Baby Food

I started both my boys on solids starting w/ ____@____.com lost their tongue thrust reflex pretty quick but like PP's said...it's all up to how you and the baby feels. You can use cereal to start with to help her get over the thrust reflex. It's usually only like $1-2 a box soyou're not really wasting any money on it. It'll give her something to practice with. Be prepared for a mess! Sweet potatoes, squash, carrots are all good ones to start with as well. Don't mean to sound as if I'm telling you wht to do here, just some suggestions based on my experience...Good luck!

Hi E.!

you've got good advise here - we started just before my daughter was 6 months with cereal and added veggies first then fruits. The reason i did the veggies first was because I was told that if they get the sweet taste first they could be less apt to go for the veggies. Im sure everyone is different but it worked for us. My now two year old loves her veggies and fruits. She will actually choose to eat peas over most foods (which I'm sure won't last forever - but I'll take it as long as I can). i used the gerber foods and just used the stage recomendations. once I got a good amount of things she liked, I tried some combos and fresh foods. Follow your gut, you will know if you are rushing something or if your child doesn't like something. If they don;t like something specific - don't push it, just try it again another day without a fuss!

A.

Hello E.,

There are babies who are ready to eat solids at 4 mo, and others ready at 6 mo. When my baby was 4 mo, my Ped told me to try and feed him cereal , but if he seem not to like it or have problems just I had to stop and wait for my baby to be 6 mo. There are many babies who are very good at eating at early age and other cannot, that depends on them and you have to watch out for it and see when your baby is ready. My first baby wasn't ready at 4 mo old, he did not like it, and he just started to have a lot of gas and tummy problems, so I waited until he was 6 mo and started with rice cereal and formula (or breast milk if is your case), then and little by little I added veggies (the yellow ones, then the green ones)and later fruits, I gave him little portions of each fruit and veggie separately, 4 days each to see any allergic reaction. He still doesn't like green veggies (He's 7 yr old!!!)..and later with my second baby, I did the same thing. My Ped told me to try at 4 mo if I wanted to do it. I just wait, until he was 6 mo old to make sure he would not have any reaction or problems. Your instincts are VERY wise, you'll know when he is ready and do not rush him, it is not necessary at all. Babies tummies are very delicate and sensitive, so take your time and let your baby be ready at his own pace. My two boys started whole milk at 12 mo exactly. When they were born, one was fed with formula and the other one with breast milk until 6 mo old, then with formula til 12 mo.
I hope this helps !!
Alejandra

Every child is different so it is really best to ask your pediatritain. Most peds. say to wait until 6 months to start cereal but my son was 6 weeks early so we did not start until 7 months. I have also been told and read that you start with vegetables (orange vegetable, ie: squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes...) because fruits are sweeter because they have more natural sugar and it will be difficult to get your child to go to vegetables once they have had this sugar. The best bet though is to ask your pediatritain because again, every child is different.

My daughter also has reflux. They say to start them on vegies first because if you start them on fruits they won't want vegies since they aren't sweet. Evee has had carrots, peas, sweet potatoes and I am about to start her on green beans. They say to start with something orange like Carrots or sweet potatoes. Then switch back and forth from orange to green. I started my daughter on baby food at 5 months. I gave her level one but I didn't know her daycare was giving her level two. The doctor says it's ok though. They said if she likes it better then just let her have level 2s. She didn't like the real runny stuff. I am not sure though. You would know more than me. Evee is my only child. I hope this helps! Good luck.

This is a regional thing. When we my oldest was a baby we lived on the west coast and all the peds gave the same advice -- start food between 4 and 6 months when baby is interested (ie, stares at your fork and tries to grab it when you eat) and when they lose the tongue-thrust reflex. If you try to feed them before they lose the reflex, they just instinctly shove everything out. So anyways... we were told to give food at 4 months (he was interested and able to eat) and to just give baby whatever we were eating at a meal. No waiting a week between introducing new foods, etc... we never even used jarred food. We jsut fork-smashed whatever we were eating. (no family history of allergies and also no peanut butter or honey until 1st birthday). By the time he was 7 months he was 100% self-feeding -- we just cut everything up into pea size pieces since he didn't any teeth to take bites off of food (they can gum anything).

