Transitioning from EBF?

Ragdolls · February 2011

Okay ladies...DS will be 6 months next week and is still EBF. I'm thinking about starting to integrate other foods at around 6 months for iron, etc. He's showing interest and definitely has the head/neck control to handle it. My plan was to have done a lot more research by now but with work I haven't had the time. So what were your approaches if you started out EBFing? Did you wait longer than 6 months? I've read The Nursing Mother's Companion and like the ideas outlined there...but I'd love to hear what others have done. My plan is to keep BFing for the first year at least - but it seems like there are definite benefits to starting to incorporate other foods sometime soon.

TIA!

weezie825 · February 2011

Well, I did not EBF but we did not start solids until 6 months for medical reasons. DD was severely tongue tied so our doctor wanted to wait util 6 months to be sure her extrusion reflex was gone. That way if she couldn't eat we knew it was because of the tongue tie. (The extrusion reflex is when a baby will spit out anything put in their mouth because they thrust their tongue forward. Most babies out grow this around 4-6 months.)

The main thing my doctor told me was to remember that in the begining spoon feeding is more about learning to coordinate the tongue then actually getting them to eat a large amount. So don't start when LO is actually hungry. Feed LO about 1/2 the normal amount that way they will be interested but not so hungry that they refuse and get frustrated.

The Ped told us to start with Rice cereal because it is the least likely to cause any type of allergy. Once LO gets the spoon feeding down you can introduce stage 1 foods.

I was actually VERY surprised at how quickly DD "got" spoon feeding. She was just ready I guess. Good luck! Have fun and take lots of pictures!!

kelleymark82606 · February 2011

I started mine at 4mo bc dc was clearly ready for food. Dc has loved it ever since. I started with rice cereal but that constipated dc, so I switched to oatmeal and we still use it daily. I was told to get dc to 5 tbsp of oatmeal for breakfast then start adding other meals. We are now at 9m3w and dc has 3 meals a day plus table food and bottle.

KathrynMD · February 2011

I started solids when DD was a little less than 6 months old. Maybe 5ish, but she was already on formula so we didn't have the iron issue.

I did rice cereal for about a week, and then started w/ teh stage one foods (basically just super pureed sweet pototoes and carrots) and then a little after 6 months, I started doing mostly Baby Led Weaning where you essentially let your LO finger feed themself, with small fist-sized pieces of soft food. It was alot less stressful than trying to spoon fed a LO. You have to supervise of course, but the theory behind it is that if you allow your LO to determine how big a bite they take, they will only bite off what they can chew (ha). On the off chance that they bite off too big a bite, their gag reflex will kick in quickly and they will spit it out.

I continued to spoon fed DD foods like yogurt and applesauce until she was about 18 mo old (and starting about 1 year she "helped" too). I rarely feed her anything now, except when she's being persnickety and wants to eat off my fork.

mrs. remy · February 2011

I kind of followed my DS's cues and I could tell after a certain point that the BM just was not cutting it anymore. It would go right through him and he was always hungry. I think he was around 5 months. Maybe even earlier. He has always been a bigger kid and ahead in that regard. I started with either rice cereal or the baby oatmeal-not sure which one-just put some in a little bowl and mixed it with some BM. I made it pretty thin, so it was more liquid than solid, and sat there and spoon fed him and he took to it right away. We just did one feeding of cereal per day for the first week, and gradually increased it from there. I think about 2 or 3 weeks later we started trying pureed veggies.

Matildasun · February 2011

We did things a little differently. At around 6 months we started Ada on avocado and then sweet potato. We thinned it a little with breast milk. I then started her on cereal, but she didn't get it every day. I then introduced other vegetables and some fruit. We did purees for about 5 weeks and then we moved on to a more baby Led weaning approach, where I gave her bigger chunks of soft food to work on.

She had teeth early which worked against us in some ways, because she was able to gnaw off bigger pieces than I was comfortable with.

anonsouthernbell · February 2011

I will add more later but we did Baby Led Solids/Baby Led Weaning. (Basically you skip all purees and go straight to finger foods). It seriously was one of the best parenting decisions that we have made. Also, you really won't have to worry about iron being an issue until around 9/10 months of age as all babies are born w/a store of iron and it is around that time that it starts to get depleted. (It is also coincidentally around the same time that most kids, at least those that do BLS/BLW get interested in solid foods).

