when did you start with solids? and a few other questions...

OK, I know that all the doctors say not to start with solids until babes are 6 + months, but of course my mom and oma and MIL said that they started around 3-4 months. Heck, my MIL was giving my hubby water and juice when he was 3 WEEKS old. That's too young, in my opinion.....
Leane is almost 5 months now, and I'm planning on starting her on them my mid march. she'll almost be 6 months by then (my god how time flies)......
we're going to be going on a trip on the 25th of march where she's in a car for 8 hours, and I thought that it would be a good idea to start on them b4 we go.
My other question is that she eats just 3 times a day. She has 10 oz of milk when she does eat, so she's still getting a good amount of food and is still gaining lots of weight, but do you think that it's ok? She eats at 11am, 3-4pm, and then at 7pm. She has been sleeping through the night since she was 2 months.

 

My MIL was giving both her kids baby cereal mixed with OJ at 3 weeks old too... and she let them teethe on chicken bones! It's amazing that any of us survived what our parents did, isn't it?

The 6 month "thing" is to help prevent allergies. The longer you can stall, the less likely your baby is supposed to be to develop an allergy to something. We waited a full 9 months because I'm allergic to everything already & we figured it couldn't hurt to try and reduce their allergies.

I've not heard of a baby only eating 3 times per day before... my kids were fed on-demand, and that was usually 5-7 times per day & a couple times at night. But if she's active & gaining weight, I guess I wouldn't worry about it. Every baby grows differently.
love,
mom

 

I'm confused by your post. Any food besides breastmilk or formula is considered "solids"... A five month old baby should not be drinking cow milk. (ETA - are you saying she drinks three 10 oz bottles of formula a day? At five months, my babies were still nursing at least every two or three hours. And at six months, with that growth spurt, they were nursing non stop around the clock. At three months, when I was still exclusively pumping breastmilk for my first child, she was taking 30 oz of milk each day, plus whatever she could get from nursing, and she weighed only about 7 or 8 lbs at that point.) Even the AAP recommends that all babies get nothing but breastmilk or formula for the first six months of their lives. Allergies, as the PP mentioned, is one reason. another reason is that their guts are not mature enough and they cannot digest other foods. Here is a very good website that explains why it is better to wait longer. http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/t032000.asp
according to Dr. Sears, these are the signs that baby is ready for solids

If baby is satisfied playing with a spoon while you are at the table eating dinner with the family, s/he is not ready for solids. It is unmistakable when they really are ready. Nothing else will placate them! Another sign baby is ready for solids is that they are able to pick things up in a pincer grip with their thumb and forefinger. If their poopy diapers look and smell just like the food they ate, they are not able to digest solid foods yet, and you should probably back off a little.

I started offering my children bites of what I was eating when they showed signs that they were ready for it, about six or seven months of age, I'd guess. Mostly they gnawed on it then spit it back out. Both of them started swallowing a few bites of solid foods at around nine months, which coincided with them having top and bottom teeth. And both of them started eating more than just a bite or two of solid foods at around 14 months of age. Prior to 12-18 months of age, a baby cannot digest solid food, and it is just for practice with different tastes and textures. Breastmilk or formula should be the main source of nutrition for at least the first year or two.

 

Dakota was eating four times a day when we first brought him home, (5 1/2 months). They had just started him on fruit. He was getting cereal in his bottle from birth. In Guatemala they can't afford the expensive formula so they mix half formula and half rice cereal. We stopped the orange juice they were giving him and weaned the cereal out of his bottle, giving him less and less cereal every day. Then we gradually switched over to our organic formula. We did continue to give him bananas. Once the transition was made to no cereal in the bottle we started giving him other fruits and then veggies. After he was about 7 months old we started meats and pasta. We also let him chew on hard bread. Then all the allergies started. I wonder if part of the problem was because they started him on cereal so young. But then rice has never been a problem for him. In fact for a while that was about the only thing he could hold down. Anyway, our situation is a bit different because he was raised in foster care in another country for the first 5 months of his life. With my oldest child I was giving him cereal at 2 weeks because the doctor said to. By the time I got to number 5, he didn't get solids until after he was 6 months old. We learned a lot during those ten years.

You got to do what feels right for your child. If she wasn't satisfied by the 3 meals a day, she wouldn't be happy and gaining weight. If it works, don't fix it.

Kathi

 

Leane also does everything that Dr.Sears said.
She sits at the table in her high chair now and reaches for the table. When she sits on my lap, she grabs the food off my plate.
She's been sitting with support for a long time now, and is starting to sit w/o support...but can't quite do it yet.

 

Babies this age grab at anything. The ability to sit alone and the pincher grip (first finger and thumb only) as well as being able to take food into the mouth, and get it to the back and swallow, without needing to suck, is also a readiness sign.

Three times a day seems awfully far apart. I can't get by eating only three times a day. My kids were still nursing every 1 to 3 hours at this age, sometimes more frequently. And not sleeping through the night. but nursing almost as frequently as during day. As formula is what she is getting, and she is eating so infrequently, giving her solids will probably reduce the amount of forumla she gets. Breast milk or formula should be the MAIN food for a baby until the end of the first year of life. She may be grabbing, she may even let you put food in her mouth, but rarely does a baby NEED food at 4 months. My suggestion, when she is grabbing for your food, give her a FEW ounces of her bottle. This will give her smaller more frequent meals, and not destoy her appetite for the formula which needs to sustain her for the next 8 months. If she's hungry, give her her milk.

