This week Amélie tasted solids for the first time.
She had started waking again during the night with much crying and need for feeding- sometimes up to four times a night! A very tired mama went to baby clinic to discuss this with the health visitor and they decided that she might be hungry and that it could be time to start weaning her. Its hard to know exactly when this process should be started as guidelines vary so much between countries and even health visitors. The UK recently increased its recommendation from four to six months but all the books are still geared to starting it at four months. So this week, aged five months, she tasted baby rice for the first time. The amounts she ingested were so minute that I doubt it could not have made much difference to her but she has been more settled these last few days. Maybe next week we’ll progress her onto vegetables!
I have also started reading an excellent book on baby sleep and hope that this too will make a difference. Last night was certainly a step in the right direction and she slept from 7.00 pm through to 6.30 am! We tried controlled crying for the first time which wasn’t as traumatic as I thought it would be. We agreed that we would wait five minutes before checking on her but she fell asleep after only three minutes (felt like much longer but I had my watch out), then cried for a further two minutes and then again for three minutes- and that was it! Not a further squeak ’till morning. Lets hope it wasn’t a one off.
Amélie now weighs 6.68 kilos and measures 64 cms.
An update one week later: She now weighs 6.86 kgs and measures 66.5 cms. No she hasn’t grown 2.5 cms in the last seven days! Measuring babies is very unscientific and I think last weeks measure was off. The reason I know she is nearer to 67 cms is that her 3-6 month clothes are starting to get a bit tight and they tend to be geared to 67 or 68 cms.
Also, after reading Dr Weissbluth’s book on sleep I decided that the night waking was not due to hunger but rather tiredness and now that we are focussing on daytime naps and an earlier bedtime she is cring much less and sleeping better at night (we are back to one feed a night). We are therfore delaying weaning just that little bit longer.