Is my baby ready to be weaned?

[Zed99]

I'll start by saying he is a very content baby, easy and was sleeping through the night up until about 2 weeks ago. Since then he's decided sleep is for loosers and is waking several times in the night. I've tried lots of things like different grobags, white noise a Dummy etc but he's waking more and more frequently and eating more. He's gone from 6 8oz bottles to 8 8oz bottles.
He is a very big baby. Health visitor isn't concerned with his size, his daddy is super tall and he's following his centile line nicely from birth. They said he's just a chunk.

I'm just wondering if he's potentially ready to go on to solids. He can sit unaided, has great hand/eye coordination so can pick things up and put them in his mouth. He is also very interested in food. He tries to steal things from me when I'm eating.

If its a case of waiting another 4 weeks I will certainly do that but the sleep deprivation is killing me at the mo. I can't really nap during the day as my older children need taking care of so if I could sort his night waking that would be great
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Weaning ( early I assume) won’t help him sleep at night.

Has he lost the tongue thrust reflex and is he at least 5 months? If yes then you could start and take it slow which is what I did with DC1, or rather she did it herself by going for some mash that was within grabbing distance. I wouldn’t expect miracles with sleep though- a few spoons of puréed carrot or whatever isn’t a significant amount of calories.

You didn’t say what age the baby is. Weaning does not have anything to do with sleep or staring at food. They stare at your car keys, too, doesn’t mean they’re ready to drive. Weaning before their gut is ready can cause lifelong bad guts (hello IBS in your thirties), follow peer reviewed data.

Weaning made my two's sleep worsen. They both had terrible wind at night!

Sleep deprivation is horrific (I've been up since 5.15am so for us) but food might not be the magic potion unfortunately.

It’s up to you when you wean and nobody is going to tell you it’s categorically fine to start before 6 months, as that’s just not the advice. Just to note though, sleep got worse for us on introducing food at 6 months, not better. Wether the two are linked, I don’t know - it was all pretty bad from 4-9 months! But I can’t see tiny amounts of whole/puréed broccoli or banana (for example) filling them up so they sleep through. They are far less calorie dense then milk. Maybe something stodgy like baby porridge would, I never tried.

I’m going to against the grain here but if you feel he is ready then you can give it a try.

I weaned my first before 6month, I spoke to health visitor before and she said 6month is the golden number but you can wean early as long as you avoid introducing gluten before 6 month. I started him off with just a few spoonfuls of gluten free porridge for brekkie then after a few weeks I added a few spoonfuls of veg at dinner time. From 6month I started to introduce finger foods and then did a mix of purée and finger foods.

My one is coming up 5 month (also big baby on the 91st lines for weight and height) and is having milk only and doing well so I think I will hold off until 6month this time but they are all different, if you feel he’s ready then have a chat with health visitor and go from there.

How old? And gave you tried hungry baby milk that was better for my ds but dd barely finished a 5oz bottle so had normal. I weaned both mine from 4months altho midwife advice is 6 months I think.

Why do people make posts like this and omit something as basic as the age of the baby.

Poster, I don't think weaning helps sleep. Follow the guidelines.

Dd’s sleep got much much worse around the time we weaned her.

It made no difference to ds’s sleep - he was dreadful both before and after weaning. (He likes to be consistent!)

Don’t wean in the hope that it will improve sleep!

@Ivyonafence the OP baby is 5 months. The OP mentions waiting 4 more weeks to start weaning.

I found it was improved sleep that cracked eating properly, not the other way around.

@Ivyonafence I am literally surviving on 3 hours sleep a night. I'm very sorry for my accidental omission.

@RedWingBoots you have correctly deduced that my baby is 5 months old but only just.

I already have a condition in my guts so I'll probs hold off till 6 months if there's a chance he could get ibs in later life as a result of eating food too soon.
Thank you for the helpful replies.

Milk is very calorie and nutritionally dense op, much more so than whichever foods you'd introduce for early weaning. Your baby is a gorgeous big chunk because of the milk. Lots of parents think that their baby isn't sleeping well at night because of hunger, but this is rarely the case. Sleep is usually developmental. The foods you would offer your baby as weaning foods wouldn't fill your baby up more than the milk to the point that they'd stop waking at night. Weaning rarely solves sleep problems, unless a baby was previously suffering from reflux.

How often is your baby waking op? Could baby be having growth spurt or teething?

How often

@Somethingsnappy

Milk is very calorie and nutritionally dense op, much more so than whichever foods you'd introduce for early weaning. Your baby is a gorgeous big chunk because of the milk. Lots of parents think that their baby isn't sleeping well at night because of hunger, but this is rarely the case. Sleep is usually developmental. The foods you would offer your baby as weaning foods wouldn't fill your baby up more than the milk to the point that they'd stop waking at night. Weaning rarely solves sleep problems, unless a baby was previously suffering from reflux.

How often is your baby waking op? Could baby be having growth spurt or teething?

How often

This! Weaning is very unlikely to improve sleep. DD definitely slept worse while making the transition to solids - it’s a lot for their new little bowels to get used to, and it often disturbs sleep. I’m sending solidarity hugs though OP, because DD didn’t sleep at all at your DS’s age, so I know exactly how you feel - it’s horrific. The only thing that helped unfortunately was time

Unfortunately weaning doesn't help with night wakening much to my disappointment. My boy slept soundly 12 hours a night until around 5.5 months. We weaned at 6 months and it's made no difference unfortunately. In fact sorry to be the barer of bad news but his sleep has got worse😅and he eats more than ever. He was up every hour last night💤😴

@Zed99

Sleep...if only eh!!

Sadly as others have said, weaning leads to worse, not better, sleep.

A lot of the now adults, that were weaned early at 3-4 months have Gastro issues, but a lot of people don't realise the issues their adult children suffer are due to early weaning. It's best not to.

Plus milk is incredibly calorie dense, so if you think he's waking because he's hungry, another bottle would help more than him swapping milk out for gnawed on food!

This age can be quite bad for sleep.

FWIW I weaned my eldest at 4 months (medical need) and he didn't sleep better for it. My youngest started weaning herself at 5 months (stole food off my plate and ate it) and still had a bad sleep period at 6 months.

She was a huge baby too. 9lb3 at birth and unlike her brother never lost an oz. She was huge by 5 months and I remember HVs not believing she was breastfed. She could sit unaided at 5 months too. I think she was ready which was why she did it herself. For a while before we'd had her sat in her high chair at mealtimes watching us. I guess she just felt she was ready.