What does/did your five month old eat?

daisydana · June 2010

Sydney's menu for the day is pretty much - six ounces formula every four hours, then a small top off before bedtime.

Second feeding of the day (around 11:30 am) used to be two tablespoons of rice cereal mixed with four or five table spoons of formula and her normal bottle. Now it's 1/2 a container of gerber 1st foods plus her bottle. We sort of dropped the cereal once we started veggies.

Should I still be giving her cereal and just feed it later in the day? Like along with her 7:30 pm bottle? My MOM is urging me to do this. I almost feel like it might be too much food. What did you all do when you started "solids"?

YaraC · June 2010

We're still not really doing solids. She's had some rice cereal and some peas but not everyday, not even most days.

I don't think you need to add more if you don't want to. At this age it's more about teaching them to eat than the actual food consumption.

M.Amy · June 2010

Our pedi said no solids until six months so Matt was on BM until we got the go ahead at his six month appt.

At five months he was nursed at 6am, had a bottle at 9, 12, 3 and then I nursed his when I got home from work at 6:30 and then before he went to sleep at 8.

superaunt · June 2010

Our Pedi said to ignore the books (which say you can/should wait till 6 months) and go ahead and start feeding her *solids* three times a day so she can get used to eating with a spoon. He told us this at our 4 month appt! But we opted to go much slower and started with rice cereal for a week at dinner time, before bed. After a week we changed to a veggie. After a couple weeks of things going well and Sabrina eating well, we moved cereal to breakfast (around 9am) and kept doing veggie or fruit at dinner (1/2 to full jar).

This is day 6 of... cereal at 9am(ish), veggie at 1pm(ish), veggie or fruit at 630pm(ish). She also still drinks 5-7 ounce bottles 4-5 times a day - and sometimes one in the middle of the night, too.

superaunt · June 2010

wanted to add that she's still consuming the same amount of liquid because while she is getting solids 3x a day, it's not a heck of a whole lot... but you can certainly tell the difference in her poop (sorry for the TMI but ewwww the stench!)

leffe1 · June 2010

We do a 5 oz. bottle about every 3 to 4 hours. We also give G one oz. cereal in the am and pm. We will start fruits and veggies at 6 months. This is all at the direction of my pedi. I am not sure where the cereal will fit in once we start solids??

Piranha54 · June 2010

YaraC:
. At this age it's more about teaching them to eat than the actual food consumption.

This - which is what the "new" aap guidelines out 2 years ago emphasize and why the pedi's are starting solids at 4 vs 6 months in many cases. At around 5 months, we added a 2nd serving of solids, so after nursing in the morning, she got 1T of oatmeal cereal with BM and a cube or two of fruit. Then we would do 1T rice cereal with BM and a cube or two of veg late afternoon. At 6 months, we added a mid afternoon snack of puffs and water, as well as a protein once a day. After reading a slew of posts, I tried 2T of cereal a few times, but it was way too much for her, but we do now generally do two cubes of fruit and two of veg and most of the time, she's happy with it.

daisydana · June 2010

Thanks everyone for your input!

It helps to see that it's not "one size fits all". We all know our situations and what works for us. Plus, Pediatricians aren't all on the same page anyway!

mama.bear · June 2010

YaraC:

At this age it's more about teaching them to eat than the actual food consumption.

FWIW, Robby had no interest in solids until he was 6.5 months old. He is just now really enjoying it. At 5 months, he was eating 8 ounces of formula at 7:30am, 12pm, 4pm and 7:30pm.

robynlesley · June 2010

At 5 months we were giving Aaron around 36 oz of formula per day and two servings of cereal (breakfast and dinner) and fruits and veggies at lunch. He was (and is) a HUNGRY boy and I was slowly moving to the 3 meals concept.