mixing infant cereal in with a bottle?

Question

my baby is will be four months old the 16th and i wanted to know if anyone knew if you can mix a little infant cereal in a bottle with the babys formula at night to help the baby sleep longer? if you can how much cereal should you mix in a 6 ouce bottle?

if this is ok how much should you put in?

Answer 1

I put cereal in my 3 kids' bottles & they're all fine.

Answer 2

Mix half a teaspoon of rice cereal with 1 or 2 ounces of warm formula. Right at first, it should be very thin. At three months, you may want to use a "cereal bottle" instead of a spoon. Give it to her once a day in conjunction with a regular feeding. After about a week, gradually use more cereal until it is a very soft mush. This process could take several weeks. If she refuses the cereal, do not make her take it. Just try again another day. If she likes it, she will let you know. Monitor baby for rashes or other reactions. In the case of diarrhea, call the doctor.

Answer 3

Surely you can! From my own experience as a daycare provider, giving a baby a bottle before he goes to sleep would help to fill up his tummy more and this enables him to sleep better.

You can add about two teaspoonfuls into a 6 ounce bottle. Usually I add in oatmeal and sometimes I might put in rice cereal. It depends on the child. BUT try it once with oatmeal first during the day time to make sure that it does not give him gas. If he is gasy, he might scream in pain and streatch himself out really stiffy. If it does, you can give him Gas Drop after he has a bottle. That would make him feel better very quicky.

One very important thing when you give him cereal in the bottle.. Don't over done it on the cereal because Sometimes the cereal might clogg the nipple. If he is taking a really long time to suck it could mean that the nipple is clogged. In this case, you could poke the nipple with a fork to unclogged the nipple.. But don't over done it because if you poke a hole that is too big he might not want to drink it!!

Answer 4

We did the same thing, but for the opposite reason....

My baby was sleeping through the night on her own at 8 weeks. I begged my doc to let me put some rice cereal in her bottles so her little belly had something substantial in it. She told me to put the rice in the bedtime bottle and the first morning bottle. And she said one teaspoon per ounce.
I started that at 8 weeks and now have a happy, healthy 1 year old who had cereal in her bedtime bottle her whole first year. She is good size, good weight, and very healthy. So ignore people who will tell you that cereal in the bottle is evil......I do not know if it will help the baby sleep longer, but it will not hurt the baby, make them fat, or make them have bad eating habits....

Answer 5

I would have to say that adding infant cereal to your babies bottle is a very bad idea. When my son was just over four months old we went to our doctor and asked if he could start infant cereal because of how well he was doing and he could sit up and move his mouth the right way we were able to try him on infant cereal but NOT IN A BOTTLE this is such a bad idea in so many ways. You need to talk to ur doctor and see what they suggest your baby need to be ready in his/hers development or giving cereal can be very bad for them. There i on way that your doctor will say yes unless your baby is ready for it and with a spoon not in there bottle.Beside no one i know has ever said that there baby slept better because of it.

Answer 6

I talked to several people and doctors about this and they recommend not to do this. I have a 6 month old and this works. Feed her normal bottle then a couple of hours later give her just about 2oz. of formula with premie nipple.
The baby will work hard to suck and eventually will fall asleep.
make sure the formula is warm. This has been working great for me the last 2 weeks. The secret is that the premie nipple is harder to suck the milk out this makes them tired and they like the comfort of the sucking. Make sure after they fall asleep to take away the bottle. Dr. Browns Premie nipple is the best.

Answer 7

dont do this as the ceral may clog up in the bottle and the baby wouldn't get the milk anyway!And you should never put any food in a bottle except baby milk.And i would'nt feed a baby that young last thing at night just to make it sleep longer .What would you do if your baby through up in the night and you didn't know! If your babys hungry give the baby another bottle about half an hour before you get in bed this way you will get a bit morew sleep anyway!

Answer 8

We started giving cereal at about 6-8 weeks. I think your 4 month old should be fine, but it always helps to check with your doctor first. As far as how much to put in.. I can't remember exactly, the last time I made it was over 3 years ago. The consistency should be similar to thin oatmeal.

Answer 9

I had to put cereal in my daughters bottle from 2 months old due to acid refulx just so she could keep the formula down. It didnt make her sleep longer.

I put one scoop per ounce of formula. (i used the formula scoop)

Try it and see if it works for you. I did have a problem with the nipple clogging. The only bottle/nipple that worked was the avent with the variable flow nipple, its made for thicker feeds.

good luck.

Answer 10

I heard that its a bad idea cuz babies spit it up more, but that was only if you were weaning from breast milk. I guess you could try it, just add the smallest amount and see if it works, if not add a little bit more, and so on. Really the baby needs to be a little older first. More like 6 months. Its your baby though, good luck!

Answer 11

I've been putting Cereal in my son's bottles since I went back to work after 6 weeks.

For me generally in an 8oz bottle I add cereal first to the 2oz line and then add my powdered formula and then the water.

Every trip to our pediatrition he has never been overweight either!

Hope this helps.