so my pest of a daughter has decided that instead of getting up twice in the night it's now 3/4/5 times a friend suggested i give her baby rice, she had her boy sleeping through from 11 weeks after giving it to him. my OH is really up for giving her it cos he just wants to shut her up, but as much as i'd like 8 hours undisturbed sleep i can't help feeling she's still too wee

and can i just give her baby rice and save the rest of the weaning fun for when she's older or do i have to carry on if i start now?

You can wean from 17 weeks as long as its gluten free, which most baby porridges are. (HV and dietician told me this, although I waited til 6mths due to allergies).

Its up to you whether you decide to then introduce other foods. Nearly all 4mth jars are gluten free as are fruit/veg puree's you make at home.

I dont think there's any harm in trying her with porridge. However just to warn you weaning didnt make Caitlin sleep any better. She still woke a few times in night for dummy/ a coo. Its not always hunger or thirst that wakes them. Caitlin still wakes most nights for 1/2hr -an hr for a chat/kick and we hear her mobile being turned on a few times too. Thankfully most times she settles herself but still a pain to listen to every night.

Really hope it is hunger and you get a good sleeper! Broken nights arent fun! x

howdy! it's totally up to you really, but i would warn you that elijah has been getting up 4-5 times a night for just over 2 weeks now and has been weaning for the past week, so it's made no difference at all haha

how long has she been doing it ? ava went through a massive growth spurt at 4 months that lasted a week or so. You could try her with the baby rice but i didn't notice a difference with ava when i weaned her, is she wanting more milk than usual?

i started googling and found an nhs site that said babies start to wake up between 3 and 5 months and weaning won't always make a difference. i don't want to do it just now anyway so i'll just carry on.
she doesn't seem to be wanting anymore than usual but at night when she wakes she is wanting fed

i hope she settles soon, you run on empty for so long and then she'll sleep through and you don't know what to do with yourself.

Does sound a little like a growth spurt to me mate. Id stick with some extra milk for now if shes not showing any other signs of being ready yte. Does she watch you eat with interest, maybe make chewing motions or reach for your food, how much milk is she taking a day?

Iweaned c for reflux purposes but she was also taking 32 oz of milk a day despite being a tiny little dot, trying to grab and chew on food from our hand, had excellent head control etc. To be honest the waking in the night didnt feature too much in my estimation by then as other signs were there and when i finally did do it she only dropped to 27-28ozmilk a day despite the milk so i knew she was ready.

she watches us eat and she's tried to grab stuff from me but then again she's grabbing everything just now. i'm not sure how much she has cos i'm breastfeeding but sometimes she's still feeding every 2 hours (more little and often) but when i give her a bottle she drinks 7 or 8 oz.
i'm going to old out, i don't really want to wean yet.

Izzy went though this and it wasn't a growth spurt! She would take milk all day long but still wanted more...and was seemingly fed up of taking more milk!
I know it wasn't a growth spurt because it never stopped lol - unless she is perma-spurting!

I started her on veg and fruit puree..we didn't really do rice as it tastes, to be perfectly honest, horrible!

It took a while for it to make a difference, not cos it wasn't what she needed, but that I slowly increased the amounts, and it wasn't til she was eating a reasonable amount hat she started to be more settled and back to her sleeping

Izzy took the same amount of milk for quite some time...food on top - thats always a sign they really were ready. If you fed her rice and then she took less milk then I think that means really she isn't ready.

It was 100% the right thing for Izzy and she has never looked back, loves food and always willing to try new things, chews normal food etc - so purees did her no harm at all.

I think if you are thinking of holding out longer then you know its not the right time, I think you will know when she is really ready.

she only got up once for a feed last night, woohoo! i'll save the weaning for later