What do you start your baby on at 4 + months?

Question

Do you start with the rice cereal, or baby food? How often and do I keep giving her the same amount of formula?

Answer 1

No solid foods until closer to 6 months of age, per the AAP and LLL.

Signs that indicate baby is developmentally ready for solids include:
Baby can sit up well without support.
Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
Baby is ready and willing to chew.
Baby is developing a “pincer” grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

Answer 2

Start weaning off really, really slowly - baby rice is probably the best thing to use mixed in with the babys usual milk (breastmilk or formula).

Literally only offer one or two tea spoons full and still give the baby it's regular milk feeds.
If the baby is able to take the food to the back of his/her mouth and swallow, rather than spitting it out, that's a good indication that s/he's reading for weaning.

As time goes on, offer slightly more baby rice, slightly more often, but still use milk as the primary food source.

When the baby has got used to taking small amounts of fluid, you can puree some veg and fruit and offer that. Very slowly introduce wheat products just before a year old.

Guidelines say not to give a baby solids before 6 months - but if you do, stick to just baby rice until s/he is 6 months old, so the gut can learn to deal with it.

Answer 3

At 6 months I started on baby foods, sometimes mixing the cereal in with the fruits in the morning. All's a baby needs for the first 6 months is their milk and there is no nutritional value in starting any solids before then.

Answer 4

Four months is a little early... my pediatrician told me to wait until six months but at 5 months I gave my daugther rice cereal mixed with breast milk. By 5 1/2 I was giving her those tiny jars of fruit - however, I would only give her one tiny jar every other day.

By 6 months she would eat one jar of fruit or vegetables a day.

By 8 months I was giving my daugther 2 jars a day.

Now at 10 months I am giving my daugther 1 oz of cheese and a whole banana in the morning, a yogurt in the afternoon and a jar of fruit/vegetables mixed with some wholegrain cereal before bed.

Obviously I am breastfeeding continuously throughout the day regardless of other food given to her.

Answer 5

At 4 months my son was still exclusively breastfed. I did not start to introduce solids until after 6 months, per the AAP recommendations.

We started to introduce Avocado at around 6 months of age, we don't do rice cereal for multiple reasons. He was not interested though, so we stopped and waited until he was ready. He did not take to solids until about 8-9 months. He was, and still is(13 months old) breastfed on demand.

Remember that up to 1 year, all of your babies nutrition should come from breast milk/formula.

Answer 6

Yes My son's ped said it's okay to give my son rice cereal nearly 5 months old, i gave my son rice cereal every morning first see if he no allergy or no new sign and he doing fine so far he was doing good, do the spoon is the best it will help him learn how to eat with spoon and his ped told me try rice cereal first after for couples weeks then give him baby food first anything green vegetable for week then carrot, banana,etc fruit. right now I'm giving my son every morning and every night rice cereal 1 TBS and at 6 months you can give ur babies oatmeal and juices. yes u can give ur babies same formula i gave my son 6 oz formula and rice cereal so far he is doing fine and happy tummy. hope this help! =] but you still have to talk your babies' doctor about it.

Answer 7

Rice cereal first, and anything new you give you need to do the same thing for three days before giving something else new, this is to watch for allergic reactions. The formula question is common sense, when she drinks it all and seems to be hungry still you start putting more.

Answer 8

feed her on demand. No rice cereal or baby food yet. Rice cereal is for babies 6 months and up, tough some Peds give you green light for it at 5 months. At that age my daughter's Ped said I could give her natural (buy an organic apple, peel it, cut it in pieces and put them in a blender with cooled boiled water) apple juice or pear juice, 3oz a day just for her to taste something different. But nothing more than that.

Answer 9

i started my son on cereal but i didnt do it all the time more like to see if he would take to the spoon and then i started on fruits and veggies closer to 6 months- i only started out with once a day and then went to twice a day at about 6-1/2 months and i am about to go to three timesa day- at four months they should be getting the same in breastmilk or formula before they started solids- it is their main source of nutrition- i took my son's lead and he let me know when he was ready- if your baby pushes the food out wiht his/her toung then they are NOT ready.
CEREAL should not be given by bottle it should be given by spoon because its SOLIDS FOOD
why start solids later?- starting solids before your baby can properly digest it can create little tiny holes in the intestine called fissures and cause digesting problems later in life and allergies to multiple foods- why risk it? your bbay doesnt NEED food until one year- anything before then is just practice- let your bbay be a baby

Answer 10

rice or oatmeal cereal if your doctor has already given the ok. baby food only if your baby seems interested in your food. cereal (this is how I do it) last bottle before bed, bottle if wakes up at night, and first bottle in the morning.