Thanks for the info, Katet. I feel quite comfortable offering cereal to my lo this early as he had gotten to the point where he couldn't go more than 4 hours at night without needing a FULL feed - he goes to sleep at 7:30 and would wake at 11:30, 3:30 and 6:30 (still wanted to doze after the 6:30), whereas before he was sleeping through from bedtime until at least 2am. I df him for a while but he was still waking 3 hours later for a feed, didn't see a difference with cluster feeding (seemed even hungrier earlier with that) and upping his food intake through the day. I am only giving him 2 tbsp of rice cereal mixed with 2 tbsp of ebm in the morning an hour after his 7am feed. He has taken to it quite well. We are now a week in. I was worried about constipation because he has been going 5-6 days for the past 4 weeks but on Saturday night he had one (6 days in and after 4 days of cereal) but has had one Sunday and today so if anything, he has become more regular with the rice. He is only waking for a feed at 2:30am and is up and ready to start his day at 6:30 with a 7am feed. I don't mind the 6:30am wakeup - I think he is getting that extra half hour of sleep in during the night now that he isn't waking as much. Last night he did wake up at 10:30 and then also at 5:00am but my DH was able to tuck him in and send him back off to sleep in minutes. I think now that I know the cereal isn't bothering him, I'm going to move it to about 5pm only because he seems to not be very hungry for his 11am feed but is ravenous and crying for his 3pm and 6:45 (before bed) feeds quite early whereas when I gave him cereal the first 2 days at 5pm, he took good feeds all through the day and a good one before bed and slept until 3am.
Stacey - guess you've read my update with the solids. Today we are going to go and buy a box of brown rice cereal and see if he'll take it, even though, as I mentioned above, he seems ok with the regular rice cereal. I'm going to keep giving him this small amount until he is 5 months and then slowly up it to what the box says is a "beginning" serving, which was 4 tbsp of cereal mix and 1.5 oz of liquid. I have heard oatmeal is good for regularity and we are going to introduce it after 3 weeks of rice cereal. I am still going to give the main feed of solids in the evening but will give a few spoons of the new cereal in the morning so I can see the effects through the day and then will just give a little less at dinner time to compensate.
