Cereal & pureed foods - too much?
At her 4 mth wellness check, LO's pedi gave us the ok to start cereal & pureed foods. Can someone please tell me if I'm feeding LO too much? I told my mom what I was feeding her & she pretty much yelled at me & said I was feeding her too much:
Breakfast: 6 oz formula w/1.5 oz cereal
Morning: 6 oz formula
Lunch: 4 oz formula w/1 oz cereal and 2.5 oz pureed veggie
Afternoon: 6 oz formula
Dinner: 4 oz formula w/1 oz cereal and 2.5 oz pureed veggie
Bed time: 6 oz formula w/1.5 oz cereal
LO used to drink 4-6 oz of formula 5-6 times a day, drinking the full 6 the majority of the time. When we started cereal & veggies last Sunday, I would give LO 4 oz of formula & 2.5 oz of veggies for lunch & dinner, but she didn't seem satisfied. Today I started adding 1 oz of cereal to her lunch & dinner 4 oz bottles and she seems fine. When I told my mom about this (she watches LO for us during the week), she flipped out, lol. Then she reminded me she raised 6 kids who all turned out fine (um, we could debate that one for hours, but I digress). I can't remember how she fed my youngest siblings.
FWIW, I'm calling the pedi in the morning to follow-up on what he said at the wellness appt. I swore he said he wanted us to give LO cereal & a veggie for lunch & dinner, working up to cereal & fruit for breakfast (I would cut the breakfast bottle to 4 oz of formula w/1 oz of cereal).
Re: Cereal & pureed foods - too much?
I think your mom needs to chill out!
Okay, the only thing I can think of is are you easing into each food? Like, giving cereal for a few days and making sure the baby doesn't have a weird reaction to it before trying a different one? Same with the veggies. Doing it that way makes it easier to track down what the problem is if the baby gets a rash or unfortunate belly issues.
From what I understand, early eating for babies is pretty experimental, and some babies won't take more than a bite or two before wanting their milk or formula. If the baby will eat a lot, though, that certainly doesn't sound like a problem!
I agree with Pepper that it's experimental at your LO's age but, IMO, that seems like a lot of solids.
Is she actually eating all of that or is that just what's offered?
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Yupper, I am easing her into each food. Pedi recommended 5-7 days between new foods, so I went with 5 days (I've seen as little as 3 days online, but I don't want to push it). I let LO finish out the box of rice cereal before starting the barley today.
My LO seems more satisfied today than she has all week. Pre-cereal & foods, if she was too full to finish a formula bottle she would push it away, so I'm thinking she'd do the same with the cereal & veggies.
At LO's final hematology appt in June, her hematologist said she was in the 90th percentile for weight (up from 56 percentile at her 2 mth check-up) and he said her pedi would probably talk to us about that at her next check up. I asked pedi about it last week & he said "she's growing beautifully," and didn't say it was a problem.
I thought about maybe cutting the cereal from the bedtime bottle, if she's going to get cereal & formula with her veggies. Again, I'll check in with the pediatrician as a follow-up (and the website that Piranha54 suggested).
Thanks ladies!
All kids are different (duh!) and if yours seems eager and ready to eat and the pedi says it's fine.. then so be it.
I might shy away from the cereal in the bottle thing, tho. I think I would want LO to only think of liquids coming in that form, not food. But that's not a big thing, really.
My kid gagged constantly on even the most pureed of purees until he was nearly a year old and is STILL a bit of a picky eater. We didn't even do cereal until he was about 8 months. So I'd be tickled pink to have a baby that was that happy to eat!