At what age should i introduce cereal to my infant?

Question

My son is 3 months old and is only eating about 4 oz of formula. He is not really sleeping through the night and i have tried keeping him up but he just gets really sleepy by 8 or 9 (sometimes i can keep him up till 10) but he still wakes up at 1 or 2 no matter what time i put him to bed. Someone suggested its time to introduce cereal. But im worried he is still too young. Ive had lots of problems finding a formula that he is happy with he is now on enfamil nutramigen, but i dont think it is sitting heavy enough on his tummy. Any suggestions please??

i cant breastfeed i tried but my milk dried up in one night due to stress

Answer 1

American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that breastfed babies start solids at 6 months of age. However, if your baby is formula fed (which means the baby is not getting all the available nutrition and needs early supplementation), then you can start him on cereal as early as 4-5 months. It is not recommended to start any solids, even cereal before then.

70% babies start sleeping through the night on their own at the age of 9-10 months. Let things go naturally, your baby may be one of those 70%!

Giving solids before bed-time for longer or better sleep is proven to be a myth! Any doctor can tell you that so far no study has supported it. And especially giving it to them in a bottle - that is REALLY not good for them!

Answer 2

I'm not trying to cause any problems here but man people are so set in their ways of listening to dr's these days about stuff.

Ok I have a 6 month old baby boy. He was 9lbs and 12 oz when he was born. BIG BOY YES!!!! Anyways when he was 3 months I noticed that he was eating so often through out the day. SO I decided to get some baby cereal to help with getting him full. I did some massive research before I did that and I found on Gerber's site it was saying that if a baby has either doubled their birth weight or is eating more than 32oz of formula or breast milk a day they are ready for baby foods. But to do stage 1 at that time. So I did that and it seemed to make things a little easier for me. He didn't sleep any better with having baby cereal but he wasn't drinking as much formula as before which was good because then he was fuller longer.

I just recently took him in for his 6 month check up and he is just fine. He weights 18lbs and 13 oz and is 27 inches long and is in the 50% for his age. So from one mom to another it will not hurt to give your lil one baby cereal this early.
I found that the gerber rice with banana's was the better one that he would eat. And if you want to take it a step further you can try the jars of gerber baby banana's with it too.


Good Luck and I hoped that helped you a little bit.

Oh the site is
http://www.gerber.com/phase/feeding?phase=7

That tells you all you will need to know about feeding your lil one baby foods and cereal.

Answer 3

Try getting him to eat more than four oz of formula. Thats probably just not enough. My son, at 3 months, was eating 8oz in a sitting. I wuldn't introduce the cereal until at least 4-5 months, though the suggestion is 6 months. If he seems full after 4oz, make sure he stays awake until he can eat the other 4. You will have a better sleep and feel more rested and energetic come morning. Good Luck

Answer 4

a toddler's dozing trend is going to decision and regulate a lot contained in the first 3 hundred and sixty 5 days. purely because a toddler sleeps by skill of the evening at one element does not mean s/he continuously will. There should be different factors as to why she's waking now. boost spurt is a tremendous one. Many little ones will wake regularly or cluster feed throughout the time of those and also you purely ought to flow with it. in spite of in case you've been to introduce solids it gained't make her sleep longer. it really is an finished delusion. you'll not be ready to get her to take adequate to make a huge difference. And solids are not better filling than breast milk. The counseled age is six months. There are a good number of articles proving the benefits of waiting till this age to commence solids. in the journey that your daughter has been growing superb on breast milk on my own then relax assure it really is adequate for her. also, do not positioned cereal in bottles. that is a choking probability and it really is purely not counseled.

Answer 5

It's best to avoid putting cereal in baby's bottle so that he learns to eat from a spoon. If your son's doctor says otherwise, then of course you should listen to the doctor.

If your son only drinks 4oz at a time, perhaps you can try squeezing in one more feeding before bedtime.

We started our son on cereal at 4 months. But the amount was so small it didn't make him full. It was just so he could learn to eat from a spoon. We started with 1 tablespoon of cereal mixed with 4 tablespoons of formula. It's pretty much liquid at that point. It took him a few weeks to figure out how to keep it in his mouth and swallow it instead of just spitting it back out.

