Breastfeeding & Solids

[lilacblue]

I am soooo confused about feeding solids..
DD is 6.5 months old, I started her on food at about 5.5, she got horrribly constipated so I stopped for a while. My questions:

1) I am feeding her prunes with rice cereal.....why is the cereal so important? Is it just the iron? She is an excellent eater and I think the cereal binds her up. Would rather move onto another food and lose the cereal.

2) Have most of you started around this time? I have read that this is just for them to get used to food, the bf being main source of nutrition.

3) We recently discovered she may have a a dairy and soy allergy Hopefully that is the extent of it, but the possibilities of other allergies to food concerns me while introducing foods. Any insights?

4) After prunes and rice cereal for 3 days I switched to pears and rice cereal to see if she would get constipated (which she did) Do all babies get like this?

I guess I just need some insight into all this. it sounds like some babies at this age are being fed cheerios and such......maybe I am just overthinking!:

[jbalsam]

Yes, BF for most nutrition

BF can provide all nutrition for 2 yrs, so don't worry about that (this is according to my lactation consultant; I realize there are some other opinions about iron).

We heard basically your same story from 2 friends so decided to start w fruit & veg instead, and dr. was supportive. Started at 6 mos, then added rice cereal at 7.5 mos and no problems.

Super Baby Food and Child of Mine have been two really useful books for us. Some of the stuff in the books I take with a grain of salt in order to follow my general "theme."

I hope feeding can be fun for you too! HTH.

[iowaorganic]

You don't have to do cereal at all.

I sstarted DD and DS on sweet potatoes- then moved on to the sweet veggies and then fruits. We did green veggies with fingers.

Don't be in a rush and get stressed about starting food. Your DC will eat when they want with thier fingers if you give them time. My DS2 is 7.5 mo old and we are just this week starting food- but finger foods like steamed peas and well cooked beans and the like. Much less stress.

I wouldn't worry about iron- it is fortified anyway- and I don't care for fortified anything.

[aja-belly]

yeah, i would wait on grains for now and start with fruit and veggies. the push for cereal is for the iron (i mean, read the nutritional info on the back of the rice cereal - it doesn't really have much else to offer).

for right now it's just about learning to eat and exploring food. out of my 4 kids only one of them has had much interest in food at this age (one of my twins - the same age as your baby). my older 2 did tastes of stuff and playing with food and got more into eating closer to 10 months.

[Eligracey]

Oatmeal cereal isn't constipating the way rice is.

[fruitfulmomma]

I've never done rice cereal with any of my kids because I never got the point of it. Now lately I've done some reading with the last two and it seems that grains are really hard on babies tummies because they do not have the enzymes needing to digest them properly.

I don't do any jarred or pureed baby food either. What I give my 8mo is small bites of hamburger or chicken, scrambled eggs, cheese, and small bites of soft fruits or veggies - basically whatever is on my plate that doesn't pose a choking hazard.