FF frequency question and solids, rice cereal first?

Sascha3

I read recently that at 6 months they should have 3-4 bottles of 7-8 oz a day.  I feed her on demand, so she eats 3-5 oz at least 8 times a day, if not more.  I have tried giving her larger bottles but she will rarely drink more than 4 oz.  This is especially not fun at night.  She used to sleep from 10-6 straight, then back to bed until 8-9, but lately she is up every 3 hours.  I don't know how I can get her to drink more than 4-5 oz at once.  How often does your baby eat?  Is it a problem that I feed on demand?  Her weight is only in the 25-50% so I want to feed her whenever she is hungry so she doesn't become underweight.

Second, I am probably going to start her on solids after her 6 month checkup Monday, as long as the doctor gives the ok.  (She has a sensitive belly...she is on Alimentum formula).  Do most people start with rice cereal, or do they go straight into veggies and fruits?  I want to do homemade baby food.

KitKat83

That sounds just like my little guy!  We started on oatmeal rather than rice as it is more nurtritional less constipation and tastes better! Ten we started mixing fruit in it a couple weeks later (pears, banana, avocado) we also feed sweet potato at night.  I usually once you start solids they sleep better.  Declan for a short while until he started teething.  We just got some hylands teething tablets, I can only hope that will mean more sleep! 

KitKat83

Sorry for all the errors in that message!  On my phone and busy baby fingers all over haha!  For formula we give him 4oz in the morning and 6oz at night.  Breast feed throughout the middle of the night and afternoon sO not sure exactly how much he gets in total.  

namara5532

Starting at 6 months, you can technically skip rice and oatmeal and go straight to purees.  So far for my DS, I've introduced peas and bananas, and next will be avocados.  I'm not pushing multiple meals a day until 6 months as I want to make sure his digestive system is mature enough first.

I feed on demand, and he's eating every 2-3 hours at night.  Then again, we only crib trained a week ago, so I suspect he needs a month to be used to sleeping by himself before he spaces his feedings.  He "snacks" during the day probably every 2 hours.  He's EBF, so I can't tell you how much he's eating, but he's already at 16 lbs at 5 months.

lp0

At 6 weeks old my ds started going 10pm - 6am then he would eat and go back down until 9am. He is ebf so I'm not sure how much milk he's actually getting but he eats every 2 - 3 hrs during the day. Then at 5 months he started waking up at 3am to eat. We started him on rice cereal at 4 months just in the evening since the dr said he seemed ready for it. It was just plain at first and then we alternated oatmeal. After about two weeks I started mixing in fruits such as pears, apples, prunes (especially since the cereal was causing him to get constipated), and peaches. Last week I started feeding him solids at lunch and dinner and began mixing in veggies. He had peas (which he hated) and sweet potatoes. At his 6 month check up yesterday the dr said I could go ahead a pur?e what I wanted and give it to him. Today he had multigrain cereal with chicken and green beans.  It was very bland and he was not a fan. I added a sprinkle of salt and he ate the whole bowl. The dr said to go ahead and feed him solids three times a day if he seems hungry because he should be going longer than 2 - 3 hrs between feedings. I did that today but it seemed like too much solids to me so I'm going to increase the amount of food but go back to two feedings.

raefre

DS is in the 25% of his weight.  We feed on-demand except at night, when we wake him up to feed him.  We alternate how much we feed him: normally, when he first wakes up or right before bed, he gets 6 ozs but during the rest of the day its 4 oz still.  On a normal day, he gets between 24 to 32 oz, with an average of 28oz.

wychets

We also feed on demand. But DD is pretty consistent drinking 5 (7oz) bottles a day, I add cereal to her bottle in the morning and one right before bed usually.