[captain optimism]

I was at synagogue over the weekend and got to hang out with the moms in the childcare room a lot. My baby is 8 months and eats some solids, but gets most of his calories from nursing. My friends are moms of two and three children respectively, one has a 5 year old and a 10 month old, and one is mom to 3 year old twins and a 6 year old. They were saying that at 8 months their children ate cheerios.

It would be great for my ds to get the hand-eye coord. from picking up the little o's. Are there cheerio knock-offs that are wheat free? I haven't introduced wheat yet, did you by this age? Also ds has no teeth, can he really gum these without choking? My mom-buddies said yes. What did you do about this one? If you have a good argument for or against, lay it on me.

ETA: General Mills has a Cheerios website, and they themselves say to wait until 9 months!

Also I found out that Oatios, another brand, has no wheat, only oats, rice and, uh, sugar...

 

[sarasprings]

DS ate Oatios, starting around 8 months. I was really nervous, but his 2 day older buddy was eating them, so we tried it. They dissolve very quickly and he never gagged on one. He sort of moved it around his mouth. It was really a turning point because it was an easy food to pick up.

I still haven't found a brand that doesn't have any kind of sweetner.

 

[Island Mommy]

We give our dd Nature's Path Heritage O's. All the ingredients are organic. They are: whole oat flour, kamut brand wheat flour, sugar cane juice, wheat flour, whole spelt flour, barley flour, barley malt extract, millet flour, quinoa flour, honey and a trace of sea salt.

Oops....honey!! Never actually read the full ingredient list before. Still, she's had no reactions. She did gag a few times when she first started eating these (they're quite hard), but now she has no problems.

So, what does everyone think? Are these OK to give to dd?

 

[Daffodil]

I haven't yet found an O cereal with no wheat in it (I'll have to look for Oatios), but we've been giving 8 month old dd dry puffed rice cereal for probably a month and a half now. It's nothing but rice, no sugar or anything else, and it doesn't seem like it could ever be a choking hazard because the little puffs dissolve almost immediately once they're in your mouth (and even if they didn't, I think they're probably too small to block the airway.) They're smaller than Cheerios, so they're harder to pick up, but Lindy had fun trying (and occasionally succeeding) even before she'd mastered the pincer grasp. We've also tried giving her Rice Chex. They're much easier to pick up, but they have sugar in them. We would moisten them just slightly before giving them to her, and if we did that they seemed to start mushing up and falling apart once she picked them up, so they didn't seem like they could be a choking hazard. Another thing we've given Lindy is rice pasta (cut up into small pieces that can't be choked on.)

 

[wombat]

I'm not impressed with processed cereals in general. I've also looked at the ingredients on Cheerios and the healthier O cereal alternatives and they either contain wheat or oats. I wanted to wait to 1 year to introduce any of the gluten containing cereals (wheat, oats, rye, barley).

I like Daffodils idea of the puffed rice. Although I just looked at the ingredients in the puffed brown rice cereal I have (Erewhon) and it has barley malt in it as well.
Daffodil, what brand did you get?

It's getting hard now 8mo dd can crawl cause she picks up other babies Cheerios and other kinds of crackers. I'm forever grabbing them off her.

I swear when I go out, it looks like kids eat nothing but Cheerios and french fries.

 

[Daffodil]

My puffed rice is Arrowhead Mills. Nothing in it but whole grain brown rice. I think I got it in the natural food section of one of the local grocery stores.

 

[sarasprings]

We tried puffed rice, as well. It was a bit frustrating for DS at first.

 

[MamaMonica]

Barabaras Breakfast Os have no wheat- these are hard to find but what kids eat.

 

[pinky]

We love the Whole Kids Organic Morning O's. Personally, I love Cheerios--LOVE them--and this is the only organic o's knock-off that tastes anything like Cheerios, IMO. Of course, you can only buy them at Whole Foods, since it's their brand. And I recently checked the label for a friend, they don't have any wheat ingredients.

 

[captain optimism]

I actually have a box of the Whole Kids Morning Os in the house now, and you are right--no wheat!

Okay, this is all great, but what about the 8 months part? and what about the sugar?

Wombat, why no gluten? Celiac or other digestive stuff runs in your family?

 

[wombat]

captainoptimism, I don't really understand why they say avoid wheat but eat all the gluten containing cereals. Wheat, oats, rye and barley all belong to the same family. And I think gluten is the protein in the wheat that causes the allergic problems. Maybe they just pick on wheat because it is more common.

And yep we have lots of allergies in both sides of the family. No celiac though.