At six months, you can try some fruit. I beleive in giving babies something enjoyable to eat. There is NO truth to the rumor that babies who get fruit first won't eat veggies, they will. Also, babies don't have the enzyme to digest starches, amylase until about 6-9 months in breastfed babies and closer to 12 months or later in formula fed babies. Without amylase in her system, she will get no nutrition from the cereal. Don't bother with it.

 

...and there's also the tendency for iron-fortified cereal, and anything containing rice, to constipate babies. Hang in there! Feeding them solid food is so much fun, but there's no reason to rush it. If she cannot sit by herself unsupported, she most likely is not ready for solid foods quite yet.

 

Trey has been eating baby food since he was 4 months old. I started at one solid meal of a couple spoonfuls a day (gradually adding more every couple days) and the same thing for 3 days to make sure he wouldn't have an allergic reaction to anything. I give him solids for lunch and dinner now but he still drinks several bottles a day also. He loves sweet potatoes and macaroni and cheese. He also ate regular mashed potatoes at christmas and whenever we have some. But I knew he was ready for them when I started feeding him that. So I dunno if this was anyhelp or just rambling. I don't know dr. facts I know just know what was right for Trey.

 

It was the forumla thing that I was worried about. We managed to get her to have another feeding b4 bed, so we're up one already to 4. That makes me feel better. I've tried to offer it at other times, but she has no interest in it.
Like I said, AM waiting until she's 6 months, which just happens to be in about 4 weeks. I am very concerned about the reduction of formula. I'm going to make sure that I'm buying the cerial that you mix with formula to beast milk and not water, so she'll be getting more.
I made an appointment with her doctor to ask what he thinks.

 

I think all cereal can be mixed with formula. Have you tried maybe giving her less in a bottle so she takes a bottle more often? I dunno if that would help or not

 

When I've tried that she just freaks cuz she's still hungry. Although, in getting her to eat that 4th feeding at night, I cut down her other bottles to 10 oz (she was eating 11-13 oz per feeding). The last time that I saw her doctor, he said that she was eating too much (when she was eating 5-6 6 oz bottles per day). He wanted us to start diluting the bottles with 1 part water to 3 parts formula. We never did dilute the bottles, because it was a day or two later that she started to eat the 3 per day, and we were trying to figure that out and get her to have more feedings again.
On the positive side, she's in the normal range for what she should be eating now. I'm hoping that when she starts eating the solid foods, she'll eat enough that there's still going to be room for 5 oz of formula (at least) during that feeding. Then have bottles between feedings, too. I guess it's just more things that I'll have to talk with her doctor about.

 

I have been feeding my little guy rice cereal for about two months now and we are starting him on veggies now (green beans do not go over well) he is just now five months

 

The AMA (American Academy of Pediatrics) La Leche League, World Health Organization ect all agree that there is no benefit to solids before the middle of the first year.

Cereal is NOT the best first food. Babies do not make amylaze (the enzyme which digests starch) until about 6-9 months in a breastfed baby and until 9-12 months in a formula fed baby. Too early solids cut down on the real nutrition the baby could be getting from human milk or a human milk substitute. WIthout amylaze to digest the starch in cereal your baby gets NO nutrition from it, the iron in cereal is totally nonabsorbed, in fact, babies who got "iron fortified cereal" were more likely to be anemic than those who never got it. Why give a baby a "food" which provides them NO nutrition, when human milk or a human milk substitute is what is appropriate for babies, completely until about 6 months or older, and with small amounts of solids after that? Your baby gets no more nutrition from commercial "baby cereal" than they would if you mashed up the box and fed them that. There are much better foods for babies. MAINLY, their milk, in the first year.

When a baby is ready for solids, they can sit upright, without assistance, have a pincher grasp, with finger and thumb, and can swallow without sucking. Cereal or any solid food should NEVER be added to a bottle of anything. If a baby can't eat yet, their little bodies aren;t ready for solids.

There is NO rush, they will be eating solids for the rest of their lives. Human milk or a human milk substitute should be the MAIN food for the entire first year.

Any doctor who recommends DILUTING formula should be fired on the spot. This is bad medicine and horrible nutritional advice.

 

Thanx for that info maggie.
Like I said, I was planning on waiting until she was 6 months anyway. I was just curious when other people started because my mom, MIL and oma all were telling me to start her on solids a LONG time ago, and I was contantly telling them NO.
Didn't mean that I was going to start her on them before I thought that she was ready.
I didn't know that one bit about the amylaze not being produced in formula babies until 9 months. Then there's definately no rush. However, it makes me kick myself once again that I wasn't able to bf her. blah. Not because I'm in a rush to give her solids, just because she could have had so many more benifits from it.
The diluting thing didn't seem right to us, either. When he said that, my hubby and I looked at eachother like, "what?" It seems to me that if that's what she needs, that's what she gets. She's not an average size baby, either. She's already the size of a 8 month old and she's only 5 months. So as I figure it, biger girl=more formula.

 

Is she the size of an 8 month old weight wise? height wise? Both?

If she's just the weight of one, maybe smaller feedings throughout the day would help balance her a bit more...so she gains more slowly, and whatnot...

If she's the height of one, then she's just trying to get big quickly.

 

yeah, she's the same height, too. Both height and weight are in the 95%, but that was about a month and a half ago. She's grown a bunch since then. She still really isn't heavier than longer, but still is a big girl!

 

Tried that...she didn't like it. She will not stand for any less than a full belly when she's done eating.