The past month has been CRAZY, hence my lack of posts. My
little munchkin just turned 6 months old (sigh), and we just got back from her
first beach trip.
I was so excited to start P on solid foods I could barely
contain myself. However, as we approached the middle of her 5th
month something started changing with my girl—she stopped sleeping through the
night. UGH! I had been warned about the 4 month sleep regression, but could it
really be a while month and a half late? P was waking in the middle of night
and staying up from one to two hours. I am just not prepared for this type of
sleep deprivation anymore. When she was a newborn—I expected it. Now, not so
much.
I started rummaging the internet for ideas on what it could
be, and some people said it may be her way of telling us that she is ready for
solid foods. So I went out and bought three sweet potatoes, three bananas, and
5 apples. I was so proud of myself while making my homemade baby food. I was
hopeful that she would fall in love with the first bite and sleep the whole
night through. WELL—she didn’t!
We are struggling mightily with solid foods. She may open
her mouth for a bite or two, but then she is done. I have tried homemade, store
bought. We have tried rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, applesauce, peaches, sweet
potatoes, and bananas. While she will take some better than others (peaches,
apples, and sweet potatoes), most of the time she closes those gummy gates and
say no thanks! I was frustrated because I really thought that I needed her to
eat these solids so that she would sleep more.
Then I read that it probably would not affect her night
sleep—so I started to look at her schedule as the culprit. Maybe my baby was
just ready for more awake time during the day. At the time she was still taking
4- 90 minute naps a day. I decided to drop her to three naps and also move her
to a four hour schedule with three attempts at solids a day. Here is what it
looks like:
7:00—wake and bottle
8:00—solids
9:00—nap
11:00—wake and bottle
12:00—solids
1:00—nap
3:00—wake and bottle
5:00—catnap
6:00—wake and bottle
7:00—solids
7:30—bath and then bedtime routine
8:30—Bottle and then bed time
I would like to tell you that this has been an easy fix, and
a pleasant transition—but that would be a lie. P has still not returned to
sleeping through the night consistently. She does it here and there. Part of
her problem may be teething related as well. Who knows? It is better now,
because when she wakes in the night she is not getting up and staying up
anymore. She takes a little bottle and goes back to sleep.
It seems that my girl is a little too interested in all of
the things going on around her lately—and this interferes with her eating
drastically. She has become a nightmare to feed. She will never take more than
three ounces at a time. Gone are the days when she would eat 30 ounces a day.
We are lucky to get to 25. Therefore, she wakes to get some calories at night.
I have tried everything I can think of to get her to eat. I offer the bottle
what seems like every 5 minutes. She refuses it most of the time.
I guess I can’t complain—my girl is happy all day long. She
is a joy to be around in general. She is still chunky as well (she is 2 pounds
from tripling her birth weight).
Have any of you dealt with eating issues with your 6 month
olds? What did you do to combat them?
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