...I feel almost silly asking, but one-child-to-the-next, I can barely remember how I handled certain things...my youngest is 5-1/2 months old and I just introduced cereal a few days ago. Up until now, he's been nearly 100% breastfed - I've had to supplement formula on occasion - more often this past couple of weeks. So - I can't remember: when do I start offering cereal 2x/day? I've been giving it to him around 5:00 p.m. and then yesterday I tried in the a.m. and he was all over the idea, but then at 5:00 last night, he had little interest at all... so when did you offer cereal, when do you move to 2x/day, and when did you introduce fruits and veggies? (I do remember starting with veggies before fruit and it worked - my older two still love their veggies - thank goodness!) Thanks a ton!
whenever you feel baby is ready. basically, solids arent nutritionaly necessary especially when breastfeeding... so you are doing just fine. its more for texture, and getting used to the process of solids, etc.
so whenever. theres no rule that you should follow other than instinct. :D
My pediatrician said something like this
4-5mos.old 1st mo. eat cereal/babyfood 1x a day
5-6mos.old 2nd. mo. eat cereal/babyfood 2xa a day
6-7mos.old 3rd. mo. eat cereal/babyfood 3x a day
My daughter is 7mos. She started cereal around 4mos. and we got more serious with around 5mos. At 6mos. we really went nuts with the baby foods. Now at 7mos. there are some days she only has a bottle, most days she eats food atleast 1x a day and some days she will eat 2x a day. I've started with fruits because it was easier to get her to take and learn the whole spoon thing, we've switched over to veggies and she eats those right up too. We are doing biter bisquits, Gerber Puffs, and I'll put fresh fruit in one of those netspoons now.
You can start doing cereal 2x a day whenever your little one is eating a few teaspoons at a time. However, know that if you are breastfeeding and start introducing regular 'meals' of solids like cereal and purees your supply will probably start to go down. This is, afterall, the beginning of the weaning process- which may or may not be what you want. I tried cereals and purees first around 4 months w/ my daughter (she was 10 lbs at birth and always hungry) but she wasn't really appreciating it until about 6 months. And she's still breastfed and just started enjoying solids (table food at this point) and is eating 3x a day at meals w/ us. But I would say stick to cereal for a couple weeks, then try purees, one kind per week to make sure there are no allergic reactions. Good luck!
My boys were breastfed, and both started solids (homemade applesauce and oatmeal) around 6mos, and I always started solids in the morning. THey were both hungrier at that time and seemed to be happier eating then. Around 8mos I started giving them finger foods for breakfast, and a veggie/meat combo at dinner (I made all our babyfood homemade, by then I was just grinding/chopping up whatever we were eating for dinner). Around a year they were eating 3 meals a day and still nursing 4-6 times a day too.
just follow your baby, my son started cereal at 4 months and was up to 2 times a day by 4 1/2 months by the time he started "solids" at 6 months he was eating 3 times a day and nursing still every 3 hours.
I started cereal 1x a day when my daughter turned 6 months, and started a couple pureeded veges (carrots, peas, sweet potato, squash, etc.) . I did that for one month, then at 7 month moved to cereal and pureed vege/fruits 2x/day and followed the 2 meal/day for 2 months, then at 9 months of age I moved to 3 meals a day and adding lots of finger foods (and still doing 3-4 nursings/bottles a day: 7am, 11am, 3pm, 6pm). I also primarily breastfed up until 10 months then moved to bottles (she became too squirmy for nursings).
www.wholesomebabyfood.com has some great guidelines for those kind of things
