Been advised to introduce solids before 6 months

[Petcat]

DD is just about to turn 5 months. She's had reflux since birth, which she takes ranitidine for. She is also a truly appalling sleeper, often waking every hour through the night. She is also prone to long spells of inconsolable crying, probably caused by the reflux and her chronic overtiredness.

I have spoken to two different HVs over the last week because I am not coping well with the sleep deprivation. Both have suggested I start weaning DD now, as it will help her sleep better, and reduce her reflux symptoms.

I was hoping to exclusively breastfeed until 6 months and then do baby led weaning, so I am a bit as to whether feeding baby rice and purées will actually help DD or not. I'm aware of the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding and don't want to compromise these by weaning early unless it really will make a difference to her discomfort and poor sleep.

Would be interested to hear other people's experience/opinions on this...

This is purely anecdote but DD was like this although she was a happy chucker ie the reflux didn't make her sad. But she has always been small and at about 4 months she fell from the 25th to the 2nd centile for weight. I initially had gaviscon (she was EBF) but it was such a faff that I ended up just giving her a couple of spoonfuls of baby rice after each feed. Worked a treat! I think it just thickened the milk up enough to keep it down. She is absolutely fine now at 2.2.

Poor you, you must be exhausted .

She got the baby rice from about 5 months btw.

Weaning won't make her sleep better because of the calories. Milk has more. However if it helps the reflux settle then it would help a lot. Tbh I would go for it. I've weaned all mine at 16 weeks plus (dd1 is 15 - am old fashioned ) The first two were puree etc babies but dd3 I did a combination of things and she had far more finger food than the others. No reason why you can't do both. I would try a bit of baby rice or something like sweet potato for dd and see how she reacts. You don't have to go straight to three meals a day. I've always gone v slowly because I didn't want to drop too many milk feeds. A bit of breakfast or supper of an appropriate food will not harm your dd and may help both of you.

My DS was exactly like this so you have my total sympathy. I also weaned early on the advice of a HV and it made him worse not better. Sorry, as I know that probably the last thing you want to hear.

What we eventually found out was wrong with my DS was tongue tie and upper lip tie. Have a read of the link and see what you think

Hi, yes I was told exactly the same for DS when only 4 months old, he had awful reflux too never ending vomiting and crying, in the end I did wait until 5 months and tried him on a small amount of baby porridge, there was a definate improvement within days and when fully weaned he was a different baby. All the best.

DD had silent reflux. We tried solids at 24 weeks. It made things much worse.

Omeprazole (sp?) might be an idea.

At 5 months, weaning is very unlikely to do any harm and the benefits of waiting another month will be fairly minimal. I cannot say whether it will help the reflux though.

Both my boys had reflux and I weaned them early and it did help DS1 was 20 weeks and DS2 was 17 weeks!

Thanks for the different perspectives - from what I can gather (via Google) it's hit-or-miss whether it will help. It will be a gamble but I think I am at the point where I have to try. The lack of sleep is killing me. I do like the idea of a spoonful of baby rice instead of gaviscon - thinking of the food as medicine helps me feel less sad about not making it to 6 months ebf.

Julie DD had a tongue tie which was revised when she was 8 weeks old, it definitely helped her colic at the time but I have never looked to see if she has an upper lip one too. She's currently sleeping so will have a look once she (inevitability) wakes up.

Right, going to attempt to catch a tiny bit of sleep while she's snoozing. ..

We were given permission by the consultant to have 2 non consecutive nights with DD dosed up on Calpol at dose per weight. It gave us 3/4 hours sleep for the first time.

Amazing.

If she had tt revised at 8 weeks it is definitely worth getting it checked again. There are some posters on here who had to have it revised more than once.

If the reflux is still bad then back to the GP. Omeprazole was our saviour when other things have failed. Thro gritted teeth I've managed to continue BF which is the kindest substance to yr baby's tummy. At 6 months we've just started weaning which has given him wind and a bit more uncomfortable. I know if he hadn't been on the right drug a nd dosage then he would have been a whole load more poorly. Don't believe HV, one of mine advised that my son had just had enough of BF and to try formula, when in fact when I had pieced evidence together in my sleep deprived mind that he was still suffering and starting to go on nursing strike. Silly cow...
Sorry, bit of a long post. In summary, ignore HV most of the time, esp with reflux and go back to GP.

Another vote for omeprazole here, dd had silent reflux, omeprazole was by far the best at making her more comfortable, but even then she couln't sleep for long as she woke up hungry every hour or so. I did try to wean her early on advice from doctors, it didn't work, her gut wasn't ready for food and she got horribly constipated. But, when I eventually was able to wean her, at nearly 7 months, she started sleeping through within a few days as for the first time in her life she wasn't hungry. She weaned really quickly, was chewing steak at 8 months, refused milk altogether at 8 months too, but drank water and I gave her other diary stuff she was happy to eat - yogurt, cheese, rice puddings. She started drinking milk again when she was 5! Her reflux also improved a lot once she was eating solid food, it cleared up completely by the time she was 2 ish.

Good luck, she will grow out of it but it's tough until she does.

I had a decidedly unhappy chucker with CMPI. Omeprazole helped the screaming but nothing touched the chucking (think 6+ outfits a day for her AND me and washing the sofa covers weekly).
Solids transformed our life. She settled down amazingly. Still on omeprazole until over 1y and had the odd unsettled time. Only downside was that solids meant that the chuckup was now rainbow coloured so lots of muslins went to muslin heaven when the technicolour defeated my battery of stain removers.
Is a rubbish time. You have my heartfelt sympathies.