[LifesGood]

Ok Ladies. The Dr today suggested starting solids. I want to know
What do you feed LO? Just cereal? Veggies? Fruits? What kinds?
What time I day and how many times a day?
How much each time of day?
Does it replace a bottle feed or suppliment it?

[*GatorMommy*]

I just started feeding Lorelai rice cereal about 4 days ago. She gets it once a day before bed, with the maximum amount of formula in it so it is super runny. She loves it! However, I feel like she thinks it's mostly a playtime activity...not necessarily a meal. She eats about 3/4 of the bowl and then wants about 4 oz from a bottle.

[iheartaddi]

I started Addison on cereal on Valentines Day and she's now starting to get the hang of it. I only do it once a day around lunchtime and not every day right now. Yesterday I added sweet potatoes and she LOVES them. She had them today around 4 along with some cereal and she couldn't get enough of them!! I topped her up with some formula and now she's asleep.

I would start with cereal for a few weeks, then add some veggies. I did the sweet potatoes at Chrystal's suggestion to someone else. You want to add fruits later on.

[army_wife1008]

I want to start solids sooo bad, but we are not quite ready here...I cant wait tho!!

[BensMom]

Dangit!!! My backspace button just decided to quit on me! fIgnore any errors you see. I really need a new keyboard. one of the lOCD quirsks I have is that lI have to ltype wrong letters sometimes just so I can use each of my fingers an equal number of times. yeah, I'm wrierd like that.

ANYWAY...

• Start when you think he's ready.
• Begin with a single-grain cereal (rice is the easiest to digest)
• You can mix the cereal with a stage 1 food if you'd like
• Start with only one feeding per day (dinner, if you're wanting him to sleep better)
• Feed him when he's hungry and interested, but not so hungry that he's going to get frustrated and mad about it

*cool... backspace seems to be working again*

• Start with "yellow" veggies first (easy to digest), then fruits (so he doesn't develop a sweet tooth and refuse the veggies), and then greens (hardest to digest)
• Stay with one food for 3-5 days if your family has a history of allergies
• Gradually go up to 3 meals a day over the course of 2 months. A meal at first may be a few bites, but by two months, it should be appx 4 oz.
• After you've introduced all the new foods, you can begin feeding mixed foods, but do NOT start meats until at least 6 months (some say 8 months)
• Yes, your baby will smell like monkey butt after eating bananas, and yes your baby will have orange or green poop after eating carrots or peas. This is normal.
• Breastmilk or formula should be the main source of nutrition until 12 mos. Your baby will have an iron test at 9 months to make sure he's getting enough iron-fortified milk (either you or formula).
• Some people say to feed a baby BM or F before a solid, and some say after. Whichever you prefer is fine.
• For now, solids are just practice and will supplement a feeding rather than replace one. When your baby is consistently taking larger amounts of BM or F at a time and spacing them out farther, it's fine for a solid to be the only thing in a meal.
• Go with your baby's cues. Daniel isn't a big eater, but Ben always was. By 6 months, he was getting 9 oz of solids per feeding, 3x per day.

[emsketch]

Stella has been on rice cereal for a few days. She loves it! She eats about 1-2 oz once a day right now. Its hard to tell how much she really eats because of how much of it makes in onto her hands and face! She still takes a bottle after eating the cereal.

[Mommy2T&J]

I will have to go by what I did with Thomas rather than Jakob. I tried Jakob on rice cereal 3 times a week in the mid morning and he ate it for 2 weeks. Then he decided that he hated it. I have tried oatmeal and bananas and sweet potatoes and many more.

With Thomas I started out with rice cereal once a day. Normally in the morning. But I was pumping in the morning as he was given cereal and then I nursed him afterward. After 2 weeks I started with stage 1 veggies. I was bad and never waited a week with new food. He stopped taking a bottle while I was at work so we had to get him on a variety of solids quickly. He would not take breast milk from a sippy cup but would take half and half of white grape juice and water. I made alot of my own baby food. After he was 6 months I just used the food grinder to grind up what we were eating.

What I did with Thomas is not the norm but I wanted to give you a different experience.

[LifesGood]

so i bought rice and wheat cereal. my plan would be to stick with just rice for a couple weeks. i have sweet potato and carrot, then apples, pear peach and banana i think. so maybe just once a day. i dont know when, maybe lunch time. he sleeps 9-12 hours a night already.

then look at my orange veggies in a while. they can be mixed with cereal? is that better or does it matter

[iheartaddi]

Thank you Chrystal!!! Those are awesome tips!!

[newme08]

Thank you Chrystal!!! Those are awesome tips!![/b]

Thanks Chrystal!

I am going to be starting Bryant on solids soon. Carrie, what did the doctor say about how to introduce solids?

[LifesGood]

he said that studies showed that foods could be introduced sooner than thought, that it was shown to reduce allergies. Anyway he said to use rice milk to start, and mix it with formula. Wait 3-7 days before adding new things and go in the order that Chrystal sugested but anything can be introduced now apparently.

[laisydaisymama]

I personally do it a little different than Chrystal does...

