Feeding baby cereals

steelerbaby29 · December 2013

I know there is a lot of posts about putting cereal in bottles and feeding rice cereal to get babies to sleep, but my question has nothing to do with either.

My LO will be 6 months next week and we started solids about a week ago. I started with green beans, and have moved onto squash. I really don't want to give my son any rice cereal but most of the sample menus I see online and on wholesomebabyfood.com have a cereal/grain with a fruit or vegetable. Do you have to feed any cereal at all or will he get enough from just veggies and fruits? Is oatmeal a good grain option?

I understand he is getting his nutrition from breastmilk/formula, but I'm wondering for when he starts to eat more. Right now he eats about 1-2 tablespoons 1 to 2 times a day.

BelhurstBride · December 2013

We have never offered any cereal marketed specifically for baby. As DD1 got more efficient at feeding herself I offered real oatmeal (not the Quaker instant crap) cooked on the drier side.

taraleanne · December 2013

You don't have to give cereals BUT cereals contain iron and iron is important for baby because it's around 6 months that the iron stores from mama start to deplete. If you're not going to give cereal then you need other high iron foods like meats, beans, lentils, spinach, eggs and sweet potato. This was the advice given to me by our public health office ( who says their recommendation is based on Health Canada and AAP guidelines) who wants us to start baby on meats and cereals and THEN fruits and veg. I've been giving my LO oatmeal cereal because pureed meats/eggs are gross and lentils are not that nice (though he will eat it) and I don't think he's ready for BLW yet. Going to try sweet potato soon though! I personally have no issue giving him cereals though, especially if it's a way to get him iron and used to solid foods. I know there are far worse things I could give him! (and have seen parents do so!) I'm also going to try avacado soon too

maize27 · December 2013

My pedi recommends cereal because it has so many more calories than fruits and veggies do. My LO is quite small so I am going to start with the cereal. It certainly won't hurt them to mix it in with the other foods they have already started to eat. Why don't you want to give cereal? For some reason this board is very anti- cereal which I just don't understand. No it doesn't have the nutritional value of veggies, that's why you give those too.

taraleanne · December 2013

@maize27, my LO is quite small too, that's another reason why pedi had us start cereal at 4m. But avacado and sweet potato are great for adding some healthy fats too! (going to try sweet potato next!)

BelhurstBride · December 2013

maize27 said:

My pedi recommends cereal because it has so many more calories than fruits and veggies do. My LO is quite small so I am going to start with the cereal. It certainly won't hurt them to mix it in with the other foods they have already started to eat. Why don't you want to give cereal? For some reason this board is very anti- cereal which I just don't understand. No it doesn't have the nutritional value of veggies, that's why you give those too.

taraleanne said:

@maize27, my LO is quite small too, that's another reason why pedi had us start cereal at 4m. But avacado and sweet potato are great for adding some healthy fats too! (going to try sweet potato next!)

That makes zero sense. BM or formula has more fat and calories than rice cereal.

taraleanne · December 2013

BelhurstBride said:

maize27 said:

My pedi recommends cereal because it has so many more calories than fruits and veggies do. My LO is quite small so I am going to start with the cereal. It certainly won't hurt them to mix it in with the other foods they have already started to eat. Why don't you want to give cereal? For some reason this board is very anti- cereal which I just don't understand. No it doesn't have the nutritional value of veggies, that's why you give those too.

taraleanne said:

@maize27, my LO is quite small too, that's another reason why pedi had us start cereal at 4m. But avacado and sweet potato are great for adding some healthy fats too! (going to try sweet potato next!)

That makes zero sense. BM or formula has more fat and calories than rice cereal.

Just going by the doc. Everyone's situation is different. You can't force baby to breast when he or she doesn't want anymore, cereal is different and tastes good. At 4m it's an easy way to get more calories in. I didn't make this up, pedi and I came up with a plan that suits us just fine thankyouverymuch.

steelerbaby29 · December 2013

My biggest reason about not wanting to give rice cereal is due to empty calories and the whole arsenic in rice thing. I would rather give him food that will have some nutritional value. I was wondering if giving grains is really necessary at this age. That was what my question was more aimed at, not getting into the whole debate about rice cereal. Besides If you and your pedi think giving cereal to your baby is good because it has more calories than formula or breast milk than getting into any kind of debate with you would be a waste of time.

taraleanne · December 2013

@steelerbaby29 If you don't like the rice because of arsenic, you could do oatmeal. That's what we do (for same reason). Giving your baby grains is going to be up to you really. Our public health office does not go against it, in fact suggests it could be the first solid, and they say they go by the AAP and Health Canada guidelines so I just go by what they say. What does your public health suggest?

Besides If you and your pedi think giving cereal to your baby is good because it has more calories than formula or breast milk than getting into any kind of debate with you would be a waste of time.

