[PaxtonsMom]

When do babies usually start eating solid food? What's the general transition? What are some foods you found your child took to best early on? I plan on breast feeding...how do you know when to add solid food or do you even do that?

Also, what age do they go into a high chair?

I swear, my FTM-ness is so bad. Thanks!

[RachaelDMommaTo3]

The answers to this will vary greatly I'm sure. Babies don't actually NEED solid foods for the first year, they will get everything they need from breastfeeding alone. It's generally recommended to wait until 6 months or so to start solids, but many people wait even longer. We started with Rylan at 7 months and he ate very little solid foods until at least a year! We started putting him in the highchair at mealtimes around 6-7 months just to include him in the meal.. though before that he would either be in his bouncy seat beside me or on my lap. The first food will vary too... we skipped baby cereals and went straight to homemade food.. his first food was avacado (which he didn't like at all! lol)

Don't worry.. you'll learn as you go! And you'll get to know your baby and what they need/like, parenting is definitely a big learning experience!

[humnck]

Well, with my pedi, they say start a tablespoon of cereal, I think ours said 6 months, but I think we started at 5. They don't need much and the first feeding of cereal was so little of that in so much of her formula

Our pedi also recommended veggies first, this way they are used to them, Reagan LOVES veggies now and I am not sure if that is the reason or she just likes them. She is not a very picky eater, although she has her times when she just doesn't want something.

Anyways, this is where your pedi will come in, they will guide you, we were given a chart of foods to start with, I believe we started with the greens, might have been oranges (yes they do it by color...lol). Then we introduced fruits and then meats.

We did not always follow what the pedi said, Reagan had PB at a year old, I read the chart wrong, though she was just fine and is not allergic to it! There are certain things that are no-no's for certain ages, honey for instance, shouldn't be given to a child under 2, because it can carry botulism and a young child can be severely affected by it, much worse than if an adult or older child would be. Just a little extra tidbit

Reagan started sitting in her bumbo to eat, because she was so tiny, or her bouncy, I don't think we started using the high chair until about 7 or 8 months, but I really don't recall, I would say you can put them in it when they can hold themselves up in it well...again a personal preference.

Believe me, you will be surprised as to how much just comes to you once baby is here! And that which you aren't sure, we are here and so is your family/friends and your docs!

[lnj5duke]

I agree with "it depends". I think the recommendation is 6 months, but some of the looser guidelines say 4-6 months. There are situational things that can impact the start of solids, too. For example, I was working part-time, and I wasn't pumping quite enough to keep DD1 satisfied at daycare. So, after the freezer supply ran out, we started to introduce solid foods around 5 months. We started with rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, followed by a little bit of applesauce. We added sweet potato not too long after that, and those were her staples for about a month or so (even though we kept adding other foods, slowly).

Our ped recommended a website called Wholesome Homemade Baby Food Recipes, Make your baby healthy homemade baby food with our easy baby food recipes, solid food tips, baby nutrition & more!. It has great suggestions and recipes! It also gives some reasoning for waiting to introduce certain foods, which helped us make better decisions. For example, egg has a high(ish) probability of being an allergen, so they recommend it later, but we don't have food allergies in our family, so we were okay with introducing it earlier once we read the reasoning behind the "rules". Same with peanut butter- since we were concerned about weight, we introduced it at 11 months because it's so loaded with calories.

[wavrunnr]

my answer mirrors Rachael's.
it varies by baby/parent. I'll be BFing and I won't be starting solids until 6 or 7 months (just as I did with my other 2). I won't start with cereal....I usually start with a veggie (peas, sweet potatoes, etc.). Your baby will let you know if they aren't totally ready for solids by pushing the food back out of their mouth. Later on they might do this too when the texture of the foods you offer change.

I'm sure most of us had the FTM fears. But being a parent is a learning experience...one day at a time...you don't have to know everything at once. Plus, you learn and your baby learns too....you kinda teach each other.

[Celry]

Yep, it depends. I would love to do more baby led weaning this time...meaning you avoid baby foods and let baby feed himself/herself soft cut up food when they are ready. I started A&E around 6 months with avocado mashed up with breast milk. We completely skipped any kinds of cereal. We then moved onto a bunch of green veggies then eventually yellow and once we covered veggies we tried fruit. I made all my own baby food. The girls didn't eat much even at a year since they were BFing a lot. We fed them during our meals, but they didn't eat a ton.

[Dishersgirl]

My son loved food all the time it didnt matter he wasnt picky his favorite thing now is beets with our DD she i s pickier however neither of them like peaches Trinity prefers regular oatmeal over the baby kind and has been eating the brown sugar and plain since 1 she couldnt stand the meat jared but wouldnt mind if we gave her just milk (she was ex bf) so i let her pick her pace now she will only eat what i eat

[Mommy-to-2]

I started Ava on cereal at 4 or 5 months and was mixing it with veggies/ fruits and formula. I would mash up avocado or banana for her first real food. I would introduce a new food about once a week. She is the best eater now! I never really followed any guide lines, i did what i felt was best for her and what i wanted to do. She eats great now! loves all kinds of fruits and veggies! the only thing that she never liked was the canned baby meats, if i mixed it with a veggie she would eat it a little better, i think because it was so bland, i dont blame her for spitting it out! lol
I have learned if you give them something and they act like they dont like it, try it again a few days later, their taste buds are always changing. Even now, one day she will love eggs, the next day she's spitting them out and gagging, then a few weeks later she loves them again!! lol I am still trying new food with her everyday! Another thing I learned is, just because you dont like something dont tell your child, "oh, you wont like that", I believe that turns them into picky eaters. I hate Olives, i think they are nasty and I just thought Ava wouldnt like them but she was reaching for one so i gave it to her and she loves them!! I hope Ava continues to be a good eater!

[LJD3Tdance]

I've always waited til 6 months to do solids, I plan to for the first time ever do true LAM so I can't introduce any solids til 6 months.

[girlymom]

I started feeding dd1 cereal around 4-5 months at the dr's urging (no good reason). DD2 exclusively breastfed until she started eating solids (no cereal or baby food)...can't remember exactly when she started eating little bits of solids though. I definitely won't be doing cereal this time, IMO it's just not a healthy food for babies. Things like egg yolk (not white) amd avocado are great starter foods.

[Goingfor3]

We started Nolan around 7 months. He was also breastfed and I saw no need to rush food.

We skipped cereal and went straight to the baby food I made. We tried lots of varieties but he really only like sweet potato, apple, peaches and banana. He barely ate any "food" until he was closer to a toddler. We were big on letting him try baby sized bites of just about any real food he wanted that would not hurt his stomach. I think it's a big reason that he's always willing to try new things now and the list of things he will eat is much larger than the older two kids were at this age.

He started using our highchair way earlier because it reclines and it was easy for me to sit him in it when I cooked. I guess we started using it around 2 months. But as far as sitting at the table, we started letting him play with toys at the highchair while we ate around the time he could sit up. He liked looking around.

[PaxtonsMom]

As usual, you all rock - thanks!!

[JoyfulChaosMama]

I don't even give a thought to feeding anything before a year old or so. Sometime, around 9-ish months they may get a taste here and there, maybe some cracker type thing to gum. But I don't look for rounded 'meals' until over a year or so. Babyfood, babyfood makers, cereal, all that 'made and marketed for baby' stuff is so not useful or healthy.

[Sophia's Momma]

I didn't use the high chair for a long time with DD. I fed her at first in her infant car seat as it reclined just enough to make eating a little easier and I didn't need to worry about her falling forward.