When to start baby on solids?
April C asked:
I am exclusively breastfeeding my 3 month old daughter. I have read that you can start on infant rice cereal at 4-6 months. Should I start her at 4 or 6 months. How much & when did you start your breastfed baby. Did your milk supply drop?
I am exclusively breastfeeding my 3 month old daughter. I have read that you can start on infant rice cereal at 4-6 months. Should I start her at 4 or 6 months. How much & when did you start your breastfed baby. Did your milk supply drop?
this is a question you should discuss with the pediatrician. all babies are different.
Your milk supply won’t drop if you pump the times you would have been nursing. Also, you can mix that cereal with the ****** milk. It depends on you and your baby’s size for their age when to start. If they were preemie, then you’d start later, but if they are in a good percentile then it should be fine to start the baby at 4 months. That’s what I did with both of mine, but I added in whole milk too to ad a lil fat cause my kids were thin babies. Test the waters a little and see how the baby reacts to it. It may not be time yet.
My ped said cereal at 4 months, baby food at 6.
The cereal box tells you how to start. A little bit of cereal with a lot of liquid-so it’s like water. You can thicken it up as she gets used to it.
I would guess your milk supply may drop because cereal will keep her full for a longer period of time. you may want to wait til 6 months for cereal. you can ask your ped and see what he/she says. (I never exclusively breastfed so I never had to worry about supply cuz I never had a full supply)
my pediatrician gave these recommendations when i asked her this question:
1- make sure baby is strong enough to support sitting in a high chair. they should have the control to keep themselves sitting straight.
2- start with an empty spoon and act like you were feeding baby. if they thrust their tongue out after the spoon has been in their mouth, they lack the proper coordination and aren’t quite ready yet. keep trying periodically until they have mastered the ability to accept the spoon in their mouth
3- don’t rush things. they don’t need the cereal at that age for nutritional value at that age, it is mainly a textural/practice thing. there is nothing wrong with waiting until closer to six months to try
You will see the time when your baby is ready, just let her tell you. We have lots of allergies in our family, so we were hoping to wait until after six months, but our son was obviously ready by five 1/2 months. He still nurses pretty often (every 3-4 hours during the day) and he is now seven months old. No problem with supply. A good website that I reference often is.
I know everyone always say every baby is different but it’s true. It depends on your baby. Does she seem to be wanting more? if so start feeding her rice cereal in couple of weeks. I started my son on rice cereal at 4 months. But I could tell he was wanting more than formula. I started spoon feeding him. It did take a couple of trys before he caught on & he didn’t eat very much the first couple of times either. I then started him out on stage 1 baby food around 5 months, stage 2 at 6 months & stage 3 at 8 1/2 months. Now my son is 9 1/2 months. He loves food & loves to eat. He is even starting not to like baby food that much & wants real food. He loves solids. And pretty much likes the taste of everything. So the transition to solids was easy for me. Like I said it all depends on your baby.