^^ Not sure if that comment was aimed at me or not but that's not what I said

I think we all agree that BM (or formula) is best but when your baby just will NOT take anymore and you are looking at ways to help him gain weight before the 6m solids start then it's an option that I was ok with. The cereal debate will always be but everyone's situation is unique and parents are just doing what they think is best.

maize27 · December 2013

steelerbaby29 said:

My biggest reason about not wanting to give rice cereal is due to empty calories and the whole arsenic in rice thing. I would rather give him food that will have some nutritional value. I was wondering if giving grains is really necessary at this age. That was what my question was more aimed at, not getting into the whole debate about rice cereal. Besides If you and your pedi think giving cereal to your baby is good because it has more calories than formula or breast milk than getting into any kind of debate with you would be a waste of time.

Hold on. YOU asked if fruits and veggies was enough. My answer was simply that cereal has more calories than fruits and veggies. If what you were really after was reassurance of your decision than why did you ask the question? Insulting the decision that I made with my doctor is completely uncalled for. Nobody in this entire thread stated that they were feeding cereal instead of breast milk or formula so Im not really sure why you think you are "wasting your time" on that debate. Furthermore, I am growing so tired of people insinuating that other moms are morons because they aren't doing what you are doing.

steelerbaby29 · December 2013

@maize27 I was asking if grains is necessary since most of the sample menus I've seen online include either rice or oatmeal daily. I guess I should have clarified my main concern was iron intake from fruits and veggies. I didn't insult you, I just said if you and your pedi think rice cereal has more calories than breast milk or formula then it's no sense in debating with you, If your offended by that then maybe you have something you feel guilty about, or you just need to put your big girl panties on and realize that people may say things that you don't like. Your statement came across that you and your pedi are feeding cereal because your LO is small, and needs to put on weight, that I think is weird and I didn't want to debate with you about it.

taraleanne · December 2013

@steelerbaby29 - spinach and sweet potato has iron in it if your concerned about iron intake in veg & fruit. Maybe lots of the sample menus online have a grain included because grains aren't a bad thing after all?

Please be careful what you say about cereal for gaining weight...there's two of us on this thread that made decisions with our pedi's about feeding cereal b/c our LO is small and could use some EXTRA calories. No one said we give it in place of BM or formula either. It's not like we made up this approach and it's certainly not weird!! I work in healthcare too, I talked to a lot of people about this decision before I began. Maybe we should think it's weird that people DON'T give cereal? Neither of us said that cereal had more calories that BM or formula either, I can't see where you got that from. Cereals, particularly oatmeal has some nutritional value, it would be incorrect to say that it has none. It has SOME, but naturally BM or formula is better. But isn't it better than anything else too? We feed our babies all of the other food groups: proteins, veggies, fruits, and dairy, why would we skip grains? Grains are healthy for adults so they need to be introduced to them eventually, I'll never understand why people are so anti- cereal. It's not like we're putting pepsi in our baby's bottles.

steelerbaby29 · December 2013

@taraleanne Before you write another drawn out paragraph, I think you should go back and read what I orginally said. Here I will even copy and paste to make it easy on you.

Besides If you and your pedi think giving cereal to your baby is good because it has more calories than formula or breast milk than getting into any kind of debate with you would be a waste of time.

If you and pedi don't think that cereal has more calories than BM or formula then I don't understand why you keep going on about this. I said IF YOU THINK..not YOU DO THINK..I think you are just using what I said to rant and complain about others on the forum that are against rice cereal. I got answers to my question that I posted so at this point I see no other reason to continue posting on this topic. If you would like to debate more about rice cereal it's not going to happen with me. I don't have the time or desire to do so.

LittleNugget93 · December 2013

You could always do a fruit smoothie mixed with breast milk.

taraleanne · December 2013

msspeedymarie said:

taraleanne said:

@steelerbaby29 - spinach and sweet potato has iron in it if your concerned about iron intake in veg & fruit. Maybe lots of the sample menus online have a grain included because grains aren't a bad thing after all?

Please be careful what you say about cereal for gaining weight...there's two of us on this thread that made decisions with our pedi's about feeding cereal b/c our LO is small and could use some EXTRA calories. No one said we give it in place of BM or formula either. It's not like we made up this approach and it's certainly not weird!! I work in healthcare too, I talked to a lot of people about this decision before I began. Maybe we should think it's weird that people DON'T give cereal? Neither of us said that cereal had more calories that BM or formula either, I can't see where you got that from. Cereals, particularly oatmeal has some nutritional value, it would be incorrect to say that it has none. It has SOME, but naturally BM or formula is better. But isn't it better than anything else too? We feed our babies all of the other food groups: proteins, veggies, fruits, and dairy, why would we skip grains? Grains are healthy for adults so they need to be introduced to them eventually, I'll never understand why people are so anti- cereal. It's not like we're putting pepsi in our baby's bottles.

people are anti-cereal for babies that are too young for it. People intro cereal too early, hoping their babies will STTN because that's what their moms told them to do (my mom put rice cereal in my bottle at 4 weeks back in 1978). Babies have tiny stomachs - it doesn't take much to fill them. If you are giving cereal to a young baby, which you yourself said has less calories and nutrition than breast milk or formula, that means you are keeping your baby from eating as much milk or formula as they could be, which is not healthy for them. Never mind that young babies can't digest grains yet, so they aren't going to get all the nutrition that is in them yet, further reducing their caloric intake, and also causing constipation issues. Milk and formula is easier for them to digