Question on starting rice cereal?

Question

I started my 4 month old on rice cereal a few weeks ago. She is doing good. I know that at first, it is just to introduce it and not as a way of filling her up - I make sure she is still getting the same amount of formula and that formula is her main source of nutrition. Along the same lines though, when did you start a 2nd meal of the rice cereal? My daughter has a lot of spit up problems, so she is on Enfamil AR and I don't want her getting too much rice, but I also wonder if having the 2 meals a day will help with her spitting up too. BTW - yes, I've been to the Dr. about the spitting up - Dr. just said to play around with formulas. I just don't want her getting too much of the rice in one day.

Answer 1

Any dr. who reccommends to "play" around with formulas...would no longer be my sons dr. That doesnt seem helpful, nor informative enough for me.

I pretty much skipped rice, but after starting solids..I went to 2 meals after 2 weeks I believe.

Answer 2

When I started my son on the cereal I gave it to him once a week for about 2 weeks then I gave him some in the morning and at night and about 5 months old I started him on stage 1 foods.When I did the stage one foods I would give I'm it for a lunch . Once we went through the stage ones with no reaction I started putting fruit in the cereal . I actually did the oatmeal because the rice made him constipated .  I also gradually increased the texture of the cereal after a couple of weeks . By 6 1/2 months I started stage 2 foods and three meals a day with a fruit snack in the middle every other day .

My doctor also said that it was ok to start on the cereal at 4 months .  

Answer 3

My friend has a baby with chronic AR.  Child is not 22 mos. and still has problems.  Make sure that you do not lay baby horizontal when you give her bottles.  Try to hold baby as upright as possible and do not lay baby down horizontally for 30 mins after feeding.  Sometimes the baby really needs acid reflux meds like prevacid or zantac.  Another tip that the dr. gave my friend was to try to feed the baby less ounces (small quantities) and just give more bottles through out the day to compensate.  Your baby is young to be on solids so I would not push it.  Keep her at one cereal serving a day til she is 5 months then increase it to two servings a day after 5 months.  If she has been on rice cereal and doing well, then you can introduce a different type of cereal for a variety.  The general rule is to feed one type of food and if they have no reactions in a week, then you can introduce something new.  

Answer 4

I'm a little confused as to why you started solids so early.   Was it in hopes of relieving the spit-up problems?  Does she have reflux, or is she just spitting up?  

If she has reflux, you need to talk with your doctor about medication that may help, if the AR isn't doing the trick.

If she's just spitting up -- that's normal, and doesn't need to be treated.  Giving her cereal early (which has risks) to treat normal spitting up (which is perfectly safe), doesn't make much sense to me.

If you must give solids this young, once a day is plenty.  Too much will replace her milk, and probably make her constipated and give her a belly ache.

(I started solids at 5 1/2 months.  I went to two meals a day after a week or so ... but it was a ll pretty casual. Some days she got one meal, some days she got two ... whatever I got around to that day.

Answer 5

Baby's digestive system is not ready for rice cereal at 4 months. My son didn't get any until 6 months. He always only got it in the morning. He was introduced to 2 meals when he began other solids, like veggies and fruits- which was about 6.5/7months