Solids?!?

[flippinchica]

With DS1 we mainly did BLW starting at close to 6 months but did dabble in cereal at about 5 months. With him I was in a hurry because he refused bottles. At our 4 month appointment the pedi recommended starting baby cereal mainly for the iron since there isn't much in breast milk but we haven't given any. I did buy a box of baby oatmeal at the store today. I'm not in any huge hurry but I may try it soon. What are your plans?

[yellow711]

J is exclusively FF.
He turns 4 months on May 25 but I don't think we will introduce solids until 5 or 6 months. We plan to start with baby oatmeal and then gradually do purees. I plan to make most of his pureed food (that is what I did with my DD and saved a lot of money)

[yellow711]

I can't believe our babies are eating solids now or ready to eat them soon!

[bassa]

We’ll wait till 6 months (or a little earlier if she’s sitting well and showing a lot of interest) and start with mashed avocado or banana or something, semi-baby-lead-weaning style.

[jessijean]

We started rice cereal at 4 months because honestly he was turning into a grump and acted like bm wasn't enough. It worked and he's back to happy. We will wait until 6 months to start fruit and veggies.

[watermelonseed]

T is FF. We will start cereal at dinner time between 4-4.5 months. Moving to purées around 5.5 months.

DD1 didn’t really care for purées so I think we will BLW shortly after.

[flippinchica]

May 15, 2018 15:54:17 GMT -6 yellow711 said:

I can't believe our babies are eating solids now or ready to eat them soon!

I feel this way too. I tried it on DS1 urging. Baby clearly isn't ready yet so we will wait a few more weeks (probably 5 months)

[benandjerrys]

We will wait until at least 6 MOS, and I'm not really in any rush even for that 🤣. We will do blw.

The Dr mentioned that they aren't really pushing to wait until 6 mos anymore though at our last appointment. Does anyone know about that? This isn't a Dr I trust really, but curious if the evidence is really swinging back to solids earlier?

[amesie]

I am in ZERO rush for this. With DD1 I was so excited to try her on solids and we started around 5 months. I plan on holding off until closer to 6 months for dd2. It’s such a pain in the ass once you start and honestly I’m not looking forward to it haha.

I forgot to add that she’s EBF. And we will prob start on oatmeal as well like we did with DD1 and slowly add in some veggies. Then fruit.

[ajetter]

DD2 has a scary reaction to infant cereals (Earths Best brand) that makes me never want to do cereal again and not at all anxious to start now. And at our appointment yesterday the pedi recommended we delay until 6 months because he doesn’t want her to want to nurse less. I would assume that the cereals would add calories but I’m totally ok to not start!

[marygracerich]

Ok so I think I am in the minority here. We started the baby on solids at 4mo just like we did G. We started with purées. We do a different fruit or veggie every 4 days. I give him a half of a gerber 1st food container at lunch time. We have done squash, carrots, green beans, apple, pears and peaches so far. He loves it!

I won’t do rice cereal at all because he gets enough iron in the formula. I don’t want him extra constipated. In a month or so I will move up to baby oatmeal at breakfast.

When he gets a tooth or two, I will do some BLW type of stuff. He is very interested in our food already so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

[helloerrbody]

I did BLW with DS1 at 6 months, so I will probably do the same thing again this time.

[sarahh]

benandjerrys, I think they are saying 4 months now.

We tried cereal right around 4 months and she liked it but I'm super lazy and don't like the mess and how long it takes. We will probably get more serious about it closer to 6 months. We made baby food for DD1 and froze it and never used it. So we will probably do a mix of BLW and pouches depending on where we are.

[sunfrogger]

We did food early with my DD1 - purees, no cereal at all - but she had some pretty bad constipation and it was a struggle for a while. We stopped, and around 6 mo we started back up semi -BLW, and then moved directly to BLW because puree was a mess.

This time, we'll start ACTUALLY BLW at 6mo. I'm not against giving her mumm mumms or puffs earlier than that if she's interested in them though, or an apple slice to suck on, stuff like that. No cereal either, just directly start with softened fruits and veggies.

Dd1 was also sitting independently just after 4mo, which is when we started food.

