Just a quick question about baby cereal.

[yourstruly10]

Hi everyone. My daughter will be 19 weeks on wednesday. She has been eating almost 40oz of formula a day for almost 2 weeks now. She watched her dad and I eat so intently and grabs at our food all the time.I had a package of baby oat cereal so I mixed up a tbsp today for her and she downed it she was even grabbing the spoon and feeding herself and then still had another 5 oz bottle after it. I talked to the health nurse and she said it was fine but I find I get a different answer with ever nurse so I thought I'd ask here. Is she ok to have a tbsp a day if she wants it or should I hold off a bit longer? Thanks anD please don't leave rude comments. If you have no help to offer please don't leave anything.

Also this is not something I am doing to get her to sleep through or anything. She has been sleeping through for 2 months now. I just thought I'd try it to see what she did.

 

[Broodypants]

Ok, I just want to point out out that watching you eat and grabbing food aren't necessarily signs of needing weaning - babies are soooo interested in everything we do at this age and it's very easy to read more into this.

However, it sounds as if she loved it and grabbing the spoon herself definitely shows her interest!

I would say as long as you take things very slowly then to give her cereal and maybe some veg or fruit purees should be fine if that is what you would like to do. Please do bear in mind though that she should still be getting her main nutrition from her milk at this age though so I wouldnt feed her too much so that she starts dropping milk feeds, perhaps just try to use this time as an experamental time with tastes to gear her up for proper weaning when she is close to six months...

Hope that helps! xx

 

[yourstruly10]

Ok, I just want to point out out that watching you eat and grabbing food aren't necessarily signs of needing weaning - babies are soooo interested in everything we do at this age and it's very easy to read more into this.

However, it sounds as if she loved it and grabbing the spoon herself definitely shows her interest!

I would say as long as you take things very slowly then to give her cereal and maybe some veg or fruit purees should be fine if that is what you would like to do. Please do bear in mind though that she should still be getting her main nutrition from her milk at this age though so I wouldnt feed her too much so that she starts dropping milk feeds, perhaps just try to use this time as an experamental time with tastes to gear her up for proper weaning when she is close to six months...

Hope that helps! xx

Thanks. I didn't know that as my health nurse told me it was a sign to watch for but like i said in my first post I find I get different answers from ever health nurse I talk to. Lol

I may try her on a little around supper time each day. If I notice she is cutting her bottles back by more than 5 oz in a day which would put her at 35 oz a day I will stop. Thanks for the help.I really appreciate it. If I did try some fruit or veg puree's would I give them at the same time as the cereal and how much would I give( how many spoon fulls)? thanks again.

 

[Broodypants]

Health nurses are wonderful, you will get all sorts of conflicting advice! I'm lucky that my hv is great but I have heard some interesting stories!

If she is content with her milk feeds and gaining weight well etc then she doesn't need much solid food, so if it were me I would probably offer her a small amount of cereal in the morning, say an half an hour to an hour after her morning bottle and then try her on tiny tastes of purees sometime in the afternoon. Regarding the amounts I would start off with just a couple of weaning spoons worth. That's enough for you to get an idea of what she likes and doesn't, less waste when she's not too keen and you can build up from there!

Few pointers:

Don't try her on anything new if she's tired or hungry. Tired she won't be interested and you won't know if she doesn't like it or is simply being grumpy. Hungry she won't associate solid food with hunger yet and will just want her milk, best time is when she's happy and awake.

Start off with veg, not fruit - fruit is sweet and may give her a slightly sweet preference and make it difficult to feed veg down the line.

Introduce a new food for a few days and see how she goes, if she no reactions then move into the next one - if you introduce one one day, another the next etc it's hard to gauge what may be the cause if she has any unpleasent reactions.

I'll let you know if I think of anything else that may be of use!

xx