What to feed LO - instead of Rice "Arsenic" Cereal?

CottonGirl

My LO is almost 5 months old.  We are talking about feeding him food soon...  but now with the articles about arsenic in rice cereals, I am a little concerned about what his first spoonful should be.  What are you feeding your LO's?  This is all new to me, so I'm not sure what to give him.  The rice cereal freaks me out, so I'm leaning towards giving him something else.  Our pedi even recommended stage 1 foods.  But I'm not really familiar with those either.  Any suggestions?  Thanks ladies!

Brittk925

We are planning to do avocado first and will be making all of our own baby food.

kateraid

There are organic home made rice cereal and oatmeal recipes on Pinterest. 

carrotsoup70

You can try baby oatmeal. We started with that but LO refused to eat it so we just went to stage one foods. Stage 1 foods are pureed and can normally be found with a big "1" on the jar/packaging. There is a rumor that if you feed your baby fruit first that they won't eat veggies. I'm from the camp that says they either like it or they don't. It doesn't matter what order you feed them in. That being said, we did start with veggies (green beans, peas, sweet potatoes) and he loves them. Then I tried peaches and prunes and he doesn't really like them. We have been feeding him food since he was 4 mos old and haven't had any problems. (He gets a bottle too.)

nealbl

DD#1 didnt care for rice or oatmeal so we went straight to puree food.

Kimberskirby

Agreed - there is no need to give baby rice cereal to start - but cereals are a gentle way to begin feeding baby and they are not harmful.  Perhaps not the most nutritious but they are gentle on their digestive systems.  I get freaked out by the arsenic too, so my baby has been eating organic single grain oatmeal for 2 weeks and he LOVES it....

gnomemom

Brittk925:

We are planning to do avocado first and will be making all of our own baby food.

Same here. We will start with avocados and sweet potatoes after he is six months old. I am trying to talk DH into introducing meat early as well, for the protein and zinc. I want to try steak or chicken in a mesh food bad thing and just let him suck on it. DH is a vegetarian and is kind of grossed out by the idea, but he does not mind if LO eats meat later on. We have just started talking about it, but of course we have plenty of time.

We do agree to skip rice cereal altogether. We will opt for whole grain oatmeal instead.

brittmonroe1

We are going to give her baby oatmeal. Our pedi said it's not really about the nutritional value of the rice or oatmeal as it is getting them to learn how to eat off of a spoon and learn different textures.

austenfan919

Kimberskirby:

Agreed - there is no need to give baby rice cereal to start - but cereals are a gentle way to begin feeding baby and they are not harmful.  Perhaps not the most nutritious but they are gentle on their digestive systems.  I get freaked out by the arsenic too, so my baby has been eating organic single grain oatmeal for 2 weeks and he LOVES it....

We are going to start with oatmeal, too.

Grk_Natasha

I highly recommend the book Healthy Eating for your Baby & Toddler. She breaks down introducing foods slowly and what to start off with in the first weeks, then adding homemade brown rice to the fruits & veggies. She recommends hemp oil for it's high omega content. The recipes are so simple and nutritious and there are TONS of recipes all the way to ages 5 and beyond.

jillyjill1026sr

We gave DD some mashed avocado mixed with breastmilk last week, at 5 1/2 months. She loved it! We'll be moving on to sweet potatoes next. There is no need to start with a grain cereal. 

MaggieD4243

MandJS:

I'll be doing baby led weaning again, so T's first food will likely be some form of fruit or veggie, but it will just depend on what we're eating at the time we decide to give her some. There is no real need to give a baby rice cereal to start. If you're concerned, just skip it. 

 

This, except it will be our first time doing baby led weaning.  

lcherian

Baby's first food will be egg yolk. I also plan to give ghee (clarified butter), coconut oil, Bone broth, avocado and banana. I'm pretty much following wapf principles.