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Hawaii Babies
Heather and Mark | Lanikuhonua 8-14-08
Rice or any other cereal
I noticed from Lisa's post below that many of you don't give your babies cereal. I'm curious as to why? I know that Lisa's pirates were constipsated after eating it but if your baby doesn't have any adverse side effects is it necessarily bad to give them cereals? Seems like its a little tabu these days.
My pedi had me start Kailani on rice cereal around 12 weeks old. He said 'if she's drinking 6-7 oz and still waking up twice in the middle of the night you can give her a little rice cereal once a day - by spoon.' She gave up one feeding in the middle of the night and let me tell you that was awwwweeeessssoommme. Kailani was one of those babies that stayed awake for an hour after a feeding in the middle of night.
Heather and Mark | Lanikuhonua 8-14-08This discussion has been closed.
Re: Rice or any other cereal
it isn't bad to give them cereal unless it causes them constipation. the only reason why i don't do it is b/c it's so much easier for me to let her self feed than to spoon feed her
though i do spoon feed her
yogurt...so i guess it has more to do w/the fact that i have to mix it
with BM and i am too lazy to pump in order for her to have it LOL
sure i could defrost something from the freezer but most of my frozen
stash is 3+ oz and that is too much for just rice cereal, and i want to
save that for when i am at work. so i guess both reasons have to do w/how lazy i am! haha.
our pedi said the only reason to give it is (a) to get them used to a different texture when transitioning from milk to solids and (b) to supplement them with iron. well, her iron was checked at 9 months and it was fine so the pedi said "just keep doing what you're doing and add in a few more iron rich foods when possible and she'll be fine" - so we still have a bunch of rice cereal sitting around the house (the first and only container i ever bought!)
rice cereal isn't bad but the real debate seems to be at what age it's ok to introduce it. opinions vary among pediatricians but more of the older ones are accustomed to introducing rice cereal earlier (MIL's pedi told her to give DH oatmeal cereal at 4 weeks!!!) whereas a lot of the younger pedi's recommend waiting until they are at least 4 months of age b/c babies are more prone to developing allergies if they have rice cereal before then.
and although adding cereal to a bottle of breast milk or formula is often recommended to help a baby sleep better, there aren't any studies out there to prove that babies will go to sleep faster or sleep better if they're given cereal before bed. for this reason, i have to respectfully disagree w/your pedi about giving her rice cereal to get her to stop waking up so much at night. it may have just been a coincidence that when you added the rice cereal she dropped 1 night feeding. every baby is different...some start STTN (5-6 hrs straight) at 6 wks and some not until 6 months and some not until much much later. i think it has much more to do w/the baby's development/growth than how much solids they are eating (esp since there aren't any studies to prove that solids help!). i was lucky and miss A was STTN (5-6 hrs) by about 6 wks but we were probably still doing 2 night wakings for quite some time thereafter and it took quite a while longer for her to sleep the longer 8-10 hr stretches and i think that had little to do w/the solids she started eating and more to do w/her development and w/me making an effort not to feed her every time she woke up (thereby reinforcing the waking habit). she usually went back to sleep right away after nursing during her night wakings, though, so i can't imagine how exhausted you must have been staying up with Kailani after she woke up every time!
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
The other ladies gave good info, so I'll just add my personal experience: yes, the rice cereal made them severely constipated (they seem to be prone to constipation anyway, so we're having to be careful of any solids and are avoiding things like apples, bananas, etc.). However, even if they weren't I don't think I'd have kept feeding it to them. It doesn't have any real nutritional value but even that's not a big deal because they don't get much nutrition from their solids at this point anyway. The dealbreaker for me (aside from the constipation) was the taste.
Part of the reason rice cereal recommended is because it suppsedly takes on the flavor of the formula or breastmilk that is mixed in with it, so that it has a familiar taste and it's just the texture that they have to get used to. I can tell you that for the brand available to us, this was totally false. I've tasted formula - it reminds me of those little liquid creamer things you get on the table at a diner. Not the best thing you've ever tasted, but not gross either. The cereal, though, was DISGUSTING. Seriously, it tasted really, really bad. I didn't blame them for spitting it out, and when we switched to nice tasting veggie purees, the introduction to solids went a lot smoother. It could easily be due to the brand we used (which was the only one in any of my local stores), and I know a LOT of babies happily eat it, but my guys hated it, and honestly I don't blame them one bit!
Jamie I was so exhausted - she would only sleep 1-3 hours at a stretch. Sometimes she wouldn't even finish a bottle. After she fell asleep I would then have to pump to keep my supply up and for the next feeding.
