Starting Cereal - Bellevue,WA

They eat every two hours. You cannot save a baby's schedule. It changes all the time. After she has teeth somewhere around five to seven months of age she will become ravenous and you will have to give her breast milk mixed with cereal at night so that she will sleep long enough for you to get some rest. Rice cream is what to start a baby on. Other foods can come later nearer a year of age.
Please go get yourself a book about child development from birth to three. You will need it for reference over and over again.
As for feeding babies before they have teeth it has led to all kinds of physical problems in later life from reflux to diabetes. We went along with whatever the doctor said while our elderly grandmothers fumed over the idiocy of peds who actually knew little about developing bodies. The stomach is ready for food when they have teeth. Period.
No civilization in the past fed babies too early as we do. Imagine in the 1950's doctors said to give a one month old baby orange juice such an ascidic thing to drink. Please be aware that people born in the 1950's have the worst health statistically. It was all those foods no baby should have before they are over a year old.

1 mom found this helpful

I fed my daughter cereal at 2 weeks and my son at 5 weeks.
I fed them during the last night time bottle to make sure they slept through the night -- I was tired... I needed sleep.
My son liked his cereal thick -- she liked it soupy.
YMMV
LBC

1 mom found this helpful

Usually moms start rice cereal at about 6 months. Those of us that receive WIC start getting rice cereal when the baby turns 6 months old. You start out by putting about a teaspoon of the rice cereal in a bowl and add breast milk until it's a soupy thinnish mixture. You can use a tine spoon to feed her but it won't be very successful, she is learning to chew and swallow. Not really for feeding just for teaching her to chew and swallow. Stay with rice cereal for about a month then slowly add another kind, maybe mixed cereal. Eventually you'll be able to add some fruit to the mix to flavor it a bit and then make it a bit thicker as she learns to manage the chewing and swallowing.

SInce you are breastfeeding... wait on cereal - until 7-8 months. I say this because the GI tract isd open and immature and will stay that way until about 7 months old. If you introduce foreign foods now, you are also introducing harmful bacterias that will inflame and irritate her senesitive GI lining - possibly cause severe bm extremes (gassy, diarrhea or harsh constipation.

5 months old!! Her tongue and gag reflex aren't fully capable of swallowing textures of any kind other than pure liquids. If she aspirates, then she can get pneumonia or seriously harm herself.

Starting cereal will not make her sleep anymore than she does already.

She is 5 weeks old?
No on the cereal.
Maybe I am reading that wrong? 5 months?
Cereal no earlier than 4 months. And even then it is not necessary, so don't stress about it.

No cereal/solids before 4 months. I'm guessing, though, that you mean 5 months (not 5 weeks).

You're not feeding her to fill her up at this point, you just want to get her used to the idea of eating "solid" foods and using her tongue. Choose a time she's not too tired or hungry.

I don't recall any particular time of day we started food. I do know that we started with one meal a day. FYI-It's a myth that you have to start with cereal--you can start with other things and rice cereal has little nutritional value. We stated with mashed yams (which my son loved) and mashed avocado. Good luck!

I started cereal at what would have been our dinner time (5:30/6). Maybe give her the cereal at 6 and then put her down for the nap? :)

I am going against the new norm on this reply. My Mom started all of us at 3 weeks and I started my kids at 6 weeks. Initially it was at the bedtime feeding and then cereal for breakfast and dinner. We always mixed it up in a bowl with breast milk or formula and made it fairly runny until they got used to pushing it around in their mouth. We always used a spoon, no putting it in a bottle and babies can handle using a spoon just fine. It is so cute to watch their tongues poke in and out. You will find as you give her more solids that she takes in less liquids. So we would do a bowl of cereal followed by a bottle sometimes about a half hour later and then baby was ready for a nap. Start with a small amount of cereal, maybe a teaspoons worth then mixed with milk would be about a tablespoon or so. Oh and be ready to catch it with the spoon as she pushes it out of her mouth at first, once she catches on that will lessen though.

I started all three of my breastfed babies on cereal around 4 months with no problems (recommendation was 4 months for the first 2, changed to 6 months before my 3rd was born). I started the cereal with one of the morning feedings (maybe on a Saturday or other day off). That way if they have gas problems or other issues digesting it, you will not be kept up all night and will be more able to comfort and help. They really don't eat much cereal at first, just a couple bites. Once they are doing well with the cereal move it to the night feeding to help with sleep and then slowly add more feedings.
Also it is healthier if you can manage to not let your baby fall asleep during a feeding (and keep them up for about 1/2 hour after). It is important to teach them to fall asleep with out food. Also If they fall asleep while eating, they don't get as full so they need fed again sooner and the sugars from the milk are most active in their bodies while they are asleep so they don't sleep as well or as long. I learned this after my first was about 7 months old and so It wasn't until then, that he started sleeping through the night. I implemented this with my other 2 at birth (it was hard), but they both started sleeping through the night by 6 weeks old.
Good Luck!

I have a son who's the same age. We're feeding him twice a day with rice cereal. Instead of feeding him a full bottle...we replace it with about 3-4 oz. of cereal...adding half milk (either pumped breastmilk or formulas) and half water into it. However, he's a big eater and still wants his some milk after that...which is fine.

Anyhow...this was OK'd by his pediatrician.

I wouldn't do anything without my pediatrician's advice. Mine recommended starting cereal between 5-6 months.

Your baby shouldn't have grains so soon. Despite the push for cereal as a first food, babies are not equipped to digest grains. If she's ready to try some food, give her veggies and then fruits. If she's not interested, that's okay too. My third child is almost 9 months and he just started eating food other than breastmilk. They don't "need" anything else during their first year (which is not what I thought with my first two.)

Start with giving cereal just once a day. I gave it for dinner because I was told if their stomach is full they sleep better.
Your LO won't be taking 3 naps a day for too long. I don't remember when my son made the switch to 2 naps. He is 13 months now, and it's been 2 naps a day for a long time now.