I'd like to start my 6 month old on solids but I want to keep breastfeeding?

Question

I'd like to start my 6 month old son on solids but I dont want to give up breastfeeding completly. How do I go about doing this?

Answer 1

You just feed him solids once a day for a while. I nursed my children until they were 18 months old.

Answer 2

I put a few great links below about starting breastfed babies on solids. Basically, you'll be offering the breast before any solids to make sure he gets all the nutrients and breastmilk he needs first, before offering the solids (which are more experimental than anything at this point).

While your son may be ready for solids, make sure you check the signs for readiness, first. Starting solids should not be based on when the mother wants to do it, but rather on whether the child is ready or not. If the child is not yet exhibiting any signs of being ready, his digestive tract may not yet be ready. In fact, according to one of the websites I listed below, recent studies have shown that hydrochloric acid -- used to digest most protein -- doesn't even appear in the stomach until the end of the seventh month. Most babies are ready anywhere between 6 and 12 months, but more typically between 8 and 9 months of age.

By the way, you are right to not want to give up breastfeeding. Why would you? If you gave up breastfeeding now, you would have to give your baby something inferior -- artificial breast milk (formula). I can't believe people are telling you that you should wean now when it is clearly the healthiest thing to breastfeed your child until at LEAST the first birthday (I won't even get into extended breastfeeding here). Don't let anyone give you a hard time for your decision, you are doing a wonderful thing for your baby!

Good luck and congratulations on breastfeeding!

Answer 3

as quickly as you end breastfeeding around the clock and start up pumping in specific situations ( for the reason which you're at paintings ) the physique starts off to make much less milk. that's using fact pumping doesnt empty the breast as nicely as your toddler can. Your physique thinks it doesnt choose as plenty, and makes fairly much less. whenever you arent working, nurse each and every 3 hours and save eating a number of of water. I even have continuously heard cereal, rice or oatmeal, I dont think of it fairly concerns. I even have heard some human beings say that they gave their infants vegetables beofre fruit and the infants on no account have been given a 'candy the teeth'. He didnt double his weight by employing 6 months, yet there is not any longer something incorrect with sixteen.5 pounds for a 6 month old ! My son grow to be 19 pounds at a year. If he eats and seems content, dont hassle. He has won some, he isnt loosing weight !

Answer 4

Just introduce a little bit at a time, there is no reason to put them completely on solids at this age at all. My four month old just started with rice cereal, and I just mix a little bit with breastmilk or formula and give that to him once a day. It hasn't slowed down or changed how much he drinks other wise.

Basically you are supplementing your breastfeeding with solid foods.

Hope that helped!

Answer 5

Well, basically, you start him on rice cereal. You should stick to one food every 2 weeks. This is so that you can see if there was an allergy from a new food that was introduced. After rice cereal, try the other two types of cereal (oatmeal and mixed). Then try green veggies first (least favorite and easier if started first). Then other veggies. Then fruits LAST (most babies prefer sweet foods and will refuse to try veggies if they try fruits first). Be patient with him because if you try forcing him to eat, he may develop an aversion to eating from a spoon (I have seen this twice). The first few feedings, he may not understand how to get the food off the spoon and it may take awhile.

When he starts to use a pincer grasp (thumb and first finger), you can try to introduce the Gerber puffs (also, if he is teething or has a tooth). They pratically dissolve in their mouths with little chance of choking. Once they are pros at that, try 1/2 cheerios and then whole cheerios. They typically start finger foods around 8-10 months old.

I work at a child care center in an infant room. How we do it is this: parents breastfeed when child wakes, then when child comes to the center, we do breakfast time at 8 (when they would get baby food). Child would also receive a bottle with pumped breast milk (as per Health Department regulations). Then at lunchtime (11:30), child would receive baby food again and another bottle with pumped breast milk. (We have a very small am snack of those Gerber snack puffs, cheerios, or crackers in between breakfast and lunch.) Then pm snack time, child would eat Gerber snack puffs, cheerios, or crackers again and receive another bottle. That is at 3:30. Then parents would feed baby food at dinner time at home and typically breastfeed before bedtime (whenever that is). Typically, as they start to eat more and more baby food and table food, they will not want to feed in the middle of the night.