My pedi is quite young and has 4 children of his own. I voiced my concerns about giving her rice cereal so early. And he told me every child is different and you give them solids when they are ready. He said Kailani was ready but it was up to me. I was so tired at that point and read so many books none of the sleep methods worked for Kailani. I tried everything!!! The rice cereal worked.
I just wonder if I should stop feeding it to her now and give her more purees.
I'm certainly no expert, and haven't even started any solids yet, but if it's working for her, I wouldn't change it. Like your pedi said...every child is different.
Phew I feel so much better...thank you. I just start to second guess myself with all this information out there. My MIL looked at me like I had two heads when I told her 'its just starch there's no nutritional value.'
you definitely don't need to stop feeding it to her now, there is nothing wrong with it... if she seems interested/ready i would definitely try giving her different purees more often though and see if she'll take to any of them since she'll get some good nutrients out of them
and i hope i did not come across as judgmental b/c that is the last thing i wanted to do and i tried to put a lot of thought into how i phrased my response so as not to come off that way!
i believe there is a reason why they call it the "art" of medicine...b/c it is very open to interpretation and that is why you will find such varied opinions between pediatricians. i wasn't trying to say that only older pedi's go along w/that thought process, just that it is was a much more commonly held belief years ago than it is now. i just know that if it really does help babies sleep better then surely they would be able to demonstrate a statistically significant difference in studies... regardless, i am glad that it is working for you and you're more rested so you can take better care of her now
DH just has such horrible allergies/asthma in general and we have a history of food allergies on both sides (including me) that we were erring on the side of caution with everything if there was even remotely a chance of it maker her at a higher risk for allergies later in life.
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Jamie you are the last person to come across as judgemental. So please don't think that. I value your honesty and candidness.
We're doing Baby Led Weaning (baby feed herself age-appropriate table foods) so we're not spoon feeding mush or purees. That said I did try baby oatmeal loaded on a spoon that she fed herself but she didn't like the oatmeal. I have fed her regualr, old stickyrice and she'll grab it by the fistful and eat it that way.
Also, I believe the whole "feed rice cereal=STTN" is actually a myth. From what I have read it's more often a coincidence that many babies start STTN around the same time that cereal is introduced and therefore people assume it's the solids that made the baby sleep longer. I dunno. But glad it worked for you and Kailani and that she wasn't constipated from it. YAY!
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
This is GREAT advice! So many people get so worried about what everyone else is or isn't doing. Sometimes natural instinct needs to just take over too!
We tried rice cereal once around 4 months because my mom suggested it and nearly freaked out when I told her we were waiting until 6 months... so we tried AND she slept like $hit!! I mean she was up every couple of hours and it was awful. I think it gave her a tummy ache.
Then we waited until she was 6 months to try it again. Once again she slept like a nightmare, more awake and fussy than she had ever been. Come to find out it made her constipated, REALLY constipated.It was terrible. She ended up not pooping for 4 days and we ended up giving her a suppository and got her to go. That was the end of rice cereal for us! Other foods she's done fine with and hasn't had any belly issues. But we did wait until 6 months to start solids and it wasn't very much when we did.
Now that she's older she loves oatmeal and it's not constipating, it actually helps keep them regular. She gets it at least 3 times a week and she gets SO excited!
I would say if it's working for you then keep it up! I don't think it works for everyone, just like all of those baby sleep books, they don't work for everyone either. Just try things, figure out what works and what doesn't. When you find something that works, run with it!
Ditto this. I'm mixed between being glad there's so much info out there and thinking it does more to make us overly analytical about every. darn. decision.
Couple thoughts: First, I see alot of talk about mom's wanting "support" for their parenting decisions, BF'ing support, support around CIO or AP or whatever other techniques work for you. I mean, we're all basically new at this, of course we're going to think that there is a "right" way to do things...and of course, we ALL what to do what's right for out babies.
So, if a mom say's, "We decided to use rice cereal and it's worked for us." I really think that replies like: "Oh, what you're feeding your child has nutritional value", "No, your success w/ it was only a coincidece or a myth." Even if you didn't mean to, I think it comes off as non-supportive and judgmental.
I mean, what's the difference between a mom saying, "Oh, we've decided to EBF for 2 years", and someone replying, "Oh, you'll change your mind." Comments like that are not supportive or helpful, right?
I just wish that instead of all these different "schools" we could all appreciate the fact that we can make whatever decision works best for our family. Chances are the techniques we use that we think are the "best" aren't all that great, and techniques that we think are the "worst" really aren't all that bad.
On a side note, the whole "no nutritional value" argument is something I've only heard about on TB. Is it totally true? I don't know, but it seemed like a good step for us between liquid and solids. When I look at the label, it looks like it has iron, calories, folate & vitamins. If E was allergic to it or it constipated her of COURSE I wouldn't use it either.
Cerclage placed @ 21w6d due to CI (IC)