We started Mandred on rice cereal last week... just a tablespoon or so before bed, which is helping him to sleep through the night. He is 5 1/2 months old, and big for his age. He can sit up without support, can roll over.. does most of the "6 month milestones" at 4 1/2 months old. He has also started teething... the biting stage, not just the drooling. We have a teething "ring" that has cheese cloth on the end of it, which unscrews to allow for placing frozen fruits and veggies into it. The cheese cloth allows the flavour to pass through into his mouth but keeps him from getting any chunks on which he can choak. My question is: What fruits and veggies would be good to put in the teething "ring". Banana is obvious, but beyond that, I've kinda hit a wall. I plan to go to the store tomorrow to get some organic fruits and veggie for him, but am not sure what to get? Apples? Pears? Cantalope? Avacado? Any ideas?
I actually found with our teething ring thingy, it was better with ice. The fruit doesn't allow it to get clean properly, even with a dishwasher. Plus, at 5.5 months old, the AAP recommend waiting to give solids until after 6 months. His tummy's probably not ready. But if he seems to handle it, avocado is a good first food. So is banana, applesauce, mango, and any really soft ripe fruit or steamed mushy veggie. Oh yeah, and when Brian and I were thinking of starting solids with Moire, we thought about this: With every teaspoon of food she eats, that's like 1/2 cup of formula she's NOT getting, so it's best to make sure that what we feed her is as nutrient dense as possible. And beyond what is artificially pumped into it, there is no nutritional value whatsoever to cereal. So it's only used to make teether biscuits in our family. Just a thought! PS: I need new pics of Mandred!
yeah.. I hear what you are saying. I nurse him right before we give him the cereal, so its more of just a "top up" thing. He was waking every 2 hours to eat at night again... which is back where we started. He had been sleeping 5 hours without waking at night, but that changed with his more recent growth spurt. The kid is now almost 28 inches long, so thats over 3 and a half inches of growth since January 4th! He eats like crazy, and is growing like a weed, so I am not so worried about him not getting enough nutrients. I figure he wouldn't be as big and strong as he is if he wasn't getting all he needs. I gave him a little frozen banana yesterday morning, just to see how it would go. There hasn't been any adverse reaction yet. He loved it! No upset tummy, no extra farts, no evil poops. He will be 6 months on the 21st, so I figured we were close enough to give it a shot.
HE IS SO CUTE! I wanna hug him! Can he and Moire have a play-date? About his night-nursing, you might want to check into the Book "The No-Cry Sleep Solution". It's Sears-endorsed and has been working with us about getting Moire to sleep longer. Her need to suck at night has more to do with a suck-to-sleep habit and my habit of giving her something to suck at every noise she makes rather than an actual nutritional need. At any rate, it's something to think about!
I tell ya, if we didn't live so far apart we would be having play dates like mad. Yay for having cute kids!! I will check into that book. Anything to get more sleep, right? (I complain as I sit here typing at 1am!!!)
lol, I understand completely! Even if I'm exhausted and Moire goes down really late, I have to have that bit of me-time, to wind down and not be on-call momma. So I totally hear that "typing at one-am thing!" If at any point we get close to you, or you to us, we have to have a playdate. Heck, we'd house ya if you ever wanted to visit! Or if you get over to Vancouver Island, BC, we'll come up. It's only like 3 hours from us! But yeah, definitely check out that book. It's a lot of this: Have the same routine at about the same times everyday, set an earlier bedtime, teach him different ways to comfort himself to sleep, learn what his sleep-noises and wake-noises are, respond only to his wake-noises, and have a simple at least half-an-hour bedtime routine done in a dimly-lit calm room.
yes, along with mango, peach, cooked beans, peas, sweet potato etc... i'd ditch the rice cereal, it's pretty much nutritionally void.
at 5.5 months, i'm not sure i'd try to deter his night nursing. he's growing, if he needs to wake to nurse at night,. then he needs to nurse imo
now I finally find a reference I can throw at my dad when he goes on when visiting about having half the lights off...I grew up in a house lit with fluoro tubes and I don't freak out at them even now (cept of course when I don't want them and my visiting dad can't read without them) but it makes such a difference having appropiate lighting for the mood or time of the time of day...even happens with me as an adult. When a place is brightly lit I am afraid that it either makes me run away to a dimmer place or starts me up again!
Oh, I'm not trying to deter his night nursing... just don't think he really needs to be eatting every 2 hours. A lot of kids his age are sleeping through the night... not that I am expecting that any time soon. Some kids are sleepers, some aren't. Mandred isn't much of a long-haul sleeper, he is a napper. I would just like him to go more than 2 hours in a row at night. I would love just one chunk of sleep in the begining and then would be fine with nursing every 2 hours for the rest of the night.
aiden has the same thing and i put all sorts of fruits and veggies and meat in it. his favorite thing was frozen grapes it helped with his teething and he had to gum the grape to get the juice. but i put strawberries,melons,oranges, pretty much anything and everything in that thing and after about a month or so of using the mesh teething ring he refused to take it any more and wanted the actual food. use your imagination and get creative as to what you can put in the mesh.
See, thats the thing. I've read that strawberries are a no-no until they are a lot older. I didn't want to be giving him fruits that he isn't supposed to have. Glad to hear someone else had the same experiance with their child I am having with mine though!
I wouldn't start solids until your baby can self-feed. Ripe pears, bananas, avacado, those are all good starting foods.
Yes, he can self feed. I can't eat supper while holding him anymore because he grabs food off my plate or grabs the fork on its way to my mouth. He is very interested in food. I wouldn't just wake up one morning and think "Gee, I am going to give my kid solids today because I feel like it". I did a lot of research into when to start solids. Although he is only 5 1/2 months old, he is doing all "6 month milestones" . I am not feeding these things to him straight on a spoon. They are going in a "teething ring".
well i made sure that i was near him when i gave him strawberries just in case he choked but to be very honest he never did but then again he was "chewing" foods at 3 months and i started giving him solids in the teething ring around then too. when he was about 6 months i gave him solid food without the teething ring and sat there with him to help him if needed. sure i took risks but it helped aiden develope and now he loves his fruits and veggies.
One of the nice things about self feeding is that they usually eat LESS, which is better in an infant. Like Freek said, every bite of stuff like cereal (which I am not a big fan of, I prefer fruit or veggies) is taking away milk. My kids all were waking quite a bit at 6 months, and many were still waking several times a night at a year. Some babies get the majority of their milk at night. If he's self feeding, or eating just fruits and veggies, he'll still be getting more milk, which is his MAIN food for at least the first year. Until a year or so, solids are really just "for practice." I'd ditch the cereal, too, there is really no nutrition in it. If he really wants to eat solids, I'd stick to no more than one meal of them a day, after a nursing (like you are doing, never feed solids before a nursing or a bottle in an infant) and encourage self feeding. An other nice thing about self feeding is that babies feel SO proud that they are doing it themselves. My children look like they had just built a bridge after they had popped a few cubes of sweet potato into their mouths, especially, if it was when the "big" people were eating. Just like Mama and Papa and their siblings. So proud.