We did the same for our DD and will do the same for this baby. However, after we moved here to the midwest I noticed that most docs still tell people to do the old introduce-one-food-at-a-time thing and tend to wait until closer to 6 months to start. Where my sister in law lives on the east coast, the peds tell everyone to breastfeed exclusively (or formula) until 6-8 months -- no cereal or real food before that.

Seeing as there's perfectly healthy kids all across the country, I'm guessing that any of these approaches will work and all are right. So if your baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and seems interested when you eat, just smash up a banana and give it to her and see what she does with it. Fork-smashed avacado is anther excellent first food to try.

Babies have a tongue-thrust for a while, which i was completely unaware of! So it wasn't until about 5 months that my son was able to actually eat food. I think after that, if you feel comfortable, I'd go for it. Watch for allergies... but I think people make too big of a deal over when to feed children baby food. Don't sweat it. :)

I think it really depends on the baby. We started our daughter on rice cereal when she was 4 months old. I made it really really runny and used a spoon. She took to it right away. I've gradually thickened it up a bit and now she won't eat it if it's too runny. Our pediatrician told us not to start her on baby foods till 6 months. I have friends that have babies that were started on baby food at 4 months. If you were to start food, I would start on veggies. At least, that's what I've heard. I think the best think is to ask your pediatrician, especially since your daughter has reflux. I know that babies don't need food until they are six months old, according to the La Leche League anyway. I know it's all so confusing!!! Good luck!

My doctor told me not to feed my daugheter any kind of baby food until she was 6 months old.But like my mom told me Every kid she has every raised and been around they fed them baby food us soon as they could eat off the spoon. My doc told me it could cause health problems like diabites (spelling not sure of) or over weight. My daughter is 19 months old. She was a 10 wk early premie. I started feeding her baby food at 3 months old now she is healthy and is 32 inches tall and weighs 23lbs. So i think you should do whatever you want and feed your baby when you think she is ready.

Hi:) My 2 cents: the AAP guidelines say 6 months because 1) most children have the tongue thrust until close to that, and 2) they can't digest foods much before that (meaning that you are basically throwing away your money feeding them food they don't get any nutritional value from). There is something to be said for "teaching your baby to eat" but it's not needed. The AAP doesn't condone the use of food to suppress reflux but if it's working I personally think it's better to give them food they don't need over medicines like Zantac (which is what my son has been on for 7 months).
If you want to start other foods a few things to keep in mind:
NEVER feed food through a bottle. Bottles are for liquids, they need to learn that food is from a spoon and formula/milk is from the bottle.
ALWAYS offer the breast or bottle before solids so that the baby is close to full before the solids. Then they will just explore the food and not eat to feel full. Nothing you feed them will have the nutrients or calories that breastmilk or formula have so you will be depriving them of sustinence by feeding them more foods and less BM/F.
If you are interested in making food, feel free to PM me, I have lots of ideas and recipes. Great starters are avacado and sweet potatoes. Both are high in calories, vitamins, avacado is high in good fats and a bit more bland.
Good Luck!

We followed the Child Led solids approach to foods and ds started experimenting with solids when he acted interested at around 8 months. Now, at almost 11 months he is starting to really gain interest and he is trying a larger variety although he still has no regularity.

We chose this approach after reading about the health benefits of delaying solids and analyzing ds's cues of readiness. Ds also had reflux and was medicated. We were told that in some cases cereal can exacerbate the problem and there is conflicting evidence on the usefulness in treating reflux with solids.

Sounds like you have some good advice. I just wanted to add most people start with the orange veggies before the green because greens are harder to digest than the orange/yellowish veggies. Also veggies like peas tend to be thicker and may take your child awhile to get used to.