Your Opinion On When To Start Baby Foods?
29 December 2009
My son is 3 months old & a couple of days ago I tried banana’s (in the jar) on him. I’ve had him on rice cereal for about a month now due to severe acid reflux. He takes down the banana’s…slowly and not very much but he does. Everyone has their own opinions on when you should start the solid foods & i’d just like to hear some.
Mine also had severe reflux and was on Enfamil AR, so she did not need cereal in her bottles. However she started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, so our doc allowed us to put cereal in her night bottles. that is pretty much all she had from 2 to abour 4 months.
I started her on baby food at around 4 months. I did veggies first and gave her the same food (and only one kind) every day for 3 to 4 days……..we were just getting started at that point. she got baby food like once a day when we ate dinner or something.
Around 6 months I started really feeding her the baby food and taking away bottles. I put friut in her cereal in the morning and she had 1 jar for lunch and 1 for dinner.
hi i know this can be worrying, my advice is just keep trying, i think the key is little amount but often and try different textures. my little boy was 11 weeks premature he had several medical problems including server refluxing and projectile vomiting witch Can become very tyring and frustrating at times to especially when your trying so hard and nothing seems to help, just don’t rush him take thing slowly as long as he is still weight gaining and he is happy you haven’t much to worry about.my little boy is 18mths now and he still tends to have problems with his food and chocks alot of the time he was referred to a dietitian but they just said to pursue with giving him solids but top him up with baby milk on the days where he don’t eat very much solids. it works hes still weight gaining and still healthy and happy. don’t give up just give little but often.you could also ask your g.p for some gaviscon infant to help with the refluxing if your son isn’t already taking it as it really does help. good luck and all the best x x x x x x
3 to 4 months. All my kids ate then …baby foods and smashed up ..smooshie table foods.
my son was put on rice cereal after 1 month because he just wasn’t staying full. he then started the 1st stage of baby formula at around 4 months. when ever he gets the swallowing thing down then you can make the transition over to more baby foods. but don’t rush him if he’s not ready. you might want to try some banana oatmeal and mix it with milk or formula and make like a thicker food you can spoon feed him.
They say 4 months, however, I’ve also heard rice cereal constipates babies, so I haven’t done it yet. My son will be 5 months soon, and then I’m going to start making him baby food.
Me, my pediatrician, and every major medical organization on the face of the earth do not start solids until they are at least 6 months of age.
Children are literally incapable of digesting solids before the age of 4 months. Solids pass through their system wrecking havoc. The longer you wait, the less chance of the child developing severe, lifelong food allergies.
So, put the food away for a couple months and let your child grow a little more.
Never. Pureed strained baby food is a holdover from when formula was so inadequate babies suffered malnutrition of non-formula feeds were not started around 8 weeks of age. Particularly pablum -which unlike modern rice cereal contained bone marrow and alfalfa for iron which is far more easily absorbed than the synthetic forms used today.
All mammals are protected by the same thing -they can’t physically eat food until they are physiologically ready to digest it. For humans this means picking up the food, placing it in their mouth, gumming it, moving it back with their tongue, and swallowing it. The most obvious of course it the tongue thrust that newborns have -this reflex actively keeps food out of their body until they can digest it. But the other steps all have safeguards as well.
For healthy, full term infants the ability to eat food develops around 6-9 months. In recent years there have been numerous studies looking at the risks of certain things (allergies, asthma, anemia, etc) in relation to when solids are started and almost all have shown that the lowest risks are when solids are started between 6-9 months.http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids…
The following organizations recommend that all babies be exclusively breastfed (no cereal, juice or any other foods) for the first 6 months of life (not the first 4-6 months):
* World Health Organization
* UNICEF
* US Department of Health & Human Services
* American Academy of Pediatrics
* American Academy of Family Physicians
* American Dietetic Association
* Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
* Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
* Health Canadahttp://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro…
It appears that a baby’s general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it.http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro…
The babies who participated in the research were allowed to begin at four months. But they were not able to feed themselves before six months. Some of the younger babies picked food up and took it to their mouths; some even chewed it, but none swallowed it. Their own development decided for them when the time was right. Part of the reason for this study was to show (based on a theory of self-feeding) that babies are not ready for solid food before six months. It seems that we have spent all these years working out that six months is the right age and babies have known it all along!
It seems reasonable to predict that if parents choose to provide babies with the opportunity to pick up and eat solid food from birth they will still not be able to do it until around six months. The principle is the same as putting a newborn baby on the floor to play: he is being provided with the opportunity to walk but will not do so until about one year – because his own development stops him. But: everything depends on the baby being in control. Food must not be put into his mouth for him. Since it is very tempting to do this, it is probably safer to recommend that babies should not be given the opportunity to eat solid food before six months.http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro…
Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have learnt to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get the food into his mouth in the first place. On the other hand, the action used to suck food off a spoon tends to take the food straight to the back of the mouth, causing the baby to gag. This means that spoon feeding has its own potential to lead to choking – and makes one wonder about the safety of giving lumpy foods off a spoon.
before 4 months most babies still have a reflux called the extrusion reflex or “tongue-thrust” reflex so if anything inserted in his mouth (such as a spoon)he will push it out.
introducing certain foods too early will lead to a greater chance of developing allergies. the lining of your babys stomach has not mature and certain foods are introduced too early the baby is unable to digest the food and break it down often this can lead to bleeding in the stomach and cause stress on other organs such as the kidneys. around 4 -6 months introduce one food at a time and wait 3 to 4 days before introducing another new food.by introducing one at a time it will be easier to identify if there are any food allergies.
“and never add cereal to a bottle” hope this info was helpfull