What a crock of shit that rice cereal is! It did not make any difference at
all. If anything it made my poor
guy even hungrier!
The first day I gave him one tablespoon in his 5-½-ounce
bottle mid day. It did appear to keep him full for about six hours, which was
amazing! I had really high hopes!
The following night I decided to give him another tablespoon
in his late night bottle, again 5 ½ ounces of breast milk. I settled in to bed thinking, sweet
ass I’m going to get some sleep tonight!
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Every three hours he was up like clock work. I couldn’t believe it! He usually would sleep 4-5 hours during
that stretch on breast milk alone, WTF?
The next morning I called my sister, pissed that not only
had the rice cereal failed to give me and Oliver a good night sleep, it seemed
like it didn’t really fill him up either?
She said to give him more because there is no real exact amount for all
babies. I wasn’t so sure about
this so I called another friend and then consulted Dr. Google. I heard and read that it may take some
time so I gave him another bottle with a tablespoon the following night. Still up every three hours!
I talked to another friend who said that rice cereal didn’t
do anything for he son either and at six months was still not “sleeping through
the night.” Devastated was me. I
NEED SOME FREAKING SLEEP!
I called another girlfriend whose daughter is a week behind
Oliver, and asked her how Chloe was doing. She said, “Fine, she is sleeping through the night.” At that point I asked the million-dollar
question, “When you say ‘sleeping through the night,’ what does that mean
exactly.” She told me she puts her
to sleep at 11pm at night and she wakes up between 6-8am. Ah HA! I know what’s going on kind of… Oliver
goes to sleep between 7 and 8pm and wakes up for his first feeding between 1-2am. This is basically the same amount of
sleep Chloe gets, “sleeping through the night.” Oliver just sleeps through the
evening so to speak.
It comes down to, for a 3 month old baby, is the routine set
for going to sleep early or late.
Do I want a little down time and peace and quiet at night, or do I want
a longer stretch of sleep? I’ll
take the down time since I am breastfeeding and have to pump every few hours
anyway.
The bottom line: Rice cereal did NOT help Oliver to sleep
better at all. Nor did it seem to make a huge difference in his being full for
a longer period of time. We go see
the doctor in 3 weeks for a check-up at which time I plan to further discuss
solid food and more rice cereal.
My son is growing well, is super cuddly and very happy, for now that is
good enough for me. Eventually I
will get 6 hours of sleep, but it certainly is not going to happen feeding him
rice cereal.
