Starting Solids

Is there a reason you don't want to start with rice cereal?

they say it's best to start with rice cereal because its easier and lower risk of allergic reaction.

I agree with Chenita. You want to start your baby with food that has the most nutrition - fruits and vegetables. I loved the Gerber Organic food for my baby's first foods. She loved them and we never had a problem.

Rice cereal doesn't have much in real nutrition and the baby's stomach doesn't have the digestive juices to handle all that starch.

Real food is best.

Here's a thought... just a thought mind you. --- The cereals are great because the texture is easy for those little tounges to learn with. One way to add some nutritional value would be to use 100% fruit or vegtable juice instead of water or formula. --- Starting with straight fruits or vegtables is a great idea too. We often purred the foods really really finely and mixed them with water and cereaal to get the texture right. Just be REALLY REALLY sure to only introduce one new food every 4-5 days so you can watch for an allergy. Our son has poor reactions to anything berry related. You might want to wait on those for a little while. There's nothing worse than having a kid with what might be an allergy, but not knowing if it's your detergent or a lotion or one of the 3 new foods you introduced! ---- Starting foods is fun! Enjoy it... just remember it's more about texture than anything at this age! Let me know if you have any questions, I feel like we JUST did this! :)

Yes,
Gerber has the best food out there. My son is 9 months old now. But when I started him on jar foods (sweet potatoes 1st)
he loved it. On the jar foods by brand "Organics" they tell you what number to buy based on the age and weight of your baby. Organics have good food too. Sorry guys I sound so excited but I even taste tested the foods and they were good and very good for the children. They say to have the child try it for a week to see how they react to the food. ITs true and a good practice because you don't know if the baby will be allergic to anything. But first I started Chris on Sweet potatoes, apple sauce, peas, peaches, pears, and even prunes and they work real good. But I don't need to feed him those unless he's constipated. But it cleans them out in about an hour or less. Gerber's food oh and we tried carrots. The carrots taste great just like carrots
but the Butternut brand has the worst tasting food. It tastes like they watered it down greatly and my baby could tell the difference. Their carrots are the worst.

I started with tiny bits of fresh banana. While I use jars of food for daycare, my pediatrician recommended feeding mushed up fresh food. Sweetpotatoes are popular with little ones too. I bought a little electric chopper to mush up food for baby.

When baby gets a little older, cheerios are popular. They are healthy and break easily with gumming. They are a good self-feeding food.

As for rice cereal, all cereals are not equal. Earth's Best is whole grain organic cereals (they have them at Safeway). My 15 month old still eats the multigrain with fruit and breastmilk.