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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
beccs98
member
Starting rice cereal - question
beccs98
member
My dr called me back and let me know DS can start rice cereal (he's been eating 4+ times a night and taking in way too much formula).
She said to do it 3x a day (morning, midday and evening). My question is when you give cereal, do you do a bottle right before or after? Or do you do the cereal kind of... in between bottle times? (Like a bottle at 9, cereal at 1030 and another bottle at 12?)
And how did you know what to reduce your bottle amt to? Thanks!
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Re: Starting rice cereal - question
I BF DD so I'm not sure about how to reduce the amount but this was our schedule for feeding this morning
8 am- nursed
9:15- 1 tbsp. rice cereal
and I will nurse again at 11:30
I hear it is important to give BM/formula first because they have the most nutrients so you want to make sure they are filling up on that as opposed to the cereal. We only do rice cereal 2x a day (as rec'd by pedi, but our DD is a peanut). We plan on introducing a veggie tomorrow. It's fun, enjoy!
Personally I would do it in between feedings. I know some people will do half a bottle then cereal and then finish the bottle, but that seems like it would be a pain. Milk should still be your son's primary source of food, so I think by putting in between feedings you are not replacing bottles.
Just as a side note you might want to try giving him cereal just once a day for the first few days. You never know how their little systems will react.
How much does your LO eat? My guy eats a ton! We just started oatmeal at 5 months, because he was showing signs of readiness. He loves oatmeal and growls at me if I don't feed it to him fast enough.
My DS usually eats on this schedule:
7am: 8oz
11 am: 8oz/ 3-4 tablespoons of cereal
3 pm: 8oz
7pm: 8oz/ 3-4 tablespooons of cereal
**He will sometimes wake to eat 4-6oz around 10 pm as well.
ETA: We always give the bottle first. DS always finishes the bottle.
I do it 2 x a day. As always, every doctor is different b/c he told me to give it before her bottle.
Here's my somewhat schedule.
8:30 - cereal
9:00 - 9:30 bottle
1230 bottle (no cereal)
3:30 - cereal
4 - bottle
7 - bottle
I give the cereal in the afternoon instead of in before her last feeding b/c I know the rice cereal can constipate and I was nervous about that and wanted to give her time to go! But she did get constipated w/ the rice. Now we are on oatmeal -- at her 6 month appointment I'll see what the doctor says about adding other foods so I'm sure this schedule will change soon.
Oh, her bottles are 8 oz. Not sure if that matters -- but she ALWAYS finishes her bottles even w/ the cereal.
Thanks everyone! You guys are totally right though... I think I will start him once a day and slowly add more. His digestive system seems to be fairly sensitive so I don't want to change things too drastically
His bottles are smaller than yours (4.5- 5 oz) but he eats every 3 hours in the day and has been waking up for bottles every 2 hours at night ( shoot me now!) Thanks for the tips! I assume your guy is STTN?
Yes. Well normally. He has been up once for the last two nights. Both nights he downed a 6oz bottle like he hadn't ate in days. So, I am wondering if he is having a growth spurt.
FWIW, my DD also had bad constipation issues with rice cereal, so this time we went straight to oatmeal.
DS has been on cereal for over a month now to down his formula intake. He was doing 8-9oz bottles every 3 or 4 hours. He was also taking 12oz when he woke up. We were 45-50oz a day at one point. We started with once a day, and then went to 2 times a day a week or so later.
Currently DS has 1/2 tub bananas and 3Tbs oatmeal for breakfast, 1/2 tub veggies for lunch, the other half a tub of veggies later in the day, and 1/2 tub prunes and 3 Tbs of whole wheat cereal for dinner. He eats around 24-28oz of formula a day with this.
This is the diet my pedi gave us for him. 1 tub fruit, one veggie, 4-6Tbs cereal and 24-28oz formula. Rice cereal tastes like @ss, so we went with oats or whole wheat when we were feeding him cereal.