Infant sleep and bedtime cereal
M. L. Macknin, S. V. Medendorp and M. C. Maier
Department of Pediatrics, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, OH 44195-5045.
We studied whether feeding infants rice cereal before bedtime promotes
their sleeping through the night. One hundred six infants were randomly
assigned to begin bedtime cereal feeding (1 tablespoon per ounce in a
bottle) at 5 weeks or at 4 months of age. Caretakers recorded the infant's
sleep from age 4 to 21 weeks for one 24-hour period per week. Sleeping
through the night was defined as sleeping at least 8 consecutive hours,
with the majority of time being between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. The
results were also reviewed changing the requirement from 8 hours to 6
hours. There was no statistically significant trend or a consistent
tendency of one group to have a higher proportion of sleepers than the
other. Therefore, feeding infants rice cereal in the bottle before bedtime
does not appear to make much difference in their sleeping through the
night.
