[NubiaEarth]

With m older children I think I started at 41/2, maybe 5 months with the baby cereal. My baby is 3 months and 2 weeks. Last week at his dr. appointment the doctor told me to start cereal now. Isn't that soon? I mean I exclusively breast feed and he is 15 pounds already...he has more than doubled his birth weight (6 pounds 9 oz).
Opinions?

 

[SandraS]

Never did. It's nasty, frankly, and unnecessary.

All of mine started self-feeding table foods when they were ready, around six months or so.

Your doctor is giving very outdated advice, IMO. Yes, it's much too soon.

Good luck.

 

[NubiaEarth]

Exactly what I thought.. I want to switch pediatricians anyway for other reasons. I would love to go to Dr. Zatz in Nyack, NY..if I could just figure out how I would get there on public transportation from Yonkers, NY..

 

[SandraS]

We switched to an osteopathic family physician and LOVE it. My kids have never seen a "pediatrician", we've always had GPs, but I love the switch from an M.D. to a D.O.... worth looking up, IMO!

 

[Dreamy]

The WHO and other leading organizations now recommend not feeding anything but breastmilk or formula before 6 months of age.

See "Guiding principles for complementary feeding of the breastfed child" midway down this page: http://www.who.int/nutrition/publica.../en/index.html

This is from page 10: "A. Guideline: Practice exclusive breastfeeding from birth to 6 months of age, and introduce complementary foods at 6 months of age (180 days) while continuing to breastfeed."

I'm in Canada, and Health Canada clearly states to wait until 6 months of age: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/pubs/in...ng.php#trans-1

I hope that helps and that you can perhaps print some material out in order to show your doctor the updated recommendations out there these days

 

[lilylove]

Yup, your doc gave you advice that is way out of date. Introducing solids before 6 months (or whenever baby shows readiness signs) can actually cause problems. Cereal is not a good first food anyway. The excess iron can bind them up, and make it harder for them to process iron in a natural form. Plus it's not a really nutritious food. I start mine with a mushed avacado, sweet potato and other healthy unprocessed foods.
Signs that a baby is ready for solids is sitting unassisted, loses the tongue thrust, wants food, has teeth. Some say they aren't ready until they can feed self feed.

 

[To-Fu]

And to piggyback off some comments, you don't HAVE to start at six months. It's not like on their six-month birthday something magically changes for them digestively or developmentally.

Follow your baby's lead and watch for signs of readiness. This site should help:

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/so...lids-when.html

And yeah, if you're going to work toward solids, I personally wouldn't do cereal, as it's generally considered to be devoid of nutrition. Breast milk should be the primary source of nutrition for the first year anyway!

Best of luck.

 

[milkmamamerina]

3.5 mos. is way too soon. 4 months is the earliest I've heard of a doctor even okaying solids especially for well growing BF babies. I think maybe 15-20 years ago they would start at 3 mos., but not now. Waiting until 6 mos. is ideal. Earlier solids have been linked to food allergies, obesity, and diabetes.

That being said I am feeding my 5 mo rice cereal 3-5 times a week because she was freaking out to join us every time we sat down for a meal, she is off the charts in length, and is about a month early in her milestones.

 

[SandraS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilylove Signs that a baby is ready for solids is sitting unassisted, loses the tongue thrust, wants food, has teeth. Some say they aren't ready until they can feed self feed.

Having teeth really doesn't have anything to do with it. My first two were born with them!

And the first teeth, the front ones, aren't for chewing anyways. My 11 month old still has no teeth and there's NOTHING she hasn't eaten - literally. They are amazing gummers, babies are!

 

[lilylove]

Yes but being born with teeth isn't the norm either. Also it is not about a baby having one of the signs, it's about all the signs. If a baby had teeth at 2 months and didn't show any other signs of readiness, well then common sense would come into play.

 

[Kappa]

Yes, it is way too soon to start cereals. Do not give that to your child for at least another 4-5 months, and then go with something tastier like oatmeal. The gold star recommendation is to wait until at least 6 months. There has been a push to change that recommendation to 6-9 months. Your babykins cannot digest all of that mess. I started my baby on solids at 6 months, and I wish I would have waited.

 

[ema-adama]

DS is 9 months and he still has not eaten any cereal. (and he is over the 95th percentile for weight and height)

 

[sapphire_chan]

I'd bet that the ped is recommending solids because your breastmilk that made your LO so big "can't possibly be enough for a big baby."

 

[AlwaysByMySide]

Never started baby cereal.

 

[Drummer's Wife]

like other's have said baby cereal is not necessary and no way should a 3 month old have any. Boxed Rice cereal is pretty void of nutrients and tastes like cardboard (IMO) I would not feed my kid it knowing now that spoon feeding is not ideal, anyway. It is a filler and babies are better off nursing more often if they are hungry then eating a bowl of instant cereal.

 

[To-Fu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SandraS Having teeth really doesn't have anything to do with it. My first two were born with them! And the first teeth, the front ones, aren't for chewing anyways. My 11 month old still has no teeth and there's NOTHING she hasn't eaten - literally. They are amazing gummers, babies are!

I think the PP was saying that all those signs of readiness needed to be present at the same time. I hadn't seen teeth on the list before, though, so I think you may be right.

Here are the signs of readiness according to Kellymom:

Quote:

* Baby can sit up well without support. * Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue. * Baby is ready and willing to chew. * Baby is developing a "pincer" grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development. * Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

 

[Tofu the Geek]

Never. DD started solids by self feeding herself around 8 months or so.

 

[WyattsMom2008]

DS is ten months old, and I've followed the advice here and on kellymom.com and never fed him cereal and not tried hard to get him to eat any solids. I wish I had started him on the cereal when he was six months old. He just had a blood test that showed he is borderline anemic. Now I have to give him iron drops twice a day. I think it would be more pleasant for him to eat cereal than to get iron drops. I would have liked for him to self-feed high iron foods like egg yolk, but he does not yet feed himself anything other than a teething biscuit.

 

[lilylove]

WyattsMom2008, do you know what your Ds's levels are? I had two doc tell me my Dd2's levels were low and I had to supplement. When I asked what the leevls were, they were within the normal range just toward the lower end. I know several other mothers who were told their babies were deficient when they weren't.
Kellymom has lots of info on iron including a chart showing normal ranges for breastfed babies.

 

[Lit Chick]

DS could never tolerate cereal. I never gave it to him and asked that it not be fed to him (but of couse, what did I know as a 1st time mom... sigh). My parents (who provide his day care) gave him it a few times and without fail it made him sick. Constipated, bloated, irritable - just yuck. So, after miserable baby and a daughter that threatened to quit her job so they would stop poisoning her child (yes, I got dramatic) they stopped. He is now a year and only recently started having cereal in other things, like the YoBaby yogurt cereal blend.
Most of the cereals are loaded with a ton of nasty crud that a BFed baby does NOT need, and ugh - there ae much better things to feed. DS did start solids a little early (he did everything a little early so far), but it was little bits of fruit every once in a while.