HV suggesting weaning at 4.5 months to sleep through night

[TomsMumLP]

Is it wrong that a health visitor suggested I give my 21 week old BF son some baby rice to help him sleep through the night? I have got used to waking 2/3 times at night to feed him & don't mind. THe HV told me 'they should sleep through the night at 6 months' which I think is just a rubbish generalisation - especially with breastfed isn't it?? He isn't demanding more than normal but my husband now thinks DS needs more nutrition - he was under his 'centile line' at his last weigh-in. I know that the chart he is compared to is for formula babies but he was small to start with (6.6 - now 13 pound 1) and so we are now paranoid!! Any opinions?? Thanks

Only read the OP, but here is my two penn'orth! I weaned ds at 4 months, as per the advice of 5 years ago. He didn't go through the night until 8 months. He wasn't getting enough solid food to make a difference for the first couple of months, because it was only a taste really. He dropped a feed at 8 months, which to me implied that he was getting enough sustenance from solids at that point and not before.

Not having had another child, I have no experience of weaning at 6 months. However, I do know that weaning at 4 months will not make a difference to night feeds!

My HV told me to give DS solids at about this age, in this case because he had 'dropped off his centile line'. Being rather naive I did, but it didn't make a blind bit of difference, either to his weight gain or his sleeping - he had a ten o'clock bfeed until at least 10 months.(Memory a bit hazy as this was 18 years ago!)

My DS is 18 weeks old and I have started weaning him. He has been on baby rice now for 10 days, which he absolutely loves. He is always gnawing on his wee fingers and tries to chew anyone or anything he comes in contact with. I was thinking of giving him a rusk to try but I'm not sure if it's too soon. I'd appreciate any advice. P.S He's a big boy, 19lbs.

Sorry guys, please ignore last message - posted it in wrong place

Do HV's actually have to have any kind of qualifications ... or do they just read this stuff from a text book and repeat it parrot fashion to whoever walks in their door?

Goodness me what a load of nonsense. Ds slept through the night UNTIL I started weaning him! He's been on solids for 8 weeks and has only just started sleeping through again. I have never been able to see any correlation between food and sleep as some days he has loads of food and doesn't sleep and other days he eats hardly anything and sleeps for hours. YOur baby will sleep through when its ready and not when you feed it more I think.

another one for parrot hv

Echo everyone else really.I weaned dd at 6 months - no difference in her sleep pattern at all! Think because you're asking you probably know yourself that you doubt the hv... Good luck

er, Greensleeves? "HVs, i've shat 'em"

quote of the week, surely?

TomsMum - do you have my HV? She told me that when my ds was 6 mo and I think she must have made loads of mums at our surgery feel crap (and I knew she was talking rubbish and I still felt bad).

She told me again at 9 mo when I wasn't even asking her advice and then told me I was damaging his gut by feeding him between 12 and 6am. Haven't been back since, but when I go to get him weighed next week before his 1st birthday I'm going to ask her for chapter and verse on evidence! (she'll probably not be there now!)