If you started with rice cereal, how old was your preemie?

kristenavt · August 2013

Hi! I'm a regular lurker but infrequent poster here. You all have some great advice so I wanted to throw this out there. Quick backstory...my DD was born @27.6w and had a relatively quiet NICU stay. She is currently 6 months acutal (3 months adjusted) and we just had our 6 month well baby visit w/ her pedi. Well, actually it was a new pedi who was filling in for our reg doc, but I digress.

Anyway, we were surprised to hear, at 3 months adjusted, that we should begin to introduce rice cereal. This is our first child and a preemie at that, so I'm totally going with the flow in terms of what to expect. However, my gut is telling me she's not quite ready for cereal. She's not sitting upright without support yet (but she's close), she has good head/neck control but gets tired quickly and isn't really showing interest in our food yet. I know people have lots of opinions on what foods to introduce first, so I'm not trying to open that can of worms. Just curious for those of you who've already been here, at what age (actual and adjusted) did you start introducing solids? It seems awfully soon for rice cereal for us but then again, what do I know? Thanks in advance!

Brummy14 · August 2013

We didn't introduce any solids until 6mo adjusted, per our the direction of our neonatologist, and even now, DD2 could give a crap about solids. She eats essentially none of them. DD1 only eats two things -- sweet potatoes and avocado. She HATES (outright refuses) everything else we've offered.

3 mo adjusted seems super early. All of the latest research supports waiting until 6 months or thereabouts if there aren't other compelling reasons to start earlier and your LO isn't showing any signs of readiness (and with these little guys, I personally would go with adjusted age)

kristenavt · August 2013

I agree, 6 months at minimum is what I figured too! I even reminded the doc several times that she is only 3 months adjusted. I think I'm going with mama intuition here!

jbranden12 · August 2013

We plan on waiting until 6 mo adjusted. Our pedi also mentioned we could start with rice cereal which we hadn't planned on doing because we wanted to start with different veggies mixed with BM, but I might do rice cereal for the extra iron. I would love to get her off poly vi sol!

niftychick29 · August 2013

Our pedi also recently told us we could start rice cereal when our son is 6 months actual (4.5 adjusted), which will be in about a month. I was a little surprised as well. He didn't say we had to, just that we could experiment with it and see how little guy reacts, so I figure if we try it out and he's not interested, we'll just wait a little longer, maybe until 6 months adjusted. I would go with your gut, though, if you don't think it's time, I don't think it would hurt to wait a bit.

PhillyGal34 · August 2013

We started at 6 months actual per pedi and dh was excited to start. We skipped cereal and tried sweet potatoes. Ds hated all purées and around 9 months started eating solids such as fruits and veggies and cheese and yogurt eventually He's now almost 15 months actual and eats everything. The other day he tried clams and loved them

PhillyGal34 · August 2013

I should say he still will not eat puréed type foods. He loves yogurt but won't eat pouches or anything.

MinaE01 · August 2013

We started oatmeal (we skipped rice due to constipation) at about 5 months actual. He wasn't a big fan, so we mixed in fruit purees within weeks. He still doesn't care much for purees, or any food at all for that matter! He's such a terrible eater!

I say go with your gut. If you don't think she's ready, don't rush it. There's no hurry. "Food before one is just for fun."

If you started with rice cereal, how old was your preemie?

Re: If you started with rice cereal, how old was your preemie?

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