I think if there are no allergies in the family then the healthier cereals would be fine. Not having grown up in the USA, I have no attachment or nostalgia for the breakfast cereals here.

I found this link on kellymom.com. Here's a food chart for when to introduce solids IF there are allergies
http://www.hallpublications.com/title2_sample2.html

 

[Liz]

Okay, I'm a weirdo but you asked. My kid didn't eat Cheerios or any-os because it just feels to me like you're introducing snack foods, ya know? Like they start with Cheerios then move on to goldfish then on to Scooby snacks. Thin edge of the wedge. As wombat said, you see so many kids out there constantly eating Cheerios! They live on snack foods! I know, I'm a weirdo. But I don't think my 3 year old has a retarded pincer grasp because he never ate Cheerios.

 

[LunaMom]

Good point, Liz - I do see lots of kids who still seem to need to have a bag of something crunchy with them wherever they go, even though they are well past the toddler stage!

A lot of the organic o's don't dissolve as well, becausae I think it's the sugar in Cheerios that makes them dissolve easily!

If your goal is to introduce finger foods that will help your child with his pincer grasp, why not use pieces of soft fruit, like banana? Easy to gum and swallow, but firm enough to cut into cubes!

 

[MamaMonica]

On the cheerios thing- I started my kids on Barabara's breakfast Os at about 12 months (held off solids until about a year) and my 4 yo never advanced to goldfish or anything LOL... she still crunches a few Os as car snacks and sometimes a rice cake or some organic rice chex.

 

[pinky]

Monica, I was just about to post something similar...I find that food on the go--like Cheerios or whatever--have been a big help with an active toddler. It's all about what those snacky foods are...we eat a lot of whole grain, low-sugar cereals, dried fruit, nuts, and the like. It doesn't have to be a slippery slope to goldfish and cheetos!!

Sorry to hijack your post!

And BTW, I don't think that it's necessarily the gluten in wheat that's the problem...there are a lot of people who can tolerate oats and other gluten-containing grains--like spelt, for example--who are allergic to wheat.

 

[captain optimism]

I guess some of this is coming from the fact that I WOH full time and pump all the milk that ds eats during the day. So for me, it would be a really great thing if the proportions of solids he eats would gradually increase.

As long as he's mainly living on my milk, I'm taking herbs, I'm pumping three times a day at work and once at 6AM at home every day including Saturday and Sunday, and the main thing, I'm stressed about what's in our freezer. he eats solids fine, but with a sort of lukewarm interest, like the point for him is the fascination of the high chair, the spoon, the bowl, the fabulous bib, etc. I don't want him to wean, you understand, I just want him to like to eat food a little more. I think he'd like the part about picking up the cereal himself, and his dad might offer it to him more often than he does sweet potatoes. (Because he thinks it's such a production...)

That said, i think I'm going to wait another month and revisit the O cereal issue. The point is for him to have the food that's good for him, not for me to have him eat more! I don't think the Os are such terrible food, even with the sugar, but let's be on the safe side. If we wait until he's a year old, that'll be okay too.

Sorry for the whiny tone. I really appreciate the many opinions on the cereal.

 

[Dragonfly]

O' captain, my captain - EnviroKidz has a lovely "O's" cereal that's available at Whole Foods (or your Whole Foods equivalent, perhaps?). I think it's called "Orangutan O's"... I know it has Orangutans on the front of the box, anyway. They're yummy, with a touch of cinnamon. And I'm just this side of positive that all of their cereals are wheat-free.

Hth

 

[chellemarie]

DS plays with chunks of avocado. I like the banana thing if Ms. Yaron didn't freak you out about them the way she did me.

Pardon the bizarre sentence.

I had more to say but the one-armed cleaning lady distracted me. Lo siento, mamasita. That's all I've got!

 

[Mere]

Have you tried Teddy Puffs? They are wheat-free, and dd really like them.

Personally, I see no problem with giving finger food whenever the child can handle it. Sure, it's not nutritionally necessary, but it also doesn't do any harm. My dd ate lots of finger foods and she did not become reliant on always having snacky foods around. For us, it was a great treat when she could eat cheerios (or other small finger foods) because we could all eat meals together at the table. She has always been pretty high needs, so pre-cheerios one of us would usually have to entertain dd while the other ate.

 

[sarasprings]

We used the oatios the same way as Mere -- it allowed us to eat at the same time.

Since he was 15 months, DS has had an afternoon snack. BM just didn't seem like enough for him to make it from lunch until dinner.

As an aside, banana didn't work as a first fruit for us. It was too slimy to pick up. Ripe pear was perfect, though.