why some moms skip baby cereal altogether? I'm sure there is a reason and just curious why? TIA for answering yet another of my many questions:mrgreen:

Ruth probably has some nice links for you on this....I keep forgetting to bookmark them when she posts ;)

But, simply put, empty calories. There's just no need.

I've been using the organic baby cereal (at Walmart) just because it seems better. Let's just say I have HUGE babies and they can't survive with milk only after 6 months.:-D

yeah, what T said. I felt like I was being told to feed baby cereal because "it's what you do" not a good reason. all the extra vitamins are added in...not naturally occuring. I'd rather my babies get them from a natural source. Since they don't NEED to eat real food at 6 months, it's just practice. So, it might as well be good for them too! :) If your babies are actually hungry...then why not avocado? It has lots of *good* fat in it.

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/first-foods.html

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/archive/index.php/t-933836.html

A couple things I found real quickly, to get you started. :)

We skipped it too. I made a few of our own with brown rice and oatmeal. Never bought any. But really, they didn't do anything for her but clog her up. So after making maybe two rounds of that, I stopped. Sometimes I would add it to her other purees. But since we didn't do bottles on a real regular basis, we didn't add it to ehr bottles, like lots of people do. I agree with PP. It's just not nutritionally needed. It's a filler and not necessary.

My kids just never liked it. Ellie ate it more than my other 2 but never by itself. I used it to thicken babyfood, and I fed her multigrain. But really they just don't care for it.

Because it's not necessary. The added vitamins in it are fairly poorly absorbed, from what I've read. Iron from breastmilk has a far higher absorption rate than synthetic iron in cereal.

Now that said, I have used some organic brown rice cereal with my babies on occasion, but not because I felt like it was critical for them to have it or anything. My DS actually likes rice cereal and it was a handy thing to haul along when I took a cross country trip. But it's far from being nutritionally imperative.

I tended to start my babies on raw, fresh fruit when starting solids.

HTH. :D

Thanks ladies:) I'll check out those links Tara! It just frustrates me that so many people do so many things that aren't necessary and some of them aren't even good for my baby...why can't they tell me what I actually *need* to do? I reckon that would be too simple tho, right? ;)

Haha! It's so interesting, isn't it??
I think having a baby today is especially interesting. We're seeing how all these practices that were done for generations are not necessary. The pendulum is definitely swinging more towards 'less is more.' But if someone was raised one way then they tend to it usually. I know my grandma did things WAY differently than we do now. Anyway, it can be so frustrating when trying to sort through all of the 'advice' and 'to-dos." :D