New research ensures that giving babies solid foods with only three months will help them sleep better. Although it may sound tempting to all those exhausted parents, unfortunately there is a good distance between the headlines and reality.
Most of the data published in this area demonstrates the opposite: what a baby eats does not influence the quality of sleep. In 2015, we were able to verify that neither the breast, nor the formula milk, nor the moment when solid foods begin to be introduced, nor the amount of solid foods consumed affect the number of times that babies from six to 12 months wake up During the dream.
Another study has shown that the usual practice of adding rice cereals to the bottle before bedtime (something that should be avoided, since there may be a risk of suffocation) has no impact on sleep at four months. While a third study found that the early introduction of solid foods was related to less I dream at 12 months.
This recent study is an excellent example of how significant differences at the statistical level and differences in the real world can be miles away. The authors themselves affirm that there were no differences in sleep interruption until five months of age, despite the fact that one of the groups of babies had begun to take solid foods at three months.
Babies in the group that starts eating solid foods earlier may have technically slept more, but it's about an average of only seven more minutes per night. At its peak (six months of age) the difference was 16 minutes and most babies He kept waking up once or twice every night regardless of what they had eaten. Given that these data are based on information from parents with lack of sleep (data that often do not correspond to reality) can not be taken as a basis to change the feeding practices of the little ones.
There is no physiological reason why early introduction of solid foods would help the baby sleep better. For starters, babies (after the first few weeks) do not wake up at night because they are hungry. Like adults, they wake up because they are cold, uncomfortable or just want comfort. The difference is that they cannot always calm down and fall asleep again.
Second, even if they were hungry, the most sensible solution would be to offer them more milk, since it will give them more energy, fat and protein than any other food a baby can take. The objective of the study from which these data were obtained was not to increase the total energy intake, but to test whether the introduction of allergenic foods at three or six months affects the development of allergies (something that was not the case).
Parents were advised to give very small amounts of allergenic foods (such as an egg, 25g of fish and 100g of yogurt over a week, only a few tablespoons a day) along with rice, cereals, fruits and vegetables. All these foods have fewer calories than breast or formula milk, but take up more space, which means babies can even eat a little less as they get used to breastfeeding, a possible explanation for the lack of sleep at six months. since the standard group had become accustomed to food.
Steady sleep
Less than half of the parents in the group that introduced solid foods earlier followed the protocol. There were several reasons, but one of the most important problems of the early introduction of solid foods is that babies are simply not physiologically prepared. At three months, most can only control their head well and cannot even sit properly. At that age, babies still have a reflex of nausea that causes them to expel food from the mouth and the early introduction of solids can be complicated, slow and demoralizing, since babies are simply not ready to eat solids so soon.
Science shows that The sooner weaning occurs, the longer it will take the baby to eat something beyond a few flavors. One study found that if babies were given solid foods before four months, on average it took them six weeks to ingest only 100ml of food a day, while when weaning occurred at six months (recommended) only They needed 12 days.
Recommendations for introducing solid foods at six months they have their reason for being. There is no growth deficit or malnutrition if you wait until six months before introducing solid foods, but there is a increased risk of gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases in babies who start eating solid foods before six months.
Introducing solid foods too soon can lead to a reduction in breast milk consumption (and the antibodies it contains), to the introduction of contaminants and cause digestive difficulties because babies do not develop all the enzymes necessary to properly digest all solid foods until that have between four and six months.
It should also be borne in mind that the babies who participated in the study belonged to a very specific group: almost all had been breastfed until six months (97%, compared to the average of only 34% in the United Kingdom. Science shows that introducing solid foods while still breastfeeding is important to reduce the development of allergies, but often too early introduction of solid foods increases the risk of breastfeeding.
You have to be very careful when generalizing this data. Is it worth it to introduce solid foods into the diet earlier, with all the risks involved, just to sleep a few more minutes every night? I think we should ask ourselves why parents have such a bad dream and look for ways to help them.
Translated by Silvestre Urbón.
Author: Amy Brown, Professor of Child Public Health, University of Swansea.
This article has originally been published in The Conversation. You can read the original article here.
