WWYD? Concerning a friend and her baby

gracefulruby33 · June 2012

I was texting my BFF yesterday and she told me that she was super excited to start solids with her son, who will be 4 months on the 20th. I'm not going to judge her decisions with starting solids, but I was wondering what you ladies would do in her situation. She upped his bottles to 8 oz. each and she says that he goes about 3 hours between bottles and can barely last that long. She gets an 8 hour stretch at night, so it's not non-stop, but she thinks that she should start trying (I'm assuming cereal) this weekend and see how he does. What would you guys do in this situation? Cereal has minimal calories as we all know, and may not satisfy hunger, but if her baby is that hungry that soon after a large bottle like that, what would you do?

RedCamaro · June 2012

I would do the solids if my pedi gave the ok. Otherwise, I would just put another bottle in the mix, if the child is actually hungry. Also, you don't have to start with cereal. Most people do to get LO used to the mechanics of eating. But you can start veggies and fruits whenever you start solids (based on the pedi's recommendations).

smwiggle · June 2012

I'd tell her good luck and leave it at that. People get touchy about unsolicited advice, and it sounds like she hadn't asked for any.

gracefulruby33 · June 2012

smwiggle:
I'd tell her good luck and leave it at that. People get touchy about unsolicited advice, and it sounds like she hadn't asked for any.

I'm not going to revisit the issue with her at all or give her any advice- simply because my DD never had this issue so I would be talking out of my @ss. Just simply curious as to what others would do in her situation.

beedawn · June 2012

I would give them another bottle. DS was taking 6oz bottles at 2.5 months old and would take an 8oz before bed then an 8oz in the morning. He was hungry so I fed him. If she feels comfortable giving her child cereal then let her do it. It's not going to hurt him.

Lara0802 · June 2012

gracefulruby33:

smwiggle:
I'd tell her good luck and leave it at that. People get touchy about unsolicited advice, and it sounds like she hadn't asked for any.

I'm not going to revisit the issue with her at all or give her any advice- simply because my DD never had this issue so I would be talking out of my @ss. Just simply curious as to what others would do in her situation.

I was going to say the same thing, tell her good luck and leave it alone, since all moms decide to do things differently and all babies are different.

But, as far as what I would have done in that situation, I probably would've had another feeding (bottle), before 4 months. I only started dropping feedings with DD's cues. As for cereal, we introduced oatmeal at 4 months, but only because DD was obsessed with our food when we ate. We started out very slow, 1x per day, and she got maybe 1-2 Tbsps total, which she didn't really eat, but played with more. It didn't affect the total amount of milk she received and didn't change her timings of feedings until we started introducing more food than that. She slowly worked up to trying more foods 2x a day, and is now up to 3x a day at 7 months. I believe at 4 months we still had 6-7 feedings per day and sometimes one overnight. (total of about 32 oz). She started sleeping through the night at about 4 1/2 months consistently, and then at 5 months dropped to 5-6 feedings. (30 oz). Now, she's down to 4 feedings a day but still gets 26 oz a day.

BM or formula should still be the main source of nutrition, especially at 4 months.

ArcadianDreams · June 2012

8oz a bottle, with just one 8 hour break, would mean...5 bottles a day, and 40oz. 40oz sounds *huge* for a barely 4 month old. (Maybe I am wrong though, we bf and those are the numbers I am used to).

I guess I would personally be questioning if the kid is actually that hungry. Especially if they aren't on the smaller end of the growth chart.

Also, it's apparently quite common to prepare formula incorrectly. Who knows, maybe that's part of the problem.

mama&baby · June 2012

ArcadianDreams:

8oz a bottle, with just one 8 hour break, would mean...5 bottles a day, and 40oz. 40oz sounds *huge* for a barely 4 month old. (Maybe I am wrong though, we bf and those are the numbers I am used to).

I guess I would personally be questioning if the kid is actually that hungry. Especially if they aren't on the smaller end of the growth chart.

