Should I start cereal

DD is 4 months. I just went for her monthly check up. She gained 13 oz which the doctor said is fine. However, I'm concerned bc she went from being 20-25th percentile down to 15th. . Her pediatrician didn't seem too concerned. He said I can start her on cereal if I want. I am BFing and I know its usally best to wait until at least 6 mnths.

I should add that up until a week ago she was sleeping 10-11 hours at night and taking 2 long naps a day. Now she has been getting up at 4/5 am and then again at 6:30, when she used to go straight through to 7:30am no matter what time she went down. she has definitely been nursing more throughout the day and she seems to be hungry througout the night.

Should I give cereal a try? Or should I give it a little more time and see if she gets back on track?

TIA

Re: Should I start cereal

hey!

i started cereal at around 3.5 mths with all my boys. they didnt really take to it too well at first but by 5 months i would give it to them regularly.
have you thought about maybe putting some cereal in her bottle or does she only BF?

Re: Should I start cereal

DS is a big boy and his appetite is somewhat insatiable. We started cereal once a day at 3.5 months and it helped a lot.

Re: Should I start cereal

I didn't start until after 6 months with both my kids. They were both ebf and I just didn't see the need. With ds we started at 7 months and with dd we never did cereal or baby food. We decided on BLW instead. To be honest starting cereal did nothing for my ds's sleeping habits. It didn't help him sleep longer spans. He was still up every 2 hours to nurse no matter what he ate.
Sounds like your dd is going through a growth spurt. If you want to wait until 6 months give her a little time to see if she adjusts back to her old self.

Re: Should I start cereal

Re: Should I start cereal

Posted by ns1011

I should add that up until a week ago she was sleeping 10-11 hours at night and taking 2 long naps a day. Now she has been getting up at 4/5 am and then again at 6:30, when she used to go straight through to 7:30am no matter what time she went down. she has definitely been nursing more throughout the day and she seems to be hungry througout the night.

Should I give cereal a try? Or should I give it a little more time and see if she gets back on track?

TIA

Re: Should I start cereal

4 months is when their sleep cycles change. I don't associate the sleeping issues with hunger. I've been giving my son cereal for a few weeks now and we're still working through the 4 month sleep regression.

Re: Should I start cereal

From a ped. dietitian:

You can start adding cereal around 4mths of age, but if you are EBF, then they recommend waiting until 6mths. However, if you want to start offering 1x/day I think that is fine.

Do not add to bottle, only spoon feed. Not only does BM digest the cereal but it also changes sucking mechanism.

GL!

Re: Should I start cereal

Re: Should I start cereal

We started cereal with my daughter when she was 5 months. She was EBF, but she was doing so well that the pediatrician said we could start solids at 4 months if we wanted to. We waited until 5, and even then it was just the tiniest sprinkle of cereal mixed in with the breast milk. 6 months is when we really started with the solids.

Re: Should I start cereal

Posted by FlowerWife

Posted by ns1011

I should add that up until a week ago she was sleeping 10-11 hours at night and taking 2 long naps a day. Now she has been getting up at 4/5 am and then again at 6:30, when she used to go straight through to 7:30am no matter what time she went down. she has definitely been nursing more throughout the day and she seems to be hungry througout the night.

Should I give cereal a try? Or should I give it a little more time and see if she gets back on track?

TIA

this exact thing happened to my DD right around 5m. she was STTN from around 1030pm-730/8am... then one day she just started waking up at 4/5/6am... most nights she wakes up once, others she wakes up twice

we started cereal last week (the waking up happened first and it was just coincidental that our ped recommends cereal at 5m). it hasn't made any difference at all to her sleep. but she also isnt eating much of it yet so maybe when she starts figuring out how to eat it (right now she takes anywhere from 3-12 spoonfuls) she will stay asleep long the thing with her is that i dont think she is really hungry when she wakes up. she is both BF and FF. when she wakes at 4/5/6 i will BF only but she only stays on for like 5-10 mins before falling back to sleep. then ill put her back in the rocker and go back to sleep until she wakes up again which can be anywhere from 1-3 hours later... she doesnt seem hungry though.. more like comfort nursing..

i miss my STTN baby!!