Feeding and solids

Dd2 will be 5 months on Saturday.

She has had a cold the last 2 weeks so she's been a bit up and down but now she's nearly better. For a while there she didn't want to drink much and would vomit a lot of it up (I think from the mucous irritating her). Now she is feeding as much as she can get. She'll take both sides and is happy to eat and eat.

She has gone from sleeping all through the night to now waking early morning for a feed and going back down. She is also not staying asleep for long in her day sleeps and I have to keep going back in, putting her in to feed until she falls back asleep (she does a full feed each time).

Is she making up for the couple weeks of not feeding as much?
Is it a growth spurt? Development change?

I vaguely remember dd1 doing something similar but I can't really be certain.

I am being told by family and friends to start her on some solids because they are saying she is ready for it and obviously not staying full anymore. She does want to try things when we're eating, but I feel like "age" wise she might be too young. She is a big girl, she's at the top end of all the charts for her sizes.

Help! :)

I would personally try solids. 5 months isn't too young IMO, I started both my boys on solids at 4.5 months as directed by the paed and MCHN. Both of them were big and always hungry also.

My DD did the same at 5months, started going crazy at night ( she was waking hourly tho).

MCHN encouraged me to start solids due to poor weight gains, which we did at 5.5 months, made no difference to a) the night wakings or b) the weight gain, so don't expect a miracle is what I am trying to say! I don't really regret starting then but there's no reason she really needed it either.

Is she going through a wonder week? DD always has awful naps and night sleeps during this, then it magically fixes itself again.

I wouldn't. She doesn't need solids until 6 months and there is no harm in waiting :) You sound like you would rather wait.

Some info from Kellymom for you...

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Signs that indicate baby is developmentally ready for solids include:

• Baby can sit up well without support.
• Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
• Baby is ready and willing to chew.
• Baby is developing a “pincer” grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
• Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

We often state that a sign of solids readiness is when baby exhibits a long-term increased demand to nurse (sometime around 6 months or later) that is unrelated to illness, teething pain, a change in routine or a growth spurt. However, it can be hard to judge whether baby’s increased nursing is related to readiness for solids. Many 6-month-old babies are teething, growth spurting and experiencing many developmental changes that can lead to increased nursing – sometimes all at once! Make sure you look at all the signs of solids readiness as a whole, because increased nursing alone is not likely to be an accurate guide to baby’s readiness.

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I think at this point I would put it down to recovering from illness and/or just going through a stage. If she is 'nearly' better I would guess she isn't all caught up just yet and won't be for maybe another few days, maybe a week. I remember every time DD1 got a tooth she would feed and sleep terribly, then the pain would stop and she'd be HUNGRY for 3-4 days and want to sleep lots, then get back to normal. I reckon every single time I would wonder if I needed to be doing something different, then magically it would fall into place and I'd go a-ha that was the issue!
If it is still happening in a couple weeks I would reconsider.

There are lots of reasons feeding and sleeping patterns change, and hunger is only one possibility. If she's been ill, that's far more likely. Also, it is a common age when these things just tend to change anyway.
A healthy, full-term baby gets everything they need from breast milk for *at least* the first six months. Sometime after that they begin to run down their iron stores and need a complementary source of iron and zinc, that's all.
Developmentally speaking, if she's sitting up unaided, has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and is able to chew and swallow, then she's ready to eat.