Starting My Little Girl on Solid Food...

4 months is a good age to start her on solid foods such as rice cereal mixed with breast milk/formula and spoon fed. I started mine out at 4 months (one feeding in the morning and one at night) and she did great! I think that if you feel you daughter is ready to start on solids then go ahead and just take it easy. I don't think their little tummies are quite ready for fruits and veggies, yet, but when you do start them I would recommend veggies first b/c they are less acidic and easier on the tummy to digest. Hope this helps :)

Hi A., How exciting! I want to give you one piece of advice I have heard over and over. Although, you can start solids as early as 4 months, it is highly recommended by many that you wait until 6 months of age. That's when a baby's digestive system is more mature. Introducing foods earlier than 6 months could contribute to allergies later in life. Here are a couple of links to check out. For what it's worth, my mom started me on solids at 6 weeks of age. I'm a walking allergetic mess and have been taking allergy shots for 6 years with a few food allergies thrown in there too. Who's to say it was the early introduction to food. However, you might as well avoid it, just in case. Lastly, I have two kids (almost 4 and almost 1). Unfortunately, starting solids didn't help with their sleep! Ugh. That's what I was hoping for. Good luck to you! Enjoy that baby girl. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/131235/why_delay... and http://www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/startingsolids/introduci... many

Hi A.-
I agree with waiting to start solids until 6 months. I also wanted to recommend a book called "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron. I have used it sooo much. It tells you which foods to start at which months, how much (generally) to feed them, how to cook and store the food, and a whole lot more. Basically it takes the mystery out of feeding solids and answered pretty much all of my questions (and I had no idea where to start).
Good luck and have fun!

K.

Hi There!

I am a grandmother now but I fed my daughter very little canned baby food. You should ask your pediatrician what foods to start with and at what intervals. You want to introduce one food at a time. You can order a baby food grinder off line. I think I got the one for my grandson at Babys R Us. This was just last year. Basically you prepare food that you are eating (without any spices or salt) then grind it up in the baby food grinder. It is very handy comes in a little carrying case and you can take it anywhere you are going.

You want to be extra careful when they are as young as your daughter about thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables.

Hope this helps.

Grammie

Congrats on your little one starting solid food! I agree with the advice of the first post; but we started with meat and veggies first.

Hi,
This is easy and so much better for them than the jar food, and this way there are no additives or fillers. Start with small amounts of organic fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. Skin and steam some organic sweet potato, carrots or cook some frozen organic peas. I just steam and put them in a blender (with a touch of sea salt). You can put the remaining amounts in small containers in the refrigerator, but don’t keep them too long. Bananas are portable and easy. You can steam frozen peaches and blend them. Go slowly introducing baby to small amounts. My 6 month old breast fed grandbaby girl loves Avocado. Her mom tries different things every few days to see how she does with them.

Hi there,
I'm an early childhood development and education specialist and a professional nanny. I've been in the field of infant/toddler/preschool education for over 25 years.
Most pediatricians do not recommend starting babies on solid foods until 6 months of age. This is partly because they are not equipt to digest solids properly until this age. It is NOT TRUE that starting them on solids earlier makes them sleep through the night...in fact it can cause such stomach issues as to make their sleep LESS consistent, not more. I would highly recommend that you wait until your baby is mature enough to digest solid foods well before introducing them. Also, even when she DOES eat solids, she gets virtually no nutrition from them...she needs her formula or breast milk to get the nutrients she needs at this age so by all means, DON'T let her fill up on solids and give up her bottles...she doesn't NEED solids yet, she NEEDS bottles. If she's seeming to be hungry in spite of bottle feedings, perhaps she needs bigger bottles or more frequent feedings. Solid foods at 4 months is a risky and bad idea in my opinion, especially if you don't have a doctor overseeing it.
L. harvey

I started my girls on fruit first. bananas, apples and pears. Just put them in a food processor and add some breast milk or formula to make it more of a liquid consistency at first. Only try one food at a time though. For example, try apples one week, then you can try pears and so on. This way you know if there is a particular food that does not agree with your kiddo. My daughter could never eat spinach, she threw it up every time I tried but nothing else made her sick.

Ditto on some of the previous posts. Our pediatrician said that solids before six months should not be considered a primary source of nutrition -- it's more like treats for your baby. I made most of our little girl's food, and it's so easy. We started with sweet potatoes (peeled, cut up, boiled, then blended in a food processor), various kinds of squash (baked then blended), apples, pears, peaches, green beans, and peas. After a couple of months, we started mixing fruits and veggies with each other and with blended cooked lentils, oatmeal, rice cereal, etc. A great trick is to make a big batch of a fruit or veggie then pour into an ice cube tray and freeze. We pop the cubes out and put them in ziploc bags or tupperware containers. Our little girl started out on one to two cubes at a sitting but has graduated to almost 8 cubes now. Good luck!

I started my son out on beachnut baby food, and then found how much cheaper it was to make homemade baby food. All that I have done is I will purchase no salt/sugar added canned veggies and fruits, and I also purchase things like baby carrots, different squashes, sweet potatoes, and stuff like that and cook it up and use my blender to puree it. I also can put cubed meat in there and it grinds that as well. A great site that you can check out is http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com. It actually advises that avacado makes a great first food, as well as many other foods too.

I'd say it was just a coincidence with your friend's son. Have YOU ever caught a cold from eating a banana? ; )