Cooper81 · February 2011

matildasun:
We did things a little differently. At around 6 months we started Ada on avocado and then sweet potato. We thinned it a little with breast milk. I then started her on cereal, but she didn't get it every day. I then introduced other vegetables and some fruit. We did purees for about 5 weeks and then we moved on to a more baby Led weaning approach, where I gave her bigger chunks of soft food to work on.
She had teeth early which worked against us in some ways, because she was able to gnaw off bigger pieces than I was comfortable with.

We did very similar to this, started with the avocado and sweet potatos and he loved them. He really loves squashes, i made all his food with the beaba baby cook. We never did rice cereal, but did oatmeal with some pureed fruit mixed in. His first solid food was steamed cubes of sweet potatoes, very easy to grab and soft enough to chew with those little front teeth. He still loves the sprinkled with some cinnamon. Then we just moved on to other steamed veggies and then meats. He still LOVES veggies.

daisyterp · February 2011

first off- I can't believe your little man is almost 6 months! Congrats and it's awesome you have been able to EBF w/ your work schedule! That is a great accomplishment!

With DD we did things kinda the way Matildasun did. Started w/ avocado then moved on to sweet potato and mashed up banana. We never did rice cereal though. I did a fair amount of purees w/ DD.

W/ DS we are doing baby-led-weaning. I have probably "spoon-fed" him a grand total of 5 bites of stuff. He feeds himself like a champ. It's fantastic. He makes a huge mess, but he is eating so much more variety than DD at this point and I love that we don't have to transition him from eating purees to eating real food, since he already eating real food.

JennigoesUSA · March 2011

I started both my kids earlier as they showed interest and had the neck control. Devyn at about 4 month, Luke closer to 5.

The child will need the added calories and also consistency to keep full. You will still be breastfeeding if you wish but added foods are important now.

You need to start out with cereal, rice is best. Make the cereal so thin that it runs of the spoon like soup. If you make it too think, it will likely cause constipation.

Feed the baby the cereal first once a day AFTER the regular breastfeeding, just to fill him up. Make sure to start it in the morning so you can deal with issues, should they arrise ... rather than having it at night.

After a few days of the soupy consistendy you can make it slightly thicker, but go slow with that.

After about a week if everything goes well you can start giving cereal after the last evening feeding too, it will probably help the baby sleep better/longer.

When the cereal has become "routine", has a moussy consistency and the baby takes it like it hasnt done anything else, you can start introducing veggies then fruits. Veggies are recommended first as some babies like the sweet taste better and may refuse veggies when given fruit first.

Sweet Potatoes are a great first veggie.

From there, only introduce one new food a week and dont mix them yet, so you can find out if there are food allergies.

Once you have tried them all you can start mixing too.

When I was in that stage with my kids I started to give solids after breastfeeding to fill them up, but after a couple of month I gave them solids are their main meal and breastmilk for "snack".

Wake up - Breastfeeding

Breakfast - Solids

Snack- BF

Lunch - Solids

Snack- BF

Dinner- Solids

Before bed - BF

Good luck, this is a fun time

photo_nut · March 2011

Ragdolls:
Okay ladies...DS will be 6 months next week and is still EBF. I'm thinking about starting to integrate other foods at around 6 months for iron, etc.

You don't need to add any foods for iron or anything. Maybe Vit D, but you can use drops for that, otherwise, there is nothing "missing" in breastmilk after 6 months. My DD was blood tested because she didn't eat solids until she was 2 1/2, she had some eating issues and allergies. Her iron wasn't low until she was 18 months and even then it was marginally low, otherwise, everything was fine and she was EBF until 2. If you are that concerned, get a blood test, otherwise, don't worry about it. It's a myth babies need iron at 6 months. Also they don't need extra calories or anything. In fact I had a doctor tell me toddlers can go until the age of 3 living on nothing but breastmilk.

With this baby, I am just using baby led - small pieces of food when she is interested. No purees, no spoon feeding and definitely no cereals

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