Do you wait the recommended 6 months of age to introduce new foods.?

Question

Isn't 6 months the recommended age to start your baby on something other than formula? What is your reason fr giving a baby younger than 6 months juice or rice cereal for example? Im just curious bc I hear everywhere no earlier than 6 months to prevent allergies

Answer 1

because for 6 months all the nutrition he requires is mothers milk after six months his digestive system becomes strong and he is able to digest other foods. you could visit http://www.learning-graph.com/recipes.ht... for tips on weaning.

Answer 2

My little one is 4 1/2 months old and she is nowhere near ready yet so I'm definitely going to wait until 6 months.

Answer 3

I started Brady on cereal at 4 months, as he wasn't content with just breast milk anymore. We kept him on cereal only until he turned 6 months and now we are introducing veggies to him.

Answer 4

Im just doing what my aunt and my mom told me, my aunt had 9 children, mum had 4...so my daughter is 4 months old, i feed her 1tbls rice cereal at night and 1 in the am, i also give her 3oz watered apple juice.

6 months IS the recommended age for most parents, but 4 months is good for a small introduction to. Make sure when introducing foods do one food a week to test for any allergies, as for rice cereal he might not like it so add a bit of fruit or try the banana rice kind. Also Farley cookies are a good start to, and it helps with teething.

Also, MAKE SURE u feed veggies before fruit, he may not eat veggies if u give frruit first. Good Luck :)

Answer 5

we didn't wait with my son and he developed food allergies.  we did wait with my daughter and so far, so good.  

Answer 6

I know that u can start feeding your baby cereal at the 4th month and they should start eating solids at the 6th month.

Answer 7

i started him at 4 months with his pedi's ok.

he is completely fine. never had digestion issues or any of that other stuff.

he loves food, and will eat just about anything you give him.

why did i start early?? because i wanted to. i askedh is pedi and he said so long as hes showing an interest in food, then go ahead.

i love having an open minded pediatrician.

Answer 8

I've heard that 4-6 months is the recommended timeframe to begin - younger if the baby is formula fed and older if the baby is breastfed. I usually begin when the baby shows signs of readiness for food. Those signs include that he or she can sit up and has good head control and the baby is always hungry after a regular feeding session. I usually just start them on some rice cereal with breastmilk or formula giving them a little bit in their bottle after 4 months when they are not getting full enough from the formula or breastmilk. I usually don't start introducing anything else but rice cereal until 6 months since rice cereal is the least likely to cause allergies and then I introduce foods one at a time very slowly to see how baby reacts. Most of my kids weren't introduced to anything other than rice cereal for the first few weeks of getting them started.

Answer 9

If a baby is needing something more than formula, I would start introducing pasted foods.

nut and fish allergies are the dangerous ones, so they would be the foods to hold back on introducing.

Never ever give baby any solids mixed in to their formula in their bottle. It can cause choking.

Answer 10

I started giving my son rice cereal at 2 1/2 months. He wasn't ever full unless he literally ate off my boob all day long. He was much happier when we gave him cereal. At 4 months I started trying different baby foods with him. And I started fruits and veggies and he takes either one no problem, there doesn't seem to be a problem with him wanting only the sweetness of fruit. He's now 7 months old with 2 teeth and eats fruit and rice cereal for breakfast, a vegetable for lunch, and a vegetable and fruit for dinner with cereal mixed in sometimes. I think people make such a big deal of this food allergie issue its ridiculous. When your a mom you usually can see the signs when your child is ready and its just food your giving the baby not posion!?!?!

Answer 11

no, i weaned at 4mos - gave her baby porridge, rice, pureed fruits and veg.

i gave her it at this age on the advice of my health visitor as she was taking 8oz of aptamil hungry baby milk every 2hrs throughout the day and night.

she is very healthy, a great eater, a healthy eater, will finger feed herself and is attempting to use the spoon herself, she sleeps 12-13hrs through the night with no feed (has done since 10mos), she has no allergies - so my early weaning experience has been nothing but successful.

Answer 12

I've heard you can introduce cereal at four months, which is what I did, then at five months I added a little fruit to the cereal.  I was told it does not matter if you start with fruit or veggies.  But you can start them at four months, that's what my pediatrician told me  

Answer 13

With my first I didn't- I didn't know better.  I was lost in the big ol' "you're a mommy now and you have to make decisions about things that you have never even contemplated" world.  I just followed my mother in law's lead... that included cereal in the bottle around 3 months (I was told it helps them sleep better- although my oldest was already sleeping from 9-9 at that point).  And she also would just dump jars of Gerber mixed in with formula in a bottle.  He drank a lot of his meals until he was about 8 months old.

With my second, we waited until 6 months.  Completely skipped cereal.  We did purees for about a week until I realized he just wanted to gnaw on food himself.  So, baby led weaning it was!

The 6 month recommendation isn't just to prevent allergies.  It's also because babies digestive systems aren't ready for solids until at least 6 months.  They lack a lot of enzymes necessary to properly digest food.  That can lead to gas, constipation, and possible permananet digestive system issues.  I don't think it's a coincidence that it was common to put cereal in bottles for 2 week old babies 30-40 years ago and the rise in IBS/ulcerative colitis in people in their 30's and 40's...

And contrary to popular belief- bigger babies do not need solids earlier than smaller babies.  My youngest has always been in the 100th+ percentile for weight, height, head cir. and he did just fine on breastmilk for his first 6 months.  Bigger babies are not hungrier babies.

Answer 14

No I wait until:

1) Baby is at least 6 months old  

2) They can pick up their food and feed themselves (one did just after 6 months one didn't swallow anything until 9 months and even now unless its curry or watermelon he's probably going to suck on it and spit it out)

Spoon-feeding babies pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary, a childcare expert has warned.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...

Guidelines for implementing a baby-led approach to the introduction of solid food

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...

Experts seek to debunk baby food myths

Little evidence supports ‘any particular way of doing things’

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/

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http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/fit3.asp

You might argue, "Well, my kids started solid foods at three weeks, and they turned out just fine." The truth is, very few adults have perfectly working digestive tracts. Just look at all the commercials for heartburn remedies and stool softeners... "ever feel gassy and bloated after a meal?"

[...]

Now we know that an infant's gut is not ready for solid foods until around six months of age. If you start a food too early, he is much more likely to become allergic to it. This can result in damage to the intestines, weight loss, blood in the stool, and malnutrition

Answer 15

I would not give a child younger than six months old juice, and I only gave my boys apple juice or prune juice when they were younger to help with bowel movements. They only drink apple or orange juice these days and prefer milk, and above all water. They don't drink soda, thank goodness.

I did introduce cereal into my boys' bottles at around four months because they were both big for their age and they went through huge growth spurts and I was breastfeeding and couldn't keep up with them.  I did it only at night because otherwise they couldn't get through the night without feeding almost constantly.

Anything other than that, I waited just to make sure there weren't any problems.  

Answer 16

I don't know the reason, we just followed our peds advice to wait till 6 mos.

Answer 17

I started my kids at 2 months on a very thin rice cereal, then advanced to VEGGIES first ( veggies because once they taste the sweet you will never get them to try veggies)  I thickened the cereal over time.  At first I added it to the formula so it could be taken by bottle.