Weaning and sleep nightmare

[Madcat22]

My 6 month old DD has always been an amazing sleeper (sorry; any consolation, DC1 was a nightmare and still is at 4 years) ..... until I started weaning her 3 weeks ago. All gradual, all fruit and veg etc but for some reason, she now wakes up loads in the night, is more sick, has been constipated etc. I plan to ask HV for advice but am more interested in MNers really because my experience of HV advice not great really. There doesn't seem a pattern with what she eats and how she sleeps as she does still have the odd good night.

By the way, forgot to mention- she had been EBF until now and is an avid bottle refuser (another issue, sigh) so I'm getting increasingly worried about my return to work in a couple of months time.

My lo is the same I never put together that it could be food, he was a great sleeper etc but thinking about it it did start just after weaning. Weird. They're bound to get constipated from time to time with liquid to solid food diets. Mine to has no pattern, some nights he will sleep others he won't, gonna keep tabs on what he eats when he has bad nights to see if it is food??!

I found it helped to give solids earlier in the day, so they were well digested by bed time. It might be worth a try. And perhaps just tiny amounts of foods that can cause constipation, like banana.

I had a similar problem with DS. He seemed to be pulling his knees up in discomfort in his cot. A huge fart would bring temporary relief so we assumed it was trapped wind. He was a colicky baby (doing the same kind of thing) when tiny so I think he just has trouble adjusting to new foods. My HV said to just carry on with a weaning schedule as he 'would have to go through it at some point', but with hindsight I wish I'd listened to my instincts and just slowed down the introduction of new stuff.

Massaging his yummy in a clockwise direction and bicycling his legs seemed to help. And it didn't last long. At 19 months his favourite foods are curry and all sorts of beans so his digestion clearly hasn't suffered in the long term.

Could try slowing down on food as pp. I would avoid banana as it does constipate, maybe for a month or so. Baby rice is also bad for constipating.
Try giving more fruit, that should help.
Have you tried offering milk in a sippy cup instead of a bottle?

I would stop / slow down solids.

The "around 6 months" weaning age could be 5 months they're ready, or 7 months. Your dd just might not be ready yet (internally) to digest food.

OR, it could be completely not linked, and she's not sleeping due to the development leaps she's making. They go through so much in the first year, it's why a lot of babies dont sleep through until quite late on.

As for bottle refuser, I'd try her with a free flow sippy cup in the bath. Less mess but she'll get the idea. Dd learnt how to use a bottle when she was 15 months until that point she just had water in a sippy cup, water rich foods and a mamouth feed from me when I picked her up after work! They change so much between 6-9 / 9-12 months that you don't need to worry about returning work.

OP mine was the same, we've had a month/6 weeks of terrible sleep, but l of a sudden at 7m she's back to sleeping really well (touch wood fingers crossed etc). There's such a lot going on around now I think it could be any number of things including weaning that fucked up her sleep, but hopefully each new phase is reasonably short!