went downstairs and fetched him breakfast which he ate in the bedroom and then went back to sleep for 2 hours. I am wondering whether it would end up being less hassle to feed him some porridge in the night when he won?t settle but I really didn?t want him to start thinking this is a normal part of routine and for it to carry on for years! Has anyone else had any similar problem and any advice on how to deal with it would be appreciated.

I personally wouldn't start giving solids at night because it may well become a habit thats hard to break. How late does your ds have his tea and what does he have? Try giving him mainly carbohydrates that release energy slowly. My dd has been an early waker since birth pretty much. She used to always wake at 4am and be difficult to settle. I try to avoid getting her up before 6.30am and use a dummy to settle her (she does sometimes end up in our bed when she won't go back to sleep). She tends to sleep fairly well until around 6am now (she's 7 months). I suspect you may get even more night waking if you start feeding solids then but I may be wrong as they are all individuals.

i think this happens a lot with 5/6mth olds
its a phase that passes as quick as it starts

just carry on as you are. i know its hard, but itll pass. stick to normal mealtimes, offer baby plenty of milk at the 4am time, til ds is full to burst

maybe you could take him in beside you at this point and he will fall asleep again?

i used to do that, and i slept but dd didnt sometimes on the couch sometimes in my bed

good luck

just to say, im no expert, i only speak from my own experiences, i have alot of sympathy with mothers of early risers though

my dds were extremely early, now they are 5 and 3 they sleep really well

I wouldn't, simply because I wouldn't encourage a toddler to get up and eat a meal, so I wouldn't expect a baby to do it.

TBH, doing anything but giving a quiet, uncommunicative feed in a dark room at that hour will just reinforce the waking habit. It will stop being a pitstop for food and become a fun time to spend with mum. You'd be mad to, imo.

He'll grow out of the waking for food, which I've read shouldn't be considered a problem until after 9 months. (From Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr Marc Weissbluth).

How about giving him some porridge or weetabix before he goes to bed? My Ds's are now nearly 11 and 8 so it has obviously been a long time since I have done any of this, but I am sure it couldn't do any harm to try?

oh thats a good idea bella

my dd s still have a supper before bed.

I had a similar problem - but stuck to my guns ! Was quite hard work. DS slept through the night completely from about 9 weeks - and from 5 weeks was having one feed during the night (actually, at 5 weeks, he had one feed at around 10pm, so I didn't count it cos I was still up ! And the other one around 3am ish). THought I'd cracked it and everything was great !!!! Then he got to about 5 months !!!! Decided to wake up for food in the night - despite being on 3 meals a day etc. Basically, didn't feed him at all at night, but gave him either Weetabix or Porridge before bed. He'd have tea around 4.30 at nursery, then I'd give him Weetabix about 6.15pm and a bottle after his bath at about 7.15pm (his milk intake on the last bottle did decrease most days - although some days he finished the lot !!!) Then, when he woke up in the night, I gave him some cooled boiled water. It only took 3 nights for him to stop waking up. We have the same routine now before bed, and he never wakes up for feeding in the night (that's not to say he never wakes up at night !) He's now 16 mo.
Good luck.

Thanks everyone. Yes I really don't want to get him into bad habbits. I think in my 'sane' daytime mind I know it's a bad thing to start, it's just something I think about in the night when I'm really not that with it! Starlight my LO seems to do nothing but eat during the day, it's milk/food/milk/food alternating. Each meal he is fed until full. But I think maybe increasing the calories in the daytime meals could help -I will try the idea of more carbs. And sounds like a good idea to try to get a bit of porridge/weetabix in him before bed.

we used to use that powdered baby rice stuff (in holland and not sure what the uk equivalent is). We added 2 spoons to the last milk and used a teat with a bigger hole so he could suck the slightly thickened milk through it...worked a treat

hoarsewhisperer that is not recommended in UK, choking hazard.

The thing that I did that helped was change my DD's meals around. When she went on solids I was giving her Breakfast at 7.00, Milk feed at 9.00, Lunch at 11.00, Milk feed at 13.00, Tea at 15.00 pm, then milk feed before bed. As she got established on solids I started to give her a fairly hefty snack at 15.00 and gave her her proper (large!) evening meal at 17.30 - 18.30 pm, then last milk feed at about 20.00 pm and bed. Within a few weeks she was settling and sleeping a lot better at night but this was after about 9 months when she was properly established on solids. More food during the day is the key I think.

Thanks ALMummy I think you're right -more food in the day. I'll be getting as much into him as I can. And I guess as he is only 6 months I will have to wait a while before he becomes more established with solids.
hoarsewhisperer I've heard of the baby rice in bottle method being used before, I think it was quite common in my mothers generation from what she has said but they do advise against it here now. In anycase I'm breastfeeding so may be a bit difficult to squeeze the rice in

common to have a blip, I think. Can you make sure he ahs a good feed last thing at night. Until a year milk is still the main source of nutrition so you may not need to rush solids as it won't necessarily fill him up any more.