Baby led weaning...why no rice cereal?

[mrs.t]

I am currently EBFing my almost 6 mo DS, and I am very interested in baby led weaning. I'm trying to find out more info about it, but I just want to know what the reason for skipping rice cereal is? My ped recommends starting with rice cereal and then adding fruits, so that was my plan until I started looking into it more.

[hollytheteacher]

For me it was because there is basically no point in rice cereal. It doesn't really give anything in terms of nutrition. It is also very bland and not the type of food i'd want my baby to get "used" to.

We did all types of flavorful and nutrient dense foods though. Also, I can't imagine a six month old grabbing a spoon and scooping rice cereal into his/her own mouth and part of baby led feeding is letting them grab the food and explore it themselves (with you right there supervising of course).

I'm sure other mamas will have other reasons/experiences, but that was ours. My ds's first "food" was guacamole and he loved it!

[woodchick]

The main reason we skipped rice cereal is that for me Baby led weaning means that baby eats what she is able to feed herself. For us, that meant small bits of food she could pick up with her hands.

With spoon feeding it could be difficult to know when baby is full and there is a huge temptation to 'just finish this last bit' from the bowl or jar. By letting baby eat herself she can decide when she's done.

[jeanine123]

No real nutritional value. What vitamins are in the rice cereal is artificial and thus hard to digest and utilize. Taste and consistency of paste.

[syd'smom]

I gave dd rice cereal until I tasted it - blech! And since we strive to eat whole natural foods, why would I give my ebf baby overly processed "food" chock full of chemical additives.

Try starting w/ a chunk of banana or avocado. Crusts of bread and pieces of chees have also been faves of ds.

[mrs.t]

Thanks!

[AnnaNova]

i agree with pps that said baby lead weaning means offering foods when baby is ready. we didnt really start giving our son real food until he started grabbing stuff off of our plates and trying to eat it. for us, it didnt happen till he was almost 8 mo, for some it happens as early as 5-6 mo.
i agree, no nutritional value to cereal. they took a grain, processed everything out of it, threw in a couple fake vitamines or supplements, and thats all there is to it. it just sits in baby's stomach and doesnt do anything else.
also, ive read in a few places that its better to start a baby off on vegetables once you introduce food, not fruit, that way they will be more likely to try and enjoy things that are not sweet.

[cristeen]

Yes to the above, but also babies lack the ability to digest grains. Until around 18 mos, the enzyme needed to break them down is not produced by their little bodies. At a year, my little guy has had grain just a few times, mostly when one of his little friends shared before i could stop them. Then last week i gave him a piece of graham cracker to check fo reactions so that he could have cake on his bday (which he didnt actually eat, just smeared everywhere).

[AnnaNova]

Originally Posted by cristeen

Yes to the above, but also babies lack the ability to digest grains. Until around 18 mos, the enzyme needed to break them down is not produced by their little bodies. At a year, my little guy has had grain just a few times, mostly when one of his little friends shared before i could stop them. Then last week i gave him a piece of graham cracker to check fo reactions so that he could have cake on his bday (which he didnt actually eat, just smeared everywhere).

YES! i meant to say that but forgot, absolutely agree

[mamadelbosque]

As others have said, theres no nutritional value and they can't really self feed it - both boys have always just fed themselves w/ occasional exceptions for like, pudding, yogurt, ice cream, etc... And all of that came much later than most stuff.

[mrs.t]

Thank you for all of the info! My DS has been trying to grab food off of my plate for a few weeks now. He sits with us at the table for every meal, and he mimics chewing when DH and I are eating. So I thought maybe it would be a good time to give him a little something.


What was the first food your DC ate and how did you prepare it?

[heatheresc]

Mrs. T., my DS's first food was a chunk of ripe organic banana. He was a week shy of 6 months and was pulling it out of my hand as I ate while nursing him. So I figured he was ready =), and he loved it! Banana has been his main food (he's 7.5 mos now), with some other bits of green veggies thrown in, based on whatever we're having for dinner. He doesn't have solids every day though.

[luvmybaby333]

Well I didn't read about baby-led weaning when my youngest was a newbie... but that's pretty much what we did.

I EBFed both my girls. My oldest was always so petite and just didn't like food. I spent months trying to force pureed junk in her because that's what I was "supposed" to do. In the end it made no difference. She just didn't like baby food, and she wasn't fond of anything other than breastmilk. I weaned her after her first B-day hoping she would eat "real" food then. She obviously had to eat something, but it still wasn't much... and she was so incredibly picky. In the end I realized that she was just meant to be a petite little girl. She would have done much better if I'd stuck to breastfeeding her as much as she wanted. Perhaps she would have been more interested in food on her own. Who knows. She's a happy and healthy 7-year-old now. Still picky, but she enjoys eating the foods that she does like. I just hate that we wasted so much time struggling with something that shouldn't have been an issue.

