Starting the Transition to Cereal/food

Our daughter has milk and wheat allergies. Here is what her doctor recommended, which worked for us. Pick the root foods first - sweet potatoes, carrots, etc. Make one a week. Give it to her everyday and monitor her for reactions. It feels too slow as a parent who wants to see her child eat everything, but it worked for us. After the root veggies, then start with a few fruits.

I don't know if you are going to buy the food in the market or make it yourself, so I just want to suggest making it yourself if you are open to such a task. Because of our daughter's allergies I wanted to know what was in her food and I feel an incredible sense of satisfaction doing it. Every few weeks to a month I cook for a few hours preparing her food. The food is then frozen into ice cube trays. When frozen they are stored in labeled zip-lock freezer backs.

I bought a book on making the food, but really you could just make what you are having for dinner for her too. That's up to you.

With the milk allergy, family members pressured me to try to give our daughter dairy to see if she could handle it. Our doctor advised us NOT to do this. She told us that babies with milk allergies might tolerate milk later in their little lives and that the allergy will then present itself in ear infections, for instance. We talked about how her "gut" is sensitive and needs time to heal from the few months she did have milk and wheat in it. We also give her a probiotic once a day called Flora Baby. The powder goes into her food and keeps her gut healthy.

Good luck with your quest. You can do it and be dilgent with what YOU want to feed your child.

Hi S.,
my youngest son is 4 1/2 mos old. He had reflux. We had to thicken his formula with rice for 3 mos because he kept throwing all his milk up. (i kinda blame myself cause i stopped breastfeeding at 7 weeks, busy schedule. I just took him back to the doctor's 4 days ago cause my baby the one who does not cry at all unless he's wet or hungry would not stop crying. They told me i was over feeding him. We finally stopped the rice and only give him a 4-6 bottle and he's been wonderful. (burping is the key) but all doctors are different and so are kids. Only you can feel out if the food your giving your baby is ok. I personally now think that until babies are at least 6 mos old it should be strickley milk. I realized how bad i was streatching out my son's stomache and how bad he was cramping from it of course i feel bad and guilty but now he seems to be ok. Hope i helped sorry so long winded.

I was under the impression with my son that he should still be breast/bottle feeding 6-8 times a day (skipping the night feeding is ok!) otherwise remaining on the same schedule you are now. Cereal should not replace the milk feeding, but merely add to it. I would feed cereal first and then milk feed. They would drink less, I remember him being up to 8 oz if I bottle fed and then dropping to 5-6oz when he had cereal. Milk: soy formula or breast is still their main source of nutrition until they are 1 year old. If you give them less than what he is drinking now he could become dehydrated. When you start foods give each food a week (including cereal) to make sure they don't have any reaction to it. It takes multiple exposures to have a reaction to the food, so 1Xday for one week. When you start to add in others besides cereal do the same. Make sure you start with veggies, alternate orange and gree veggies (too many orange veggies can temporarly turn your child orange!!!) Once you are through veggies add in fruits one at a time. Start with veggies because kids are more likely to like the fruit, if you start with fruit you may never get them to eat their veggies. Fruits are sweeter tasting, and therefore are better liked. If you have more questions about feedings, ask your childs doctor. They can give you more information about it. Best of luck!

My son and I were just told to start baby cereals yesterday at his 4 month Dr's visit. According to our pediatrician, you mix about 1 tbsp cereal w/3 or 4 tbsp breast milk to start feeding once a day(and increasing the cereal to milk ratio to a thicker consistency as the baby gets used to eating it)We were told to go to twice a day when he "asks" for it.Breast feeding should continue as normal.(although the demand should eventually go down but your breasts should adjust, but my boy doesn't take a bottle so if you already pump, you might want to just continue doing what already is working for you) She also told me he could have any of the baby cereals but they should be introduced slowly, one at a time for a few days to a week so you could tell if there is a sensitivity to something.
Eventually you would introduce simple single foods but we didn't even discuss that, my guess is that's for the next visit. The big challenge now is just getting them used to the "how" to eat solids part.Oh...but she said teething biscuits were okay if he's teething. Hope this is a little helpful!!

Hi S.,

My son also has a milk allergy too which means no dairy for me either because I'm breastfeeding too, and you're right, it really sucks!

Anyway, with both of my kids, I started out giving them a couple tablespoons of rice cereal mixed with either breastmilk or soy formula once a day. We did that for a week, then we went through the other cereals for a week too - oatmeal for a week then barley. I did that in place of nursing so we dropped one feeding during that time.

After we went through all of the cereals, I would give them cereal for breakfast and then I started other foods for lunch with cereal in place of breastfeeding so we dropped a second feeding at that time. We went through all of the veggies first and did each one for five days before starting the next - our doctor told us to do it that way so that you can watch for food allergies.

After we went through all of the veggies, we went through fruits, and eventually meats. We added a third meal for dinner sometime during all of that and introduced finger foods and juice. We would do fruit and cereal for breakfast, veggies and cereal for lunch, then meat and veggies for dinner. I would usually nurse first thing in the morning, then solds for breakfast, nurse before first nap, solids for lunch, nurse before next nap, solids for dinner, nurse before bed.

