Hey Everyone!!

My daughter is now 5 1/2 months and I started her on rice cereal a week ago Friday... I'm so confused about the schedule of this. I started with giving 1 tsp of cereal to 4 tsp of breast milk and then increased the amount and then lessened the amount of milk. I did that until tonight and I introducted Oat Cereal with water....

My problem is, I feel like I have NO idea what I'm doing and when I should give her what. I'm such a follow by a schedule type person. Right now I feel like I'm just all over the place!

Can anyone direct me to some kind of website that tells me EXACTLY how and when I should be introducing things and the amounts of cereal to water or whatever. I feel so lost!!!! ahhhh... Or do any of you lovely ladies have anything like that that you could pass over to me?

Thanks!!!

Laura

Hi there Laura, good to see you again :) Ok if it helps any I am now at this stage with my 2nd son who is almost 8 months and I still feel like I have no clue what I am doing?? He doesn't seem to like to be spoon fed at all and would much prefer his bottle. I thk what your doing sounds great. I usually fed them and give them something to drink as I spoon fed and then after they ate would give them their bottle or in your case nurse them. By 6 months you can also introduce your dd to a sippy cup! I usually gave them something at breakfast, lunch, dinner and then inbetween times nurse/bottle.

I have a great book called Superbabyfood by Ruth Yaron and there is also a website, it is www.superbabyfood.com It gives you help on when to introduce certain foods, how much to give them and also how to make your own babyfood!

I hope this helps you out a little :) Feel free to PM anytime!

i hope this link works. it's at the BabyCenter website and I found it very helpful. http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babyfeeding/1400680.html

I am an extremely routined mother too, so I know where you are coming from on that one :wink:

With my twins all I did was introduce a meal at a time, such as only giving breakfast (the baby cerial) in the beginning, followed by a bottle, then after a few days of this, I introduced lunch at lunch with the same idea of following with a bottle, and then gradually dinner as well also ditto followed by a bottle.

I just fed them when it was regular meal time before I would eat.

It was funny watching their eyes enlarge with excitement at the new tastes.

I T/A that Super Foods for Babies is a FANTASTIC book! It tells you when to feed them what and with what consistency, when you can change the food to be more chunky etc. When to introduce finger foods. I found it so invaluable.

I also mainly made my own babyfood, I just mushed veggies and sometimes a tiny bit of meat with an electric hand held food grinder.
Loads of pumpkin and potato. My SIL told me that if I put them into ice cube trays and froze them, I could just pop the meals out one by one and that sized portion is sufficient for their meal followed by a bottle.

It worked really well for us. When I was feeling a bit slack or on the go, I would just feed supermarket baby food and later on in the twins life I would also feed them some Gerber Babycustard - but I also found this to be extremely expensive when compaired with boiling up my own custard from custard powder at home.

My advice...honestly....
Just wait :) It's too early yet. I say put it off for another 6 months She only needs momma milk for the first year.
But, that's just my 2 cents, I know most don't agree.

Check out Super Baby Food... great book I think irishmum mentioned it. It is excellent. You have to really watch your child & their actions. I was quite slow to introduce food to my young ones.. just use your intuition. I do recommend the Super Baby Food book though. It is great for all kinds of things. It even has great recipes for toddlers & craft ideas.

I agree with pp about waiting a while longer, until she is showing the signs of being ready. Breastmilk or formula is all most babies really need, and starting solids too soon can open the door to food allergies. When you do decide to start offering solids, just start with a couple of tablespoons AFTER her liquid feeding, since that is her primary source of nutrition; solids before 1 years are really just for practice and introducing flavors. Once she gets used to having some solids at one meal, then you can start offering them at 2 meals, and so on.

Also, you don't even need to start with rice cereal; I know its a popular first food in North America but babies all over the world start on all different kinds of foods.

With Audrey, I watched her after she was about four months old, to see when she'd be ready. I tested for the tongue-thrust reflex (where the baby automatically uses her tongue to push out anything you put in her mouth) from time to time, and waited until she didn't push the empty spoon back at me (at about 5-1/2 months).

I always mixed the cereal with a little expressed BM, and I did what Aussie_Mum did. First, I substituted one, then two, then three. (About a month apart. I still don't know if that was how I was supposed to do it, but it worked for us.) I still did an early morning nursing, one in the early afternoon, one in the evening, and one for bedtime. She wouldn't eat a large amount at first, but as the months went on, she would eat more and more. When she was about a year old, she was eating three meals a day, with a snack of BM in the morning, one in the afternoon, and occasionally the odd snack throughout the day.

When I finally decided to wean, Audrey was 14 months. (She'd developed turbo suction, and her doc was recommending cow's milk to boost her weight gain.) The first month, I started giving her fruit or graham crackers for her snacks. Then, I dropped the morning nurse one month and the bedtime nurse the next. I did it very slowly!

Thanks for all your input everyone!!! I'm just doing what my instincts tell me and it seems to be working.