Rice Cereal ?

KRSTN2

So my pedi recommended we start Matthew on rice cereal. He said to feed it to him with his bottle during breakfast and during dinner (but not in the bottle). He loves it and eats 3 teaspoons of cereal during both feeding times.

My question is-- should I be decreasing his formula in take since he is eating that much cereal. What about when I start veggies or fruits? Should I decrease his bottles?

Right now he eats 5 - 7oz bottles through out the day and then cereal in the morning and at night. What did you do when your little ones started solids?

Telyco

Since DS has always been at the 50%ile...we have always just gone with his cues. So if he started taking less in his bottles, then we started making less.

When we started solids, he was taking 4 8oz bottle a day. He kept that when we added breakfast at 4 months (cereal, then fruits/oatmeal) at 6 months we added lunch and his mid-morning bottle dropped to 6oz. At 8 months we added dinner and his early eve bottle dropped to 6oz.

So now his bottles are *roughly*: 7 or 8oz when he gets up (then breakfast and am nap) 4 or 5oz after his nap (then lunch and pm nap) 5 or 6oz after nap (then dinner) and 8oz before bed.

As long as your LO is at a healthy weight (not overweight) I would follow his lead with bottles.

 

wendyj

Right now, the amount of cereal you're giving him is just to get him used to the new experience. We started rice cereal at 5 months, and it was at least another two months before we were giving him enough solids to warrant a decrease in bottles.

day194

My understanding is that at that age they get most of their nutrition from the formula/BM they drink.  So, you should keep giving him that.  Our doctors instructions were to give him the solids right or shortly after nursing (we're BFing) and we also started cereal at 4 months.  I still try to stick to that, although he gets dinner probably 1-1.5 hours after his last bottle at daycare.  We give it to him as soon as he gets home.  He doesn't nurse again until right before bed, so that was the best we could do.  I don't think it's until they start having eating meats/protiens that they really start to get their nutrition from solids.