Will baby rice help 4.5mo dd sleep longer between feeds?

[chillichill]

4.5mo dd is ebf. she wakes every 2-3 hours through the night for feeds, and that's on a good night. I can live with that, for now.
this past week it has been every 1-2 hours and its really taking its toll. plus, she was going back to sleep pretty effortlessly but now needs a lot of help to settle back to sleep.
I know that teething and 4mo sleep regression can be part of the fussiness and difficulty getting back to sleep but the frequent feedings have been going on forever and I need more sleep.
sooooo... anyone have luck with baby rice? I don't intened to try till the end of the month when she's 5mo but should I even bother? if it won't help her sleep a bit longer then I might as well wait till she's 6mo.

No. No link between solids and better sleep at all. In fact it often makes them worse.

Introduce solids when your dd is sitting comfortably and holding her head up happily while sitting, has lost her tongue thrust reflex, can focus on, pick up and put to her mouth/chew food.

The 4 month sleep regression/developmental spurt is a toughie.

It probably will, yes. Those of us with older children who were told to wean at 16w will tell you to go ahead. Those newer mums who have been told 24w will tell you no. Those who call solid food baby led weaning will tell you no baby rice. But babies haven't changed!

If she's still doing this in a couple of days I'd give it a try. It will work, IME.

Nowt wrong with baby rice if that's what you want to give. And no babies haven't changed, but knowledge has. The guidelines weren't 16wk before they were 26wks (not 24wks), they were between 4-6 months (which is 17-26 weeks). I think you can still reasonably expect that most babies are ready between 4-6 months and the external signs of sitting up, no tongue thrust etc coincide with this readiness. But an average, healthy baby doesn't need anything other than milk before 6 months and by 6 months all of them will be ready.

I'm not a new mum. Back in the day when I weaned dd all of the mums at our antenatal/postnatal group weaned somewhere between 17 and 26 weeks. The vast majority found that it made no difference to sleep, several found it made the sleep worse.

Waking up in the night and feeding frequently has nothing to do with needing solids. It's a red herring. A hungry, growing baby will wake up and want/need calorific milk. It's bloody tiring but physiologically normal.

I weaned at 5 months, but what made more difference to ds's sleep was teaching him to self-settle. Having him on 3 meals a day didn't magically make him sleep, but it gave me the confidence not to feed him every time he woke in the night and instead try other ways of getting him to sleep.

I doubt your dd is waking every hour because she's hungry every hour, more likely to be a behavioural/developmental thing.

Second what moonunitalpha says. My DD was huuuuuge, drunk gallons of BM, bits of solids here and there, and what helped her to sleep better was teaching self settling and breaking the suck-to-sleep association when she was a bit older - e.g. about 7 months IIRC.

I started my DS on solids at 4 months, and it DID make a difference. The eating/sleeping routine just feel into place.

He still wakes for a night feed (6months) but no where near the every 2/3 hours that he was doing before.

Some babies are more hungrier than others, done my boy no harm at all. Do what ever works for you. If we should wait till they are 6 months, why can you get baby food from Boots Tesco etc for 4 months????!!!

Because the govt. didn't bring in legislation forcing manufacturers to change their packaging. I don't really trust Heinz as an authority on infant health to be honest!

I wasn't just taking about Heinz. I cook all of his food and if I have to use out of a jar I use Plum.

Plum aren't any different, they all want to sell you more food - whereas at least NHS guidance comes from research to improve child health.

I didn't get on this thread to be judged. I think its very wrong of you to do so.
Might I just pick you up on NHS Guidance bit... it is just that - A GUIDELINE.
chillichill - Do what ever you think is best, you are the parent.

Dont listen to anyone preaching about right and wrong/ Branded food/ NHS GUIDELINES!. You know best.

Don't know why you feel judged - you made a point about foods being labelled from 4 months, I was just suggesting that a company trying to sell you something isn't exactly an unbiased source of weaning advice.

"Do what ever you think is best, you are the parent."

Doesn't make you omniscient, being a parent.

www.mumsnet.com/babies/weaning gives the reasoning behind waiting 6 months. The amount of solids you'll get into them at this age is unlikely to make any impact on their hunger - the vast majority of their calories for the first year still come from milk.

I'm torn tbh. I don't feel.she needs weaned just yet, shows no sign of being interested in anything but my boobs. at the same time, I'm desperate for more sleep or at least a few more hours together. I want to help her to self settle but she still.needs to be swaddled in order to sleep for more than an hour.

Do you feed to sleep? I found it helped to have DP rock ds to sleep, so he had another way to fall asleep that didn't involve me. You could decide to feed 3 hourly in the night, and any waking less than 3 hours from the last DP settles her. I decided to feed at 10.30pm and then not til 3-4am, and DP rocked ds back to sleep inbetween - within a week or so ds was only waking for those feeds.

I think you'll know when your baby needs to be weaned btw - and it'll be when she's showing signs of readiness.

thanks Moon - that's an idea about getting dh to settle her at the 1/2am feed and then I can feed her at 3/4. cheers for the tip.
and for the record, Imissleep- I don't judge you, or anyone for that matter, who does what they think is best for their baby. the first thing I learned as a new parent is that all my preconceived notions and ideals had to go.out the window for reality. we all do the best we can and what we feel is right.