I was determined not to make the same mistake the second time around. I refused to spend months attempting to convince my child that pureed gunk was tasty and appealing. I was not going to doubt the goodness and nutritional completeness of my breastmilk. I was going to listen to my baby and respond to her needs. These were the conclusions I'd come to from experience. I didn't read any books about it. There are no rules, I don't suppose. Just instinct. That's what was missing the first time around. I listened to everyone but myself.

Anywho, my second baby loved breastmilk too. She was healthy, gained well, and was just very different from my first daughter. She also expressed waaay more interest in food that my first ever did. She was mobile pretty early and started trying to grab food off our plates starting at 5- 5½ months old. (She sat up at 4½ months, so by 5 months she was more than capable of scooting toward us and grabbing at our food as we sat on the floor to eat.) I didn't like the idea of letting her eat that early, though. When I asked for advice, people thought I was nuts for even considering it. So I put her off and continued to EBF her. By 7 months there was no denying her any longer. She was ready to eat. So we started offering her finger foods. Her first finger food (she'd already tried a bite or two off my plate previously) was salmon flakes. She loved it. Another favorite "first" was banana chunks. Stuff like that can get slippery, though, so we would coat them with wheat germ or flax meal. Not only were they easier to grip then, but the coating added nutritional value. Not really necessary in a breastfed child, but nice nonetheless.

I say listen to your child. If I could do things over with my second child, I would probably see how well she could self-feed when she first started asking for it. I feel kind of bad for making her wait so long. We did offer her rice cereal on two occasions while she was still "EBFing". Once on thanksgiving (at 5½ months old) and once on X-mas (at 6½ months old). Neither time went over very well. It tasted as bland as it smelled, and she knew that we had way better food on our plates. She also didn't care for the idea of us feeding her. She's been very independent from the start. If she couldn't do it herself, then she didn't want any part of whatever "it" was.

[luvmybaby333]

Originally Posted by mrs.t

Thank you for all of the info! My DS has been trying to grab food off of my plate for a few weeks now. He sits with us at the table for every meal, and he mimics chewing when DH and I are eating. So I thought maybe it would be a good time to give him a little something.


What was the first food your DC ate and how did you prepare it?

Salmon flakes. I prepared it for me, and just removed some flakes from the cooked piece. I cook with a lot of seasoning, so I chose flakes with little seasoning on them. She loved it.

[mokey4]

Another reason, in addition to everything everyone else has said, is that eating purees first teaches babies to swallow before they learn how to chew. In BLW, they eat real solid food that requires more than just sucking it down the back of their throat. If you start with rice cereal (or any mush), you could end up with more gagging and possibly choking when you move onto real solids. Though some babies make the transition just fine, I know of many who have to re-learn how to eat. We started my daughter with boiled carrots, which she didn't much care for. She did ok with steamed broccoli, and LOVED legumes from the beginning (but now at 19 months won't touch any of that stuff- go figure).

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by mrs.t

What was the first food your DC ate and how did you prepare it?

For kiddo #2 (#1 got jarred baby food) chicken that was on my plate, and pretty much anything on my plate that wasn't a choking hazard after that.

[cristeen]

First food here was avocado.

[Caneel]

DS started to focus on our food around 6 months, watching us eat, would grab at our arms and hands (he was often on our laps while we ate) He would get so excited and wave his little arms around, squealling.

Honestly, I can't remember what was his very first bite of "real" food. In the beginning I do remember bananas, avocados, peas, very soft peaches. DS never had baby food, we feed him off our plates based on suitability and gradually added things over time.

I thought Child of Mine, Feeding with Love and Good Sense was a wonderful book. Thankfully, I read it prior to DS starting solids. It really changed my thinking (for the better 100x over) about kids and food.

[JudiAU]

Rice cereal became popular with the rise of formula feeding because it was the only thing an infant could tolerate with very early introduction of solids, say at 4 months. Most commercial preparations are made with white rice and have zippo nutrition. It is still the standard old school advice. When I told my ped we would be starting with nutrious whole fruits and vegetables and starting grains latter she just nodded and said "so you've done your reading."

DS was all homemade purees and wouldn't pick up food until 14m.

DD wouldn't tolerate a puree until recently (13m) and demanded only food she could pick up.

Either way it was avocado, sweet potato, fruits, etc.

[mrs.t]

I have yet to read the baby led weaning book, which I plan on picking up this weekend, but just out of curiosity, do you all follow the same guidelines of introducing a new food only every 5 days to make sure there are no allergies?

My ped gave me a sheet with his recs for first foods which were apples, bananas, pears, plums, and peaches. I was going to try avocado as well. Does this sound ok?