Want your baby to sleep better? Feed them solid food sooner, study suggests

Turns out babies are just like us. They basically get food comas.

OK, not technically. Here's what I mean:

If you feed babies solid food sooner, they sleep longer and wake less often throughout the night, a study in JAMA Pediatrics this month found. 

A clinical trial in England and Wales separated about 1,300 infants aged 3 months into two groups: One that ate solid foods starting at 3 months old and the other that was exclusively breast fed until 6 months. The researchers found that babies who began eating solid foods at 3 months woke less frequently and slept for longer durations than the babies who started eating at 6 months.

The infants who ate solid food sooner started with non-allergenic products, then added allergens such as cow’s milk, peanuts, eggs, sesame, white fish and wheat.

This group of children slept on average 16.6 minutes longer per night and woke on average 1.74 times per night, compared to the other group's 2.01 times.

The British government advises mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children until each child is 6 months old, the study says. But only about 1 percent of mothers actually do that, according to the 2010 Infant Feeding Survey.

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