Why do books and parents disagree about cereal and sleep?

Question

Books say: introducing cereal won't make your baby sleep through the night. But many people have told me otherwise, and my experience is that my 5-month baby slept much longer the day we gave him cereal. Howcome the books and people are disagreeing so much? What else should I know?

Answer 1

You are just reading books written by some as s whole! Yes, they sleep longer when they have cereal. My Dr. told me teething won't cause a fever, but that was full of crap too! I had three kids and they all ran fevers when they were teething! Rely on your Motherly instincts, you'll be right more often than wrong!

Answer 2

What you are doing isn't necessarily best. Yeah, cereal makes baby sleep longer, but it's just empty calories. Really, Cheetos have more nutritional value than baby cereal! Baby should wake up hungry, because milk and formula digest faster than cereal, and baby needs as much as you can give him. Also, cereals are hard to digest, and can cause constipation, gassiness, and abdominal pain in a young baby.
It isn't good for baby to be stuffed to the gills with junk food just so you can get a night's sleep. The books don't say that it won't make baby sleep; they say that it isn't healthy to fill your baby up with starches without any real nutiritional value just for the reason of having a longer nap. Overfeeding a baby is bad, regardless. Only milk or formula should be in a bottle. Cereal feeding at 4-5 months is for teaching baby how to eat and to experience new flavors and textures, and nutrition should still be derived mainly thru mother's milk or formula. It is NOT to be used to enforce a longer sleep. Baby needs to be active as much as possible, and causing him to be lethargic by stuffing him with cereal is not a good idea.

Answer 3

Books and parents disagree on many aspects of raising children. Indeed different books and different parents will have heated debates. There are "old school" methods, such as putting cereal in bottles, that are now thought by most good pediatricians to be a bad idea. The bottom line is get a pediatrician you trust and follow THEIR advice.

Answer 4

Books and p;arents disagree because even pedfiatricians disagree! Every baby is different. My baby is 5 months old and eats rice cereal once a day (at night) and it hasn't made him sleep more or less in my experience.

Answer 5

Like I always said don't believe everything books or doctors tell you.I've raised four children and found cereal helped in all of them to sleep better and longer.You do what you feel is best for your child and what really seems to work.You just have to try new things with babies.Because kids don't come with instructions.Good luck with baby.

Answer 6

I think that the rice cereal can upset a baby's stomach sometimes, but every baby is different.

Answer 7

If you give a baby cereal too soon they can aspirate it and get pneumonia....true story....their digestive systems and throat etc. really are developed enough to handle the cereal too early.

Answer 8

Who knows...maybe because if people read this then they'll give their 2 day old babies cereal so they'll sleep. Personally It helped my first child but didn't make a bit of difference in my other 2 children.

Answer 9

The books are from a scientific point of view. And parents give advice from experience.

Answer 10

trust your instincts if it works for you and your baby then its probably fine. I think that sometimes when i child cant sleep it is because of lack of proper nutrition, which can be cured by introducing cereal. So i think your correct in assuming that cereal is helping it seems to be true in this case. If it works keep it up.