Like I'd said above, try squeezing in one more feeding. Also, check to make sure that the temperature in his room is right for him. My son used to wake up at 3am because his room got too cold. Once we realized and fixed that problem, he went back to sleeping through the night.

Hope that helps and good luck!

mari

Answer 6

Babies should never have anything but breast milk or formula for the first 6 months. They dont have the right enzymes yet. Introducing food too early can cause:
-constipation
-irregular weight gain
-higher risk for food allergies later in life
-other digestive problems

Trust me, I looked this up, and asked my doc, because my best friend started giving her baby cereal at just a few weeks old, and shes gaining weight TOO fast and is so constipated sometimes that her poor lil bum hole bleeds from the straining. I know it can be really hard, but you will be past this before you know it, so hang in there and do what is best for your baby

When you DO introduce food:
start with single grain cereal
only introduce one new food every 2 weeks so you can watch for allergies.
start with easy to digest veggies, if you start with fruit, your baby may later refuse veggies
professionals say that it can take up to 13 introductions of a food before your baby will accept it, so if that is the case, hang in there and keep trying.

Good luck!

Answer 7

Just recently the recommendation changed from wait until 6 months to start rice cereal to start rice cereal between 4 and 6 months. I think it's a little too early to expect your 3 month old to go 8 hours without eating...keep in mind his little tummy can only hold so much at a time. By keeping him up later, he's just getting less sleep - and is probably pretty cranky for those last couple of hours. I wonder if you put him down as soon as he gets tired if he wouldn't fall asleep more easily and might sleep better and longer...?

With my daughter, we started rice cereal at six months, which she didn't like so we went to oatmeal pretty quickly. Once she was getting a few bites of cereal in her at about 6 or 6:30pm, we gave her a bottle at 7:00 and put her down to sleep, then we woke her up at 11:00pm to give her another bottle (she didn't really wake up for it). We were on an every 4 hrs schedule so she was getting a bottle at 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm and 3am. We phased out the 3am bottle by giving her a little less each time over a few weeks and then not giving her one even if she woke up for it. It sounds mean, but she learned to eat a little more and she stopped waking up at 3am for it after two nights. Then we did the same thing for the 11pm bottle, phasing it out.

Pediatricians do say the rice cereal has no effect on how babies sleep. Mostly it's coincidence because by the time you start rice cereal at 4-6 months is usually when babies are physiologically ready to go longer periods of time without eating.

My suggestions are to put your son down as soon as he gets sleepy (give him a bottle just before). Give him a bottle at about 10 or 11pm and head off to bed. If he wakes up in the middle of the night for a bottle, give it to him, but give him 3 oz for a few nights, then 2, then 1 then don't give him a bottle at all. At that point it may take you a while to get him back to sleep, but it shouldn't take many nights for him to figure it out. Once he's getting some cereal in him at night, in a month or so, try phasing out that 10 or 11pm bottle as well.

He will probably increase the amount he drinks at the "11pm" feeding once you phase out the "3am" feeding and will increase the amount he drinks at the "7pm" feeding once you phase out the "11pm" feeding.

Good luck!

Answer 8

We'll I am no doctor but mine agreed with me. You do what you feel is best for your child. I starting feeding my son papblum when he was 3 weeks old. I don't care what anyone says, my grandma did it all of my aunties did it, and even the nurses had advised some of my family members to do it. As long as your child doesn't get an adverse allergic reaction, and is pooping( little drinks of water help). My son was always hungry. and so i fed him. Today he is 17 mnths old, and is active and healthy, and he is over the 95th percentile in everything, age weight, and smarts. So hunny the best way to answer that question is to experiement, Start off with a tablespoon of pablum, and increase it each time. My son was also starting to eat jar food by the time he was 4 mnths old. loved everything. i hope this helps, take care

Answer 9

Hi, Doctors now introduce cereal at 6 months of age. Just 2 years ago it was 4 months. I gave my first two daughter cereal at 4 months and they are just fine. So I went ahead and also gave my 9 month old cereal at 4 months and she is just fine.

Answer 10

4 months