Solid as a Rock

Today Francis had his first taste of solid food.

I'd suspected for a while that Francis may be ready for weaning. When we saw the consultant last month he said that we should go by Francis's actual age, not his corrected age, when deciding when to wean. This surprised me at the time as I had fully prepared myself for Francis to reach 8 months old before being introduced to a spoon. However, given Francis's behaviour over the past couple of weeks I can see the consultant's advice was spot on.

Francis has gone from 3-hourly feeds to feeding every 1 1/2 hours or so, sometimes more frequently. His fingers are never out of his mouth and he's started chewing on his muslin squares. He's started waking up at stupid o'clock every morning, has become very difficult to settle at bed time and has stopped sleeping through. Last night, for example, he fed at 7:30pm, which is usually his last feed, and was in bed at 8:45pm. By 9pm he was awake screaming for a feed. I fed him and got him back to sleep, but he woke again at 10:30. I'd hoped this might be it, but he woke yet again at midnight! It was gone 1am by the time he went to sleep and then he was awake at 6am! I've lost count of the number of feeds he's had today. I barely get a second to myself and I'm feeling incredibly drained.

It wasn't until today that I was completely satisfied that it wasn't a growth spurt. I'd put Francis in his bouncy chair in the kitchen so I could get the dishes done - sometimes he's happy to watch me. I'd almost finished when I could hear him getting quite upset - I turned round to find him attempting to eat the toys on his play arch and getting incredibly annoyed that they weren't edible. I found it very upsetting to see him so frustrated so I decided to try him with some baby rice. After some initial upset about accepting a spoon, he seemed quite keen on the rice - he screamed whenever I took the spoon away! He became very upset after a few spoonfuls, so I gave him a breast feed which calmed him down and got him off to sleep.

I'm going to take the weaning very slowly and will stick with baby rice for a while. I'm very conscious of Francis's prematurity and don't want to cause any problems for him by rushing things. Still, if things go well it should make my day a bit easier - I seem to be permanently feeding him at the moment and I'm exhausted!

Lisa xxx