Is 3 months too soon to start rice cereal?

Question

My baby is 12 weeks. Is it too soon to start rice cereal? I've had people tell me they started at 3 months and their baby was much happier b/c it was sleeping longer at night and seemed rested. Has anyone else started rice cereal yet?

Answer 1

The answer is: when your pediatrician tells you that it's OK to start solid foods. When my baby was 8 weeks we asked our pediatrican and she said there was not reason to start. But if I did only use 1tsp for a 3-4oz bottle. I opted to just wait until she was over 4months. I will ask again when she has her 4month checkup.

Most ped's will probably agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose guidelines state that the best time to begin feeding your baby solid foods is between 4 and 6 months of age. And the closer to 6 months the better, especially if you are breastfeeding. Your baby's body in its first few months was designed to digest breast milk, or something similar to it. And, calorie for calorie, no solid food has the nutritional quality of breast milk or formula for your young baby. If you feed your baby solid foods too early, her milk intake may decrease. You'd be replacing milk, the best food for your baby, with foods that are nutritionally inferior and not as digestible. Solid foods should not replace breast milk, they should complement it.
Why You Should Wait Until At Least 4 Months

Your baby is not physically ready to eat solid foods until he is around 4 months old. Although your mother or grandmother will strongly disagree, saying that she gave her babies solids when they were only 2 weeks old, there are several reasons to wait at least 4 months before starting your baby on solid foods.


Reason 1. Your baby's digestive system is too immature for solid foods before 4 months. Although he can suck very well, he does not have a lot of saliva to help digest food. Until he is at least 3-4 months old, his system lacks certain digestive enzymes, such as an enzyme called amylase, needed for digesting cereals (starches or complex carbohydrates). His body has trouble digesting some fats before he is 6 months old. Some foods will pass through him undigested and end up in his diaper. And some high protein foods, like eggs, meat, and even cow's milk, given too early may cause problems with your baby's immature kidneys.


Reason 2. Your baby is not developmentally ready to eat solid foods. His throat muscles are not developed enough to swallow solid foods until he is at least 4 months old. And, it is not until about 4 months that he is able to use his tongue to transfer food from the front to the back of his mouth. In fact, when you touch his tongue, he reacts by pushing his tongue outward or forward. This response is called the extrusion reflex or the tongue-thrust reflex and it doesn't disappear until he is around 16-18 weeks old. The first time you feed him with a spoon, it may seem that he is spitting out the food and closing his mouth at the wrong time. But his tongue movement is simply the result of the not-yet-unlearned extrusion reflex and not because he doesn't want the food. It is not until he is about 5 months old that he will see the spoon coming and open his mouth in anticipation.


Reason 3. Your baby must have a way of telling you that he is satiated. He lets you know that he is finished breast or bottle feeding by stopping his sucking or by falling asleep. But until he becomes able to turn his head to refuse food, which occurs at around 4 or 5 months, he has no way of letting you know he has had enough solid food. Because of this inability, some people consider feeding solid foods to a too-young baby a method of force feeding. This practice can interfere with the body's self-regulating eating mechanism and lead to overweight later in life. As with adults, your baby should eat only when he is hungry.


Reason 4. Beginning solid foods too early has been associated with other problems later in life, such as obesity, respiratory problems like bronchial asthma, and food allergies. For more information on how food allergies are caused by too-early introduction of solid foods, see page 33.


Reason 5. Solid foods will not make your baby sleep through the night. Studies show that of all babies sleep through at 3 months of age, whether or not they are eating solid foods. Even if solid foods will help your baby sleep longer, that is still not a good reason to begin solid foods early. I know sleep deprivation is hell, and most of us have been there. Hang in there. One night he'll sleep right through, and then you can start feeling normal again.


Reason 6. If you are breastfeeding and give your baby solid foods too early, your milk production may be decreased.

Answer 2

I started my baby at 2 1/2 months. She was not being satisfied with just formula, I mean 7oz at one time was still not enough, she was still crying for more. I started the rice cereal on a spoon and she did awesome, a little pro. If your baby can hold their head up, then try it. My doctors was perfectly fine with it, just said not give her veggies until 6 months. Shes now 5 months and doing great, very happy baby. Just give her about 1/2 tsp of rice cereal, I used Heinz, and mix it with the formula in a bowl and feed by spoon, just little bits at a time, and make it runny for a while so its basically falling off the spoon. Never put it in the bottle, not good.

Answer 3

Cereal is never put in baby's bottle. Cereal is a solid food, and can be offered when baby is around 6 MONTHS old (not 6 weeks) and able to sit up well and eat it from a spoon. Watery, green, foul smelling poops, together with a lot of spitting up sounds like a stomach bug. If it continues, consult her doctor. But force-feeding her rice is not the solution. EDIT I would love to know what brand of cereal Kristin uses. Because I've never seen a box of cereal which says to put it in a bottle. (The Gerber site specifically says to feed with a spoon. Perhaps Kristin mis-interpreted 'mix with formula' to mean 'put in a bottle. Cereal IS mixed with formula or breastmilk ... in a bowl.

Answer 4

No its not too soon i have a 5 1/2 month old and i started her on rice cereal at about 2 1/2 months in fact my doctor advised it.

Answer 5

Hi. It depends on your baby

I started to wean my son at 4 months old and that was just because he was showing the signs of hunger.
I dont think you should give baby rice etc just to get your baby to sleep.

My son slept all night every night when i first had him and 8months on after having 3 set meals a day and breastfeeding him he wakes every night 2-3 times a night.

I do have friends that started to give their babies baby rice at 3 months because they too were showing signs of hunger and they are fine!

Maybe you should talk to your health vistior and see what she says!

I'd say try and get through the next few weeks and start at 4 months, its more a relastic age to start, and baby will have a stronger stomach etc

Good luck

Answer 6

Ultimately it is up to you, and whether you think your baby is ready yet. It isn't a good idea if your baby spits up a lot, this will only make your baby spit up more. Also if you start your baby on solids to early, and there body isn't ready it can cause them to become allergic to that food later on down the road. Really you should be waiting til at least 4 months, and most doctors recommend waiting til 6 months. But whatever you think is best for your baby.

Answer 7

Most pediatricians recommend waiting until the baby is between 4-6 months. They believe now that starting it earlier can possibly make the baby more likely to have food allergies. Also they usually are not ready this early. They could choke if they dont have excellent head control. I would ask the doctor before you start this!

Answer 8

You can start that at 3 months. With both of my kids I started them at 3 months. I use formula to mix with the rice. I jsut use a lot of it so it doesn't have any thickness too it. You should be fine that way

Answer 9

I started mixing cereal in with my daughter's formula when she was about two weeks-I made it very very thin-barely mixing in any cereal at all, and I only gave her that bottle at bedtime. She went from sleeping 2 hours at a time to sleeping four. After two months, she was sleeping 6 hours at a time and it was pure bliss!

Be warned that it can change the texture, color, odor & consistency of their poop. Aside from that, I didn't see any bad side effects.

As with everything else, consult your pediatrician. Then do what you think it best.

Answer 10

3 month is write age to start rice cereal .my wife has started it at the same age to our only child . but one thing i noticed that time that our child has relatively of more weight compared to those children who have been on same diet after 5 months or so.

Answer 11

Doctors usually don't recommend it til 6 months... But, all three of my children were on it by 2 months of age. (one of them was by doctors orders)
If you are going to start just be sure to get it to the right consistency....
Good luck