Answer 6

The best way that I found to keep a good balance of both is this....

When I started solids, I fed my daughter solids one time a day, usually lunch. I would nurse her on one side and then sit her in her highchair for her solids. The rest of the day, I would nurse her. After she got the hang of eating and I knew what she liked, I started feeding her 2 times a day, usually lunch and dinner. The late feeding of solids helped her sleep better at night. I did the same thing, probably about 5 weeks or so and then added breakfast.

In addition, I used expressed breast milk mixed with infant cereal for her breakfast.

Your pediatrician can also recommend a schedule for keeping your son on breastmilk and starting him on solids.

Good luck

Answer 7

I started my son on solids at four months old. But, at first, I only gave him one jar of stage one food a day. I split that up into two meals, The rest of the day, I breastfed or gave him pumped breast milk in a bottle. At five months old, he was up to two jars a day at two different increments. You gradually increase it until your baby is getting some solids at every meal. But it must be complimented with breast milk. So you can still breastfeed and give him solids. In fact, that is exactly what you do. Eventually you will wean your child off breast milk and onto table food.

Answer 8

Firstly congrats on breastfeeding and knowing that breastmilk should be the primary source of nutrition the first year. Solids should absolutely never take the place of milk feeds until after a year.

Also you have already taken the first crutial step: waiting until at least 6 months. Babies who start solids younger are more likely to replace breastmilk rather than compliment it.

The next thing you need to do is really assess readiness. If your baby isn't stealing the food off your plate he probably isn't ready. Seriously. There are other signs of readiness, but to me that is the most important though many do not wait that long, and some like me try to wait longer. Waiting until 7 months reduces the risks of anemia to 0. However I couldn't hide everytime I ate anymore and my son was eating grass every day *lol* so I gave up at 6.5 months and let him mooch away.

As you know breastfed babies can control exactly how much they eat and are very good at managing at this point. The best way to continue this is to practice "Baby-led introduction to solids". Which is really just a fancy way of saying let the baby feed themselves. Here is the info on why it is safe and why it is best: http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html

Also this site has some very good advice on starting solids, though I prefer baby-led. If you want to do a more traditional baby food sort of thing it is very helpful. However remember babyfood is a relatively recent thing! Also in my experience breastfed babies are less likely to take bland babyfood. They love spices like garlic and chili from the breastmilk. You probably know that when you eat garlic your breastmilk tastes of garlic, but did you know that when breastmilk tastes of garlic statistically babies drink more milk! (Obviously not all babies, some have sensititivites to garlic)
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/solids-how.html

The other thing I have to stress is that infant cereal is about as nutritious as a sugar sandwhich. It really is junk. It is white rice with every last bit of nutrition stripped out of it, they use even LESS of the rice then regular white rice, and you know how much more nutritious brown is. Then they grind it up and add sugars, tonnes of oil, synthetic vitamins and chemicals to improve "mouth feeL"
Cereal is not at all necessary, particularly the baby cereals. Regular (whole grain) oatmeal is more nutritious for your baby. Many doctors recommend iron-fortified rice cereal as baby's first food because it is less likely to cause an allergic reaction and because most babies sometime after the 6th month require an additional iron source other than mother's milk. If your baby starts solids around 6 months or later, there is much less chance of allergic reaction to foods. It's debatable whether healthy breastfed babies need the extra iron (you can get baby's iron levels checked if you're worried about this). In addition, infants need lots of protein and cereal has a low protein-calorie ratio (even lower when mixed with water or fruit). Many experts (including LLL) suggest giving meat or other foods naturally rich in iron instead of foods with added iron. For more information on iron, see Is Iron-Supplementation Necessary?

Answer 9

Start with veggies, and give him just a little food on meal and give the rest as breast milk. That can be his drink. You will just shorten the time of breast feeding a little. Or replace on meal with breastfeeding and leave the rest just like they are. There is no need to rush into full fledged foods. I am sure you know to introduce one food at a time, and when you first start them whether they are on bottle or breast you want the majority of their suppliment to come from milk or formula.

Answer 10

Go Ahead:
Put the food that you eat in the blender.
Feed him that.
Then start weaning!
Get your life back!