[tiffrobot]

N is EBF. She is showing sooo much interest and readiness but I’m pushing to wait more till 5 or so months (she just turned 4 last week)
Always grabbing for food if she’s sitting on my lap and pretending to chew lol she’s actually quite savage at the table 😂

I’ll probably maybe start with a couple puréed foods of whatever we’re eating, but it will be majority BLW...mostly because it’s easy haha!

[easternshoregirl]

V is EBF and we'll start probably around 5 months with offering some oatmeal and doing some BLW. I'll be off school for the summer, so it is a good time to start and I can use the Haakaa to get the extra milk for mixing with oatmeal. 
When I go back to work in August, we'll do a mix of BLW and purees, since I will send some purees to day care.

I think seeing them eat new things for the first time is fun! We had a lot of luck with DS and he liked different stuff and he is still always willing to try something. He's quite an adventurous eater so I'm hoping the same with V. I know it could go either way, so we'll see.

[mrsp84]

I cannot wrap my head around how fast time is flying. Seriously. Food already?! DD1 was 6mo and we did a mixture of BLW and purees that I made. I only made purees in the beginning which helped because DD1 would have an ounce of food (equivalent to one ice cube) and it was so easy to just put it in the microwave and feed it to her. I may do that for the first month for foods that are easy to purée and don’t take a ton of time. With DD1, I would spend entire days prepping food and making purees. I don’t have that kind of time anymore. I will probably wait until 6mo to start BLW with DD2 and we’ll skip the oatmeal/cereal because she is FF.

I’m actually looking forward to moving to food because that (usually) means less formula and more $$$ in my pocket! 👍🏻

[sarahh]

mrsp84, thats a good way of looking at it. I just saw it as an extra hassle and a bottle is so much easier. But if it saves me money I guess I'll think about doing it sooner than later.

[helloerrbody]

May 16, 2018 7:18:38 GMT -6 sarahh said:

benandjerrys , I think they are saying 4 months now.

We tried cereal right around 4 months and she liked it but I'm super lazy and don't like the mess and how long it takes. We will probably get more serious about it closer to 6 months. We made baby food for DD1 and froze it and never used it. So we will probably do a mix of BLW and pouches depending on where we are.

Glad I'm not the only one who made food, froze it, and didn't use it lol.

[aprilz81]

Introducing food both excites and terrifies me.

Faith is really strong and has good head and neck control and can "stand" with very little support. She isn't showing interest in our foods yet, but honestly she really doesn't see us eat that often. She is usually playing or napping while we eat, because otherwise it is hard to eat holding a baby.

We combo feed so she should be getting a fair amount of Vit D and Iron, but she has majorly regressed on her sleep and I'm wondering if some solids would help her sleep at night. We are going longer between nursing now and DH is giving her more bottles during the day, she is up to 4 oz most feeds now (3.5 months). She still kinda snacks all day and eats every 2.5-3 hours.

Someone please tell me what to do so I don't have to make a decision. lol Seriously, what should I do?

[jessijean]

May 16, 2018 20:47:36 GMT -6 aprilz81 said:

Introducing food both excites and terrifies me.

Faith is really strong and has good head and neck control and can "stand" with very little support. She isn't showing interest in our foods yet, but honestly she really doesn't see us eat that often. She is usually playing or napping while we eat, because otherwise it is hard to eat holding a baby.

We combo feed so she should be getting a fair amount of Vit D and Iron, but she has majorly regressed on her sleep and I'm wondering if some solids would help her sleep at night. We are going longer between nursing now and DH is giving her more bottles during the day, she is up to 4 oz most feeds now (3.5 months). She still kinda snacks all day and eats every 2.5-3 hours.

Someone please tell me what to do so I don't have to make a decision. lol Seriously, what should I do?

If I were you I'd introduce rice cereal and see what she does. K just turned into a grump one week and wasn't sleeping well. We started giving him rice cereal at supper and it fixed him. She may ot may not be ready but it would hurt if you wanted to try. You can mix it very runny to get her used to it and gradually thicken over time. My ped recommended starting with one meal a day.

