Food & sleep: 23wk old still feeding (BF) in night - I'm exhausted - will weaning help?

[Mazzletov]

I already posted this in the weaning category but it's really more about sleep. I've been trying to reduce night wakings ever since DD was born, aware that this is the area that really makes or breaks our quality of life. I've followed advice to keep the room very dark, keep night interventions to a minimum, put her down awake, etc.

Around 12 weeks old we seemed to be heading for a fairly regular pattern of 1 night feed, around 4am, with no other wakings. Then I decided to try and avoid feeding her at all. For 2 nights she didn't feed but was very wakeful (probably rather confused!). Then she hit a growth spurt and I had a milk plunge, so we had 2 weeks of very frequent feeding day & night to get things back on track. since then, there's been the odd "1 feed" night but they are rare. A few weeks ago she returned to feeding at least 3 times in the night! Then I realised it was teething pain, relieved by hard suckling - Bonjela now sometimes resolves a waking, but not always.

The best we seem able to do these days is 3 wakings between 10pm and 7am, with 1 needing a feed. I am SO tired!

Questions I'm asking myself, which I'd welcome help with:

Is she genuinely HUNGRY? We used to have a guaranteed undisturbed evening from 7-10, but now she often wants to squeeze an extra feed in there. Also in the day she seems to want feeding at least once more than she used to. So I guess she could be.

Is she THRIVING? Yes, though having been born HUGE (9lb 4) she's crashed down through the growth charts in recent months (now just under 14lb). She had to level out eventually as her genes are not "big" and she couldn't stay in the 95th percentile forever ... HV & GP agree she's just fine.

Is she READY for solids? She holds her head very well and sits very straight with a little support.

Questions I really have no idea about and would LOVE your help with:

1. Will solids help my sleep at all, or am I kidding myself?

1. If I want to go for BLW, what do I start with? Baby rice doesn't seem to meet the criteria of grabbable finger food, but I can't see she's ready for chewing actual food. (I give her frozen carrot sticks to help teething pain and she chomps away until they're well melted and rubbery with no sign of them actually getting EATEN.)

1. "They" tell me 23 wks is fine to start down this road, but I am totally bloody minded about her having the healthiest guts ever and I'm not sure if I trust them. Help!

Waking in the night when they have previously been sleeping is one of the signs for weaning. It's possible that some solids could help with the sleep if it is hunger thats waking her.

You've probably already done this but what about offering water instead of feeding? What happens if you don't go to her when she cries during the night?

Can't be much help to you for the baby led weaning, mine have always been weaned to soon to do this and had mush instead (worked ok for us though)

She hates water - gargles, chokes and screams more than ever, it just wakes her up more! Can't leave her to cry, she just gets LOUDER and we have lodgers! Others think it could be a growth spurt.

I do sympathise - sleep deprivation can feel quite brutal. I predict you'll get 50/50 responses on the food/sleeping thing. FWIW, dd slept just fine until she was weaned. I think it was a complete co-incidence - just hit a developmental change at the same time, tbh. Also fairly sure she had a growth spurt around that time, so extra milk was a must for us. 26 weeks is a good guideline, where you can be pretty sure her gut is sufficiently mature, and you're not far off that - do you think it might be worth holding off for a couple of weeks? She might get a bit better at sitting by then, too.
BLW - well, you were going awful hardcore if you think she'd be able to eat frozen carrot! You may well be surprised by just how well she gums down steamed carrot stick, broccoli, ripe pear, peach, nectarine, the works. Try Aitch's blog for lots of brilliant ideas.

23 weeks is not late for them not to be sleeping through the night. I have a 20 week old who is showing no sign whatsoever of sleeping through just yet but I know that is completely normal.

Fact is, there is no food you could give her that will have more calories and will sustain her for longer than your milk anyway, so weaning is not going to help (even if it were recommended at this point, and it's not).

Sorry, I know it is not what you want to hear. It's probably a growth spurt and will pass.

Great to have a more definitive age for introducing solids, I asked 3 HVs and they were very vague indeed about the guidance, only saying that 23wks was "fine", but several MNers are now saying 26 weeks so I'm happy to wait for that.

When she was smaller I had regular nights off at weekends, while DH fed her with expressed BM, I'll try to up the expressing and get back to that.