My son is 10 months old now and he has three solid meals a day and usually a snack and he still nurses three or four times a day.

Anyway, that's just how we did it, there is really no "right" way to do it though, you just kind of have to do what works for your baby. Babies are pretty good at letting you know how much they need. I would just avoid giving her new foods in the evening around bedtime because you need to be able to watch for allergic reactions. Also, I've heard that its good to do veggies first because they usually prefer fruit because its sweeter and if you do fruit first they may not like the veggies.

Don't worry about pumping though, your body will adjust its milk supply as your baby gets older and gradually nurses less frequently until you are only nursing maybe first thing in the morning and before bed and eventually not at all - which in my case, and maybe yours too, will be celebrated by eating cheesecake, ice cream, pizza with extra cheese and all of the other yummy dairy foods I've been missing!

It is hard with your first baby as everything is new and seems so hard. I would say at 4.5 months you should just give your baby a little bit of cereal just for a taste. At this age, and for a few more months yet, milk is her best source of nutrition. As you are breastfeeding, she is getting all the nutrients she needs just from that. No food just yet should be a substitute for milk, just an added extra. I would start off with a teaspoon just once a day in between feeds for at least a few weeks as she is still so young. Did your pediatrition recommend starting foods already? Is there another reason behind starting? Foods like carrots and banana I would wait until at least 5-5.5 months so that she is definitely ready to digest the food properly. I hope this helps but you should go with what you feel is right for your baby :)

Ack! If you have a baby who is allergic to dairy (and I *know* how that feels, my son has this, and I've been dairy-free since he was 5 weeks old), I would *WAIT* WAIT WAIT to introduce any solids until *minimum* 6 months. Here's a wonderful link that talks about how that helps to prevent food allergies:
http://askdrsears.com/html/4/t041800.asp#T041802

Also, rice cereal is *not* healthier than your breastmilk for your baby who is less than 6 months. Heck, I'd even say that there's a *lot* of compelling evidence out there that says that rice cereal is NOT the perfect food (highly processed, constipating, etc.):
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/04/qa_introducing_.html

As far as starting w/ rice cereal, IMO, don't bother with that! Breastmilk has plenty of bio-available iron, so rice cereal (especially at 5 months!) just isn't necessary. Your baby's iron stores will be tested at 9 or 12 mos during a well check (finger stick blood test), and *if* she's low on iron then, you could do rice cereal at that point if you were somehow attached to it --> though red meat, kidney beans, spinach would all be natural foods to give to up your baby's iron.

Another great link on solid foods:
http://kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/first-foods.html

Some of the most up-to-date experts are saying that many babies are started too early on solids, instead of watching the calendar, we should be watching for developmental signs that show readiness for solids (from http://kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/solids-when.html ):

Baby-led solids
http://www.tribalbaby.org/babyLedEating.html

So... there's really no need to do solids at this point unless your baby is already doing these things:
* Baby can sit up well without support.
* Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
* Baby is ready and willing to chew.
* Baby is developing a “pincer” grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
* Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

In my opinion, sit back and slow down. Relax, enjoy your nursing baby! Hold off on the solids, enjoy these early months, and take full advantage of the huge benefits of breastfeeding (for both you and your daughter) by not rushing into solids.

Your baby will absolutely *let you know* when she's ready for solids... mine seriously would cruise on over and start to take food off my plate and put it into their mouths, and then point and make noise for more. No need to complicate it by mixing powdery rice concoctions with liquid and convincing baby to eat the bland-tasting stuff off a spoon without gagging. :)

Hi S. - Here is something I posted a while back:

With our pediatrician's guidance (and, please get the blessing from yours before starting) we started our baby on solids at 4 months. Here's the schedule our ped gave us for starting solids. Again, although this is a good guideline, EVERY child is different and unique, so consult your ped.

Week 1 - rice cereal with breakfast (1st day runny, slowly thicken it, increase to 1-2 tablespoons as baby is comfortable)

Week 2 - rice cereal with breakfast and dinner, yellow veggies (squash, sweet potatoes, carrots...3 days in a row for each) with lunch

Week 3 - rice cereal with breakfast and dinner, green veggies (T,R,S...peas then green beans, again 3 days in a row) and yellow veggies (same as week 2 but M, W, F) with lunch

Week 4 - same format as week 3, add fruits as 'snacks' if needed

The nutrition gained from breastmilk or formula is superior to the food (the rice cereal and stage 1 foods are mostly to 'learn' how to eat and becoming familiar with various textures), so we always gave the liquids first then the food.

you don't want to feed her too much food at one time. try giving her a small portion and see if that is enough for her if not try to give her a little more or a little less. it will vary day to day. you don't always have to give her milk with the cereal. it is actally somewhat better to give her dry cereal to get her to go for normal foods. when you start to feed her carrots and foods like that make sure they are soft no extra sugars. if you have to talk to a doctor about formulas that are for lactous intolerants. you may have to switch to them. you should be okay to do that and stop breast feeding. but she may not take to a formula so try a formula and if t doesn't work still breast feed.