[dragonflyinn]

Omg also can’t beliebe we’re talking about real food. We did a combo of purses & BLW with DD at 6mo so ill do the same with DS. Skipping cereal. Basically in zero rush for this, bc I’ll have to get out the high chair again & DNW lol. He’s not close to sitting anyway

[mrsp84]

May 16, 2018 13:14:23 GMT -6 sarahh said:

mrsp84, thats a good way of looking at it. I just saw it as an extra hassle and a bottle is so much easier. But if it saves me money I guess I'll think about doing it sooner than later.

I was so terrified to start solids with DD1 mostly because I liked my routine of bottles, but also, I had no freaking clue what I was doing with solids. I didn’t have to worry about what to feed her and since she was in daycare all day, the last bottle of the day was my time with her. Introducing solids is kind of a pain, but the silver lining is less money spent on formula!

[mrsp84]

aprilz81, have you changed the nipple flow of the bottles? Sometimes just by doing that will help. If it’s a slow flow, she may be getting tired from sucking and not want as much. Another thing to maybe try is to increase the ounces and try everything you can to make her go 3-4 hours between feeds. It’s hard at first, but you may notice a huge difference in her sleeping habits. We did this right before DD2 started daycare to get on more of a schedule. She drinks 6oz 4x a day. She naps better during the day and sleeps amazing at night.

Or, you could try to introduce oatmeal/cereal. We didn’t do cereal because there’s not much nutritional value in it, but you could try something during her last bottle of the night or before 7pm to see if that makes any difference. Make it super runny and just mix formula/bm in with it until you get the consistency you want it to be.

[tiffrobot]

4 months is also generally a really crappy time for sleep as they really hit some huge mental milestones.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself this week lol.

[aprilz81]

May 17, 2018 7:22:30 GMT -6 mrsp84 said:

aprilz81 , have you changed the nipple flow of the bottles? Sometimes just by doing that will help. If it’s a slow flow, she may be getting tired from sucking and not want as much. Another thing to maybe try is to increase the ounces and try everything you can to make her go 3-4 hours between feeds. It’s hard at first, but you may notice a huge difference in her sleeping habits. We did this right before DD2 started daycare to get on more of a schedule. She drinks 6oz 4x a day. She naps better during the day and sleeps amazing at night.

Or, you could try to introduce oatmeal/cereal. We didn’t do cereal because there’s not much nutritional value in it, but you could try something during her last bottle of the night or before 7pm to see if that makes any difference. Make it super runny and just mix formula/bm in with it until you get the consistency you want it to be.

We are trying to give her more, this morning she is on her 5th ounce and spit up just a little as she finished the bottle.  So hopefully this will help too.  

I totally forgot about nipple flow, she is still on the nipples that came with the bottles (size 1).  Maybe I should get some bigger ones.

Our 4 month appointment is on the 29th so I'll ask about cereal then.  I hadn't really planned on using it and going straight to purees, but I'll see what he recommends.

[Deleted]

With DS1 we did a small sample box of rice cereal and then switched to homemade oatmeal. We mainly did chunky purées I made for about a month or so and then added in some blw. We plan to do the same this time.

[rebeccabunch]

May 17, 2018 7:03:08 GMT -6 dragonflyinn said:

Omg also can’t beliebe we’re talking about real food. We did a combo of purses & BLW with DD at 6mo so ill do the same with DS. Skipping cereal. Basically in zero rush for this, bc I’ll have to get out the high chair again & DNW lol. He’s not close to sitting anyway

Do not want to clean the high chair after each meal. And the floor. And the baby. We do not have a dog.

[dragonflyinn]

May 17, 2018 20:54:15 GMT -6 rebeccabunch said:

May 17, 2018 7:03:08 GMT -6 dragonflyinn said:

Omg also can’t beliebe we’re talking about real food. We did a combo of purses & BLW with DD at 6mo so ill do the same with DS. Skipping cereal. Basically in zero rush for this, bc I’ll have to get out the high chair again & DNW lol. He’s not close to sitting anyway

Do not want to clean the high chair after each meal. And the floor. And the baby. We do not have a dog.

I hate it so much that I’ve been sending DD (3yo) to the back porch for almost every meal bc DNW to clean up after her. And I do have a dog lol

[Deleted]

Solids are such a hassle 🙈 we will probably skip cereal, dabble in BLW around 6 months, and start making them a staple of the diet around 10-11 months. We didn't even really send solids to daycare for DD2 until she was close to a year old.