I start with rice cereal, super thin, and do that every other day for about 2-3 weeks then every day for another 2 weeks. after you have been on cereal every day for at least 2 weeks, I start with green veggies. they are the most bitter tasting and the most likely to be refused. so I start with peas, then green beans, then squash, then carrots, then sweet potatoes. I do each new flavor for 7-10 days mixed with a little cereal. once I have gotten through all the veggies I start on fruits, apples, then pears, then peaches, then bananas. all mixed with a little cereal.


I do it kind of like this-
rice cereal- 3-4 weeks
peas w/rice 1 week
green beans w/rice 1 week

then when I start orange veggies I do like 1 day of squash, 1 days of peas, and alternate for about 10 days. I always go back to the one that doesn't taste as good so they don't start refusing them once they start tasting better stuff.

then once I have gotten through all the veggies and fruits, I switch to a different cereal like oatmeal for about a week or 2. once we have tried everything, eliminated the possibility for allergies, and gotten them used to eating with a spoon, (which for me takes about 2 1/2 months) I start feeding actual "meals". I start feeding cereal mixed with fruits every day for breakfast and 1-2 veggies around like 5pm. I do that for about 2 weeks and then add in lunch. by the time I have been feeding solids for about 4 months we are up to 3 meals a days. the only meals that replace milk for me are like breakfast, mixed with cereal so it's more filling. and I don't want them to get hungry at night because they only had baby food and no milk.

hope that makes any sense at all!

[LifesGood]

I personally do it a little different than Chrystal does...

I start with rice cereal, super thin, and do that every other day for about 2-3 weeks then every day for another 2 weeks. after you have been on cereal every day for at least 2 weeks, I start with green veggies. they are the most bitter tasting and the most likely to be refused. so I start with peas, then green beans, then squash, then carrots, then sweet potatoes. I do each new flavor for 7-10 days mixed with a little cereal. once I have gotten through all the veggies I start on fruits, apples, then pears, then peaches, then bananas. all mixed with a little cereal.


I do it kind of like this-
rice cereal- 3-4 weeks
peas w/rice 1 week
green beans w/rice 1 week

then when I start orange veggies I do like 1 day of squash, 1 days of peas, and alternate for about 10 days. I always go back to the one that doesn't taste as good so they don't start refusing them once they start tasting better stuff.

then once I have gotten through all the veggies and fruits, I switch to a different cereal like oatmeal for about a week or 2. once we have tried everything, eliminated the possibility for allergies, and gotten them used to eating with a spoon, (which for me takes about 2 1/2 months) I start feeding actual "meals". I start feeding cereal mixed with fruits every day for breakfast and 1-2 veggies around like 5pm. I do that for about 2 weeks and then add in lunch. by the time I have been feeding solids for about 4 months we are up to 3 meals a days. the only meals that replace milk for me are like breakfast, mixed with cereal so it's more filling. and I don't want them to get hungry at night because they only had baby food and no milk.

hope that makes any sense at all![/b]

I like this idea too.. sort of what I was planning but I never thought to do green first. HMMMM.. WHen you started with the cereal is it only once a day? Can you explain the bold part again? so like when you introduce carrots you do like a day of carrots, then one of peas? How do you keep alternating all the foods if it is once a day AHHH lol

[meghan.]

Thank you to everyone who put information into this thread! There is a lot of great stuff and I for one need all the info I can get!

[laisydaisymama]

yeah when I start offering the better tasting stuff I alternate it with the more bitter tasting stuff so that they don't get used to the sweeter stuff and then refuse the more bitter stuff. when I alternate I do one day of each, I don't start giving 2 things a day for a couple of months.
like this:

(after just cereal)
days1-8 peas
days 9-11 green beans
day 12 peas
13-15 green beans
16 peas
17-18 green beans
19 squash
20 green beans
21 squash
22 peas
23 squash
24 green beans
25 squash
26 peas
27 carrots
28 green beans
29 carrots
30 peas
31 carrots
32 green beans
33 squash
34 peas
35 carrots
36 green beans
36 carrots
37 peas
38 carrots
39 green beans
40 sweet potatoes
41 peas
42 carrots
43 green beans
44 sweet potatoes

etc, etc...keep adding in the other things, just make sure you try the new thing 7-8 times or more before you add something new.

make sense?

[BensMom]

I also like the idea of using greens first, but the ped told us to save greens and prunes for last because they're the hardest to tolerate. ... of course, he's been wrong about other things, so who knows? LOL!! I take everything he says with a grain of salt, and I almost always ask the opinions of people at JM. I love the internet. How did I go through high school and college without it?

[LifesGood]

*takes Ginni's post and transposes it directly to calender * LOL

[*GatorMommy*]

Thank you to everyone who put information into this thread! There is a lot of great stuff and I for one need all the info I can get![/b]

I am clueless!!!

[BensMom]

*takes Ginni's post and transposes it directly to calender * LOL[/b]

[Andrew's Mom]

Thank you to everyone who put information into this thread! There is a lot of great stuff and I for one need all the info I can get![/b]

Ditto! I don't know what I'll do without you ladies! Thanks to this post, it reminded to buy some bowl and spoon for my baby. I got this from Amazon yesterday, it's BPA free and I have yet to find a bad review on it. http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Dipper-Bowl-Spo...0044&sr=8-1

I got a can of Gerber rice cereal last night, now do you all make your own baby food or do you just buy jars of Gerber? Is one brand better than the other?