My dad has a friend who used to be a nurse in the nursery at a local hospital and they actually used to put rice cereal in the bottles of formula for newborns!!! Of course that was back in the day before even I was born. My MIL told me stories about how she fed we sons rice cereal at 2 weeks (her oldest) 4 weeks (her middle - my husband) and then 6 weeks (her youngest). My understanding from her is that this was common practice. Oh how times have changed.
Other research showed that some doctors recommended you wait until at least 6 months of age while others encouraged earlier (4 months) or later (9 months).
Even still it is agreed that all solids should be mostly supplemental until around 11-12 months and formula or breast milk is still the main source of calories.
Ultimately you as the mom or dad know your baby best. So you know when your baby will be ready.
One thing that I found to be really helpful was to wait until Ellie started to show interest in us eating. When she did that I felt that meant she was ready to try something other than formula. Our doctor actually told us that we didn't have to start out with rice cereal but could actually start out with a veggie or a fruit! I loved that idea but I decided that we would start with rice cereal since I knew I couldn't make it myself.
Since introducing Ellie to "solid" foods, we have taken care to allow time between new introductions to see if there are any allergies. We know that she loved avocado but she got a bad diaper rash after so we are holding off on trying that again.
Since I couldn't breastfeed Ellie, I knew I wanted to make her food myself. I started out with the vegetables we grew in our garden by steaming/boiling them and then using my hand mixer and the cooking water to puree. When we ran out of our own grown produce I then hit the organic produce section at our local grocery store and Costco. At first I pressed her food through a sieve so make sure that the texture was really smooth but now all I have to do is mash it up for her since she is better at eating! Although I am not comfortable with making fruits for her so we do buy organic baby fruit for her. I am thinking I can try some "whole" fruits now that she is picking up foods and making them into her mouth quite well.
Its been a rather slow process and I have probably been more conservative than other parents. But I just want Ellie to get used to eating different foods.
Any tips or ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated as we are wanting her to have more "solid" food throughout the day!
♥ Ashley
One thing that I found to be really helpful was to wait until Ellie started to show interest in us eating. When she did that I felt that meant she was ready to try something other than formula. Our doctor actually told us that we didn't have to start out with rice cereal but could actually start out with a veggie or a fruit! I loved that idea but I decided that we would start with rice cereal since I knew I couldn't make it myself.
Since introducing Ellie to "solid" foods, we have taken care to allow time between new introductions to see if there are any allergies. We know that she loved avocado but she got a bad diaper rash after so we are holding off on trying that again.
Since I couldn't breastfeed Ellie, I knew I wanted to make her food myself. I started out with the vegetables we grew in our garden by steaming/boiling them and then using my hand mixer and the cooking water to puree. When we ran out of our own grown produce I then hit the organic produce section at our local grocery store and Costco. At first I pressed her food through a sieve so make sure that the texture was really smooth but now all I have to do is mash it up for her since she is better at eating! Although I am not comfortable with making fruits for her so we do buy organic baby fruit for her. I am thinking I can try some "whole" fruits now that she is picking up foods and making them into her mouth quite well.
Its been a rather slow process and I have probably been more conservative than other parents. But I just want Ellie to get used to eating different foods.
Any tips or ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated as we are wanting her to have more "solid" food throughout the day!
♥ Ashley
I did basically the same as you. We didn't start until closer to 7 months....I started with avocado and sweet potato if I remember right! No rice cereal for us. I either mashed or steamed and pureed. Then I'd mix in breastmilk if it was too thick and needed to be runnier for her to eat. Worked well for us!
ReplyDeleteMy hope was to not start until later but we had a hard time keeping weight on my daughter. We introduced solids at five months because she was in the single digits in terms of weight percentile. We're still nursing and she's 11 months but she is definitely less interested in it than she is eating. I definitely wish we could have waited, though!
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