When did you start weaning? (Be honest)

[Littlebittasunshine]

My daughters 5 months & 1 week , exclusively breast fed and I'm trying to hold off as long as possible. But she struggles with sleep and doesnt nap anymore takes hours to fall asleep every night shes also sick quite a bit. I guess I'm sort of hoping that when weaning happens it'll suddenly become much easier but on probably wrong . I know the recommended is 6 months. Is a few weeks early so bad,?

Don't want to burst your bubble but I did mine at 5.5 months (because she was ready), made absolutely no difference in her sleeping at all as all their main calorie intake should come from breast milk/formula for the first year, food is just an learning/added bonus.

FYI everyone kept saying once my little one started eating/walking/going to childminder etc she ll start sleeping better. They were wrong, very wrong. 16 months later and I'm still 😴🥱😴🥱

I weaned at 4 months with my little boy as I felt weaning earlier was better than at 6 months I know this isn't what they recommend but did no harm and health visitor said it was fine as at the end of the day the chioce is mine x

I don't think solids will help that much with sleep I am afraid.

I began to wean DD (now 18 months) at 21 weeks so around 5 months. She could sit with minimum support and was grabbing at food off plates and trying to eat it.

If I’m honest I also did it because I was absolutely desperate for some sleep, she was also breastfed and was still waking 7/8 time’s a night! I tried introducing a bottle of formula before bed and that made no difference so I thought weaning would be the answer.

Made not one jot of difference, even once she was on 3 meals a day at 7/8 months

5 months but was advised by paediatrician to wean any time from 17 weeks (medicated for reflux). I waited until she was ready and it went really well. She was a good sleeper anyway but started sleeping through the same week (not sure it was related, just coincidence).

Started weaning at about 5months simply because he was trying to grab food off my plate and shovel it into his mouth, so I went with that. HV said thats fine & to go with along with him (iyswim)

Really early but I had a very Prem Baby and was advised I needed to as he had failure to thrive (god I hate that term).

she struggles with sleep and doesnt nap anymore takes hours to fall asleep every night
This issue will not be solved by weaning. A 5 month old is far too small not to nap during the day and by night she is probably really overtired which is why she takes a long time to fall asleep. I would advise looking at her sleep patterns and getting that fixed first.

5.5 months. Made sleep worse if anything!

5 months 3 weeks...we knew she was ready when I was eating a biscuit, she leaned over, grabbed it out of my hand and stuffed it in her mouth then made yummy noises!

DD had bad reflux, medication helped, so did weaning to a certain extent (although some foods made her worse like bananas). The biggest improvement for the reflux was when she learned to stand and she was upright a lot more.

A few weeks early isn't a problem if she is otherwise ready. However, it probably won't impact her sleep too much. Definitely look at other ways to improve her sleep as you may be disappointed if weaning doesn't help.

I weaned mine at about 5 months and they definitely had longer naps during the day which was a relief!

Think DS was about 5.5 months when I started giving him the odd thing to munch. Didn't properly start weaning him til 6 months though

My guy is just 5 months and is showing all the signs of being ready. He has a cows milk allergy so one of the things with allergies is to introduce other allergens early.
We have an appointment with his dietician early next week and plan on starting after that.
Agree with pp weaning does not mean more sleep. Also a baby that age shouldn't be going all day without a nap. Mine naps about 4-5 times a day ranging from 30 min to 2 hours. All babies vary but they need some sort of nap. If my guy is overtired ( like today) I let him nap on me then he will sleep for a couple of hours.

I weaned mine at 5.5 months. He’d been sitting up completely independently since 4.5 months and trying to grab food and eat it from then, but I held off because I wanted to follow the guidance. He was a terrible sleeper and it made NO difference to his sleep, even though he was a fantastic eater from the start.

Wean your child when they’re ready to eat solids, not when you want some more sleep.

Around 20 weeks as the advice used to be from 4 months (my DC1 is 14). Agree it doesn't help much with the sleeping as they have v small amounts of food to begin with.

About 5.5 months (although she snaffled some coleslaw off my plate a couple of weeks earlier). Agree that it's unlikely to change sleeping patterns.

6 months but she got a fever a few days after so left it 2 weeks after that to really start

5.5 months. Sleeping got worse!

Around 7 months with dd1 as we were due to go on holiday when she was just over 6 months, and didn't want to be worrying about safe foods (and the mess!) when abroad. With dd2, was advised to wean her slightly early as she was "small", but again we were due to go away when she was 5 and a half months, so waited until we got back, and she refused to eat anything until she was 8/9 months anyway. Did blw with both of them, and after a slow start with food, they're both great eaters now at 5 and 3.

6 months. Sleep got worse because she had (even worse) wind.

And yeah won't make a difference to sleep, if anything it can make it worse if they have stuff that upsets them, eat too much and it causes constipation, too much fruit/sweet veg and they can struggle to get to sleep etc. The only positive we found with weaning, was it finally helped our sicky babies be less sicky.

I'm starting at 5 months, HV has said this is fine. He sits on his own, is SO interested in food and he's a mahoosive baby. I believe it will help with his sleep a little (this is my 3rd so I am not wet behind the ears) as the reason he wakes at night is that he's so bloody hungry. So while it might not help initially hopefully by 6/7 months when he's on more/bigger meals we'll be a bit more settled.

18 weeks so 4 months on purées veg & fruit & some baby rice. Seems to love it. On 3 meals a day now 5 months.

Will add grains, fish and meat slowly at 6 months and do a mix of spoon feeding and finger foods. Did the same with my older DC, but I have big babies and they both sit ok early on. Probably get a bit longer stretch at bedtime since having dinner, but still plenty of wake ups and short cat naps. Current Dc seems to have a timer on when it's meal times, I'm not a routine person, but she is for food ( not naps)

Attempted more than once at 6 months but his body just wasn't ready for it. Poor little man got awful constipation and was in a lot of discomfort. I held off for a month or two before starting again and introduced one food at a time, and he gradually built up to regular meals (not 3 a day) around 9mo. He's now 13mo and has been having 3 meals a day plus snacks for a long while. I'm glad I went against health visitors advice to continue despite the problems it was causing him. He was ready for weaning in his own time.