Giving your baby solid food early will not help him sleep better

According to a new study, giving babies solid foods as early as three months of age will help them sleep. While this may seem appealing to exhausted new parents, there is unfortunately a big gap between the headlines and the data.

Much of the evidence published in this area actually shows the opposite – what a baby eats has nothing to do with their sleep. In 2015, we found that neither breast milk nor formula, the timing of solids introduction, nor the number of solids consumed changed the waking frequency of babies between six and 12 months.

Another study showed that at a bottle before bedtime (which should be avoided because it can cause choking) has no impact on sleep at one-third found that early introduction of solids was associated with sleep less than 12 months. old

The recent study is an excellent example of how statistically significant differences and real-world differences can be several kilometers apart. The authors themselves note that no difference in waking was observed before the age of five months, despite a group having solids starting at three months.

From this point on, babies from the early introduction group technically slept more. only seven minutes more per night. At its peak (six months), the difference was 16 minutes. Most of the babies in the study woke up again once or twice a night, regardless of their food. And since these numbers are based on the self-report of sleep deprived parents – which often does not match sleep records – this is not a basis for making major changes in sleep practices. feeding infants.

the early introduction of solid foods would help a baby to sleep. First, babies (after the first few weeks) do not wake up just at night because they are hungry. Just like adults, they wake up because they are cold, that they are uncomfortable or that they just want comfort. The difference being that they can not always go back to sleep.

Second, even if it was for hunger, the most sensible solution would be to offer extra milk because it would give more energy, fat and protein than any other food . you can give a baby. The purpose of the test from which these data came was not to increase the overall energy intake, but to test how the introduction of allergenic foods to three to six months affects the development of allergies (which was not the case).

advised to give very small amounts of allergenic foods (such as an egg, 25g of fish and 100g of yogurt spread out over a week – just a few spoonfuls a day) with rice, cereals, fruits and vegetables. vegetables. All these foods contain fewer calories than breastmilk or formula, but take up more space, which means that babies can even eat a little less when they get used to weaning – a possible explanation. more significant sleep gap at six months. used for food

Sleep Solid

Less than half of parents in the early introduction group held to protocol. A variety of reasons have been given, but a major problem with the early introduction of solids is that babies are simply not physiologically ready. At three months, many can only have good control of the head. They will not be able to sit properly. They always have a nauseous reflex that pushes food out of their mouths. The early introduction of solids can be messy, long and demoralizing because babies are simply not equipped to eat solid foods as quickly.

Research shows that the earlier a baby is weaned, the more time he needs to eat something other than a few tastes. One study found that if babies received solid foods before four months, it took them an average of six weeks to eat only 100ml of food a day, but only 12 days for those weaned at the recommended six months.

Solid foods at six months are there for a good reason. There is no growth or nutrient deficiency while waiting for six months to introduce solid foods, but there is an increased risk of gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases in infants fed with food. solid before this date

. in the supply of breast milk (and its associated antibodies), the introduction of contaminants and can cause digestive difficulties because babies do not develop all the enzymes necessary to properly digest solid foods until the the age of four to six months.

that babies in the study were a very specific group. Almost all were breastfed up to the age of six months – 97 percent, compared with only 34 percent, for example, in the UK population. Research shows that breastfeeding through an introduction to solid foods is important to reduce the development of allergy, but often the early introduction of solids increases the risk of stopping the breastfeeding. ;breastfeeding.

We must be very careful to generalize these results. Research asks the question, does the early introduction of solids – with all the associated risks – really carry more weight if it comes with a few minutes of sleep each night? It seems to me that we should ask ourselves why parents struggle so much with sleep and look for better ways to support them instead.

Amy Brown, Professor of Childhood Public Health, University of Swansea [19659018] This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. It has been edited for HuffPost.