When to start baby on cereal in bottle
Will Putting Cereal In My Baby's Bottle Help Her Sleep?
hi I'm Dana o Bowman welcome to this
week's video blog today I had an
interesting question that I think we
should talk about here today and that is
will putting cereal in my baby's bottle
help him sleep better and I hear that
all the time and I know it's sort of an
old wives tale your grandmother probably
told you oh just put cereal in the
breast milk or the formula and this baby
will sleep all night and the truth is
that that is not true
really you want to be very careful and
cautious about when you introduce solids
to your baby there's a lot of evidence
that suggests starting solids too early
can lead to some allergies in the future
so the rule of thumb around solids is
anywhere between the fifth and sixth
months not before and I know it's so
tempting when you've got a three or four
month old baby who is up every hour hour
and a half throughout the night and
you're thinking what can I do and you're
really kind of grasping at straws
thinking of you know is there anything I
can do to help this baby sleep well food
is not the problem okay unless of course
you've got a baby who's been struggling
with weight and has any kind of health
issues then yes food might be the issue
and they're waking through the night
looking for food because they truly need
it but for any healthy baby who's gained
weight well food is not the problem you
really need to look at how does this
baby fall asleep initially most of the
time it's there rocked to sleep they're
fed to sleep they're bounced to sleep so
what they have done then is associated
the feeding and the bouncing in the
rocking with sleep there for an hour and
a half two hours into their night
they're going to have a wake up that is
just normal and natural there's no way
around that
everybody has wake up's through the
night however if they're used to being
fed bounced rocked you name it at at
bedtime then they're going to wake
through the night look
for that again so for example feeding
that is probably hands-down the number
one reason why a baby's waking through
the night is because of the association
between the feeding and the sleep not
the food and that gets really confusing
I totally get it
you think your baby's waking up from
hunger but really it's just the strategy
that that babies using to get his self
to sleep every night so it's nice to get
it food with it that's a little bonus
and I'm sure he appreciates it but it's
more the strategy okay so before you run
to the store and buy yourself some
cereal and give that a try I want you to
stop yourself and have a good look at
how does this baby fall asleep at night
and that is the first place you need to
start to teach him to sleep well and
through the night thanks for watching
sleep well
[Music]
you
