Hi,
We're really struggling to introduce DS to solids. He just turned 7 months old. About a month ago, we started feeding him what we had read were "easy" foods, and he loved them. He caught on quickly and was eating about an ounce a day (he would have eaten more if we let him!). But, about 3 days later, he started waking at night (he had been STTN since age 4 months), for increasingly longer periods of time. He started with 1 hour, and increased up to 3.5 - and he was NOT happy about it - crying, fussing, screaming... But calmed instantly when he was picked up. After about a week, we stopped solids, and he started STTN again within 2 days. We waited a week, and tried very gradually introducing solids again, but again, after 3 days, he was waking up very unhappy for 1-3 hours. He was constipated for 3 days, but we seemed to fix that. This time, we kept him on solids for 2 weeks, varying things we thought could be a problem, but nothing seemed to help. 2 days after stopping again, he's back to STTN.
We tried:
-feeding him at dinner time vs. feeding him at breakfast
-feeding him immediately after being nursed vs. feeding him while he was hungry
-feeding him less
-adding in very ripe bananas at every meal (and they cleared him right out, but it didn't help at all!)
-just feeding him one food for an entire week (rice cereal)
We started him with avocado, then sweet potato, squash, oatmeal, rice cereal, ripe bananas, prunes, and pears. Each was introduced after an appropriate 2-3 day window. No particular food seemed to make things better or worse. (Oh - we even tried a bit of yogurt, having heard that it helps with the gut bacteria and digestion, but that didn't change anything either!)
Extra information, in case it helps:
-he was EBF until 6 months
-won't take a dummy
-already a good crawler and pulling to standing
-no teeth, doesn't seem to be teething
-no evidence of reflux on BM
-generally calm and happy during the day, even with his NW, so the solids didn't seem to be affecting him during the day?
-fell asleep most easily on his right side (and during/after a NW, this was the only lying down position he wasn't crying in)
-we haven't changed our daytime routine in all this time
Any advice you can suggest would be greatly appreciated! He wants to eat, and sits in his high chair eagerly expecting food, but I don't know how to approach it!
Thanks!
Gillian