rice cereal and sleep

[Anonymous]

I’ve been doing some research on the net about whether or not it is true that rice cereal helps baby last longer throughout the night. It says that its a myth. I was wondering what your experience with it has been like. I am a first time mama and Peyton will be 4 months next month. He is also exclusively breastfed I wish it were true that it helped them sleep longer at night

Aby

[Anonymous]

I have also heard that it is a myth. Its still pretty early for “sleeping through the night”. Whilst lots of mums say it happens this early there are at least an equal number who it doesn’t happen for.

[Anonymous]

didn’t work for us. But Cooper is MSPI and can’t tolerate rice cereal. He has been on solids also for almost a month, not a ton, but now 2x/day and he still has bad nights. I just think all babies are different and it may or may not work.

[Anonymous]

I know it’s said to be a myth, but I think it helps. I’ve had three babies and I’ve been around babies all of my life and I’ve definitely seen that it works for some babies, not all of them though.

What really works though is that the baby gets big enough and the stomach capacity increases enough for them to take in all the calories they need during the daytime hours. This varies greatly from baby to baby and is related to such things as metabolism and gi maturity. Two of my babies had DGE so they didn’t need as much food as other babies and this helped them sleep through the night earlier than other babies. And all of my children probably have slower metabolism than average (inherited from both sides of the family) so they didn’t need as many calories as other babies.

GI maturity has a lot to do with it too. Newborns tend to poop out half of what they eat and this is part of the reason they eat so frequently. Eventually their systems mature and they stop eliminating so much of what they eat, and their stomach capcity increases too, so they can take in what they need during their waking hours.

So, what I am trying to say is that the ability to sleep through the night is very individual and much of it has to do with physiology which we cannot control. It doesn’t hurt to try things like cereal and formula, but there’s no guarantee that they will work and if he has sensitivities or intolerances it may complicate things.

4 months is young though, so hang in there.

[hellbennt]

also: if you’re thinking about thickening breastmilk, it doesn’t work as there are enzymes in the breastmilk that will break the cereal down…

http://www.kellymom.com is an excellent resource for all things breastfeeding related

[Author]

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