Question Regarding Enfamil a R

When you say supplementing, you mean feeding her a few tablespoons per day with a spoon, right? That should be fine. She is at the age to begin learning to eat solid foods. And starting with runny cereal (moistened with formula or breastmilk) is usually what they start on. As she progresses, you can add fruit to the mixture. (My kids loved blueberries added in). Spoon-feeding them at this point is less about nutrition and more about teaching them new tastes and how to swallow non-liquid. Check with your Doc for more information if you are still confused or aren't sure what to be feeding or on what schedule. Different people go by different ideas on this, so I would check with your doc.
But I wouldn't be worried that a few tablespoons of cereal will cause her to be overweight. Whatever she eats with a spoon will fill her up some and so she will naturally cut back a tad on her drinking, either through the amount per bottle, or the frequency.

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I must emphasize how important it is to consult with your pediatrician.
I too was anxious to get my babies on cereals and "solids" so, be patient and make sure your doctor knows what is going on and go with his/her advice.

Cereal at this age is meant as a learning tool to get babies used to different textures and give them practice mouthing and swallowing food. Rice and oatmeal infant cereals actually have fewer calories than formula or breast milk, which is why doctors often recommend starting solids earlier for overweight babies. I wouldn't worry about weight gain, even in conjunction with formula that already has rice starch in it. Just give her the cereal as you normally would, no matter what formula she is on, unless your pediatrician advises differently.

I'm not sure what you mean by supplementing with rice cereal. Are you looking to mix cereal in the bottle? If that is what you mean, then I would strongly suggested that you not mix any food of any kind in the bottle. If you have not yet introduced solids and you are looking to begin introducing solids, I would say at 6 months, your baby should be ready for this new experience. Why not try baby oatmeal instead of rice cereal? And, do you know if your baby will still spit up if you switched formula types once you introduce solids? Many babies outgrow spitting up...it's a matter of time so if you can get a sample of regular formula, from your pediatrician perhaps, you could see if your baby will handle a lighter formula with the introduction of baby oatmeal.

i feed my baby the enfamil ar (and have done so since birth). i'm almost certain that the doctor told me that there aren't extra calories in the ar formula. they just make it in a way that it is thicker. so i don't think extra weight is a concern.
just fyi, at six months i fed my baby the following (for comparison):
5 six oz bottles
fruit (stage 1) and oatmeal for breakfast
veggie (stage 1 and rice for lunch
fruit (stage 1 and veggie (stage 1 for dinner
she usually wouldn't eat all of the oatmeal or rice (i fed fruit or veggie first).

I started my daughter on the A.R. when she was 3-4 months because she was spitting up so much. I quickly found out that this formula made her extremely constipated. The same was true for the lacto free. The gentlease didn't make her as constipated, but didn't make a significant difference in the spitting up. (plus it was so expensive). I found the best solution was putting about a tsp. of rice cereal in regular formula. It didn't totally stop it, but it seemed to help. She is now almost 6 months and eats solids. I use Publix regular brand formula and no longer add cereal to it. I would say her spitting up is 85% better than what it was. They say with some babies, as long as they're gaining, you just have to wait out the spitting thing. Most grow out of it by the time they start to crawl. Good luck!

My daughter was on the same formula. You can add it to the diet but dont stop the formula. Also, remember to much rice constipates, so make sure to alternate between the rice and oatmeal. By the way, your baby is going to sleep so good. This milk is very filling.

My son switched to Enfamil AR at a few months old (to help with spitting up). At 5 or 6 months I did give him small amounts of rice and/or oatmeal cereal. He was nowhere near overweight and barely at average most times. I do not think a little cereal for practice with solids will be a problem. The AR smelled sooo much better than regular formula and he seemed tolikeit much more too - I think it's great stuff! I would double check with your child's prediatrician if you're worried but I don't see how it could be a problem. Good luck!

Hi M.,
Our son was also spitting up constantly! He is also 6 months old. We were using Enfamil AR and feeding him cereal (oatmeal...b/c all of the rice was making him constipated!). We recently switched him to Enfamil with Lipil and he takes a xantac for babies. The xantac helped so much. I'm not sure if you baby suffers from reflux, but that is what was happening to our little guy & the xantac worked really well. The doctor told us to continue with supplemental feedings even when he was given Enfamil AR. Hope that helps!

Hi, M.. Well, I don't think there is a problem with a baby consuming rice or rice products. All grains have starch in them, so no matter what grain product she eats, she's going to get some starch. Unless she already has a weight problem, there is probably no need to be overly concerned with her weight in the near future. The stuff that truly makes children gain weight are emtpy calories with no real nutrition in them -- such as drinks with no real fruit juice that have a ton of sugar in them and little else besides food coloring. Unless your doctor has told you to be very careful to keep her from gaining too much weight, then what you want to do is just give her nutritious foods that she can digest without discomfort. Sounds like you're doing just that. At this point in her life, she is going to gain weight rapidly at times of growth spurts and then gain slowly or not at all at other times. She's probably not going to have a really smooth, gradual weight gain. Kids usually don't grow like that. Keep sugar away from her as much as possible and feed her healthy stuff.

Since she seems to do OK on rice, I don't think you should eliminate the rice cereal totally, especially if she likes it and does well on it. If you want to introduce oatmeal, do it a little bit at a time. Oatmeal has a lot of fiber in it which can affect her bowel movements. Some kids don't do well on oatmeal at all. Try a couple of spoonfuls of oatmeal, see how she does for a couple of days, and then if she doesn't have a bad reaction to it, she can have more. Oatmeal has gluten in it, which I don't think rice does, so there is potential for allergic reactions with oatmeal along with the changes in bowel movements because of the fiber.

Oatmeal also gives kids and adults a lot of energy, so you may find her somewhat more active on oatmeal than on rice cereal.

You might want to forget about oatmeal at 6 months and just keep her on rice cereal for the time being. You might want to try oatmeal when she's a little bit older and has a more developed digestive system.

Peace and good health,
Syl

babies are supposed to gain weight. as long as you aren't stuffing her every time she wimpers, she won't have weight problems. at 6 months they can have cereal. It's not really for the nutritional aspect, but more for teaching them how to eat off a spoon instead of just sucking their food down. So cereal once or twice a day (very small amount-maybe a tablespoon each time) is perfectly fine. She's getting her main nutrition from formula. And that will continue for a few more months. If you are overly worried about weight, that can lead to eating problems later on, so don't stress about it. Focus on being healthy, not what the scales say.

My youngest daughter has been on Enfamil AR since she was a few weeks old due to reflux, she is now 5 1/2 months old. Due to medical reasons, we needed to switch her from the regular formula to formula with rice starch otherwise her alternative was to be on medication for reflux like her brother was. Since she has not had a food allergy reaction to the rice starch, I figure I am safe to keep her with rice cereal while introducing new solid foods to her. This way if she has a food allergy, I know which food item I need to steer clear of until she is older, my girls grew out of most of their allergies when they were about 3 years old.
This way I don't need to worry if she is allergic to other cereals while she is trying solid foods. I have a told of four children, my second child had food allergies to several things, it took much trial and error plus meeting with a specialist to find out what she was allergic too. I have chosen to wait a few more weeks before trying her on a new cereal. But if you have a questions or concerns regarding your child's health, call and ask your pediatrian.

That’s a great question! I was so confused about all this when I was going threw it When my son went in for his 2 month checkup he had doubled his birth weight (which usually happens for most babies between their 3rd and 5th month) and would suck down 6-8 oz at a feeding which was every 3.5-4 hours, and I too was concerned about his weight...my ped told me to start adding 2 teaspoons of cereal to a 4 or 6 oz bottle, he said the milk has more calories than the cereal and it would in turn not only fill him up faster it would also hold him longer therefore only taking in so many calories a day that he felt were sufficient for him. At his 3rd month apt he had put on 4.5 more pounds, so we then started him on baby food and water with meals, and milk for naps this is when he slowed down a bit on the weight gain. But now he’s 17 months old and is 35 inches tall and weighs 31lbs. He is all around huge, but not at all over weight, he just looks like a 2.5 year old not a 1.5 year old. To this day he is still a great eater and sleeper so I cannot complain about feeding him the cereal and baby food so early. Now on the other hand we did Simalac advanced, so I’m not so sure about the different formulas. But I hope this helps you.