Also, it's apparently quite common to prepare formula incorrectly. Who knows, maybe that's part of the problem.

Each baby is different... LO definitely isn't a small baby but he is right on track for growth. At 4 months he was eating about 7 oz bottles every 3 hours..... soon followed by 8 oz bottles every 3 hours because he was constantly hungry. Within a week or two of starting 8 oz bottles he was back down to 7. Could be that her LO is going through a growthsput and just needed an extra bit during that time. Once we started LO on purrees, he continued with 7 ounces every 3 hours. Now, at six months, he has begun table foods and is down to 6 ounces every 3 hours. Some might think that's too much... but he has been a happy healthy baby so I won't mess with it. The key here is that she should check with her pediatrician.... ours never gave us any indication that we were giving too much or doing anything wrong, so we didn't feel the need to change it just because someone else was telling us we were giving him too much (which some people did hint at)

smilelari · June 2012

For a BF baby, I'd just continue feeding on demand and wait on the solids, but it sounds like it's probably formula in the bottles? It depends on how much formula LO's getting in total. If it's getting much above 40 oz, I'd be talking to the pedi because at some point over-consumption of formula can be dangerous. The addition of cereal may actually help curb formula consumption. I'd probably want to be moving beyond cereal to something more filling pretty quickly though. Avocado comes to mind because it's higher in fat than most first foods

ewilliams1127 · June 2012

smilelari:
For a BF baby, I'd just continue feeding on demand and wait on the solids, but it sounds like it's probably formula in the bottles? It depends on how much formula LO's getting in total. If it's getting much above 40 oz, I'd be talking to the pedi because at some point over-consumption of formula can be dangerous. The addition of cereal may actually help curb formula consumption. I'd probably want to be moving beyond cereal to something more filling pretty quickly though. Avocado comes to mind because it's higher in fat than most first foods

Good Advice! This!

authorofdreamz · June 2012

40oz of formula a day for a 4 month sounds like A LOT! DD is 6m old and only gets about half of that. I would probably do the same as your friend to see if it helped before adding another bottle because that is a lot of formula.

EllieBabyBellie · June 2012

I didn't think we would start solids until 6 mo, but our pedi recommended giving DD cereal at 4 mo. She was able to sit up and roll over both ways at that time, so pedi said to go for it. I'm glad I took her advice because DD became a much happier baby...she truly was hungry all the time! At 5 mo, we started pur?es.

Not trying to be snarky, but every baby is different and it's not anyone else's business besides a parent and doctor on what is the best diet for a baby.

kajordan09 · June 2012

Im going to agree with PP and think maybe its just a growth spurt. DS was taking that much for a short period of time around 4 mos (granted I was EPing so it wasn't formula). I thought it was his new normal but turns out it wasn't. When he was taking 40oz per day I did talk to the ped and although he is very anti-solids before 6mos he did say it was ok to start solids if DS was "chomping at the bit". We held off though and soon he was back down to 5 6oz bottles/day. We really struggled between 4-5 mos with figuring out how much BM DS needed. It seemed like he was all over the map.

StefB28 · June 2012

We started solids (cereal for a few weeks then veggies & fruits) at 4 months with DS1-- he loved it and started eating right away. We didn't decrease any of his feedings (He was getting a mix of breast milk & formula)-- just fed him solids after his milk. He was eating almost 40oz a day plus solids and was underweight.

We've offered DS2 solids off and on since 5 months (almost daily lately) and he still isn't taking to it-- he'll be 7 months on Sunday. He is a very average weight and doesn't seem to be hungry.

Every baby is different and there's no harm in starting solids at 4 months at the recommendation of the baby's pediatrician. There seems to be a lot of drama on the board about it. I would do the same thing if I were your friend.

Nwlywed07 · June 2012

I wouldn't say anything. Starting solids is such a personal decision to made between the parents and the Pedi. You don't want to come off the wrong way and cause issues. (This has happened to me and no matter how delicately you try and put it, it will always come off making the other mom feel like she's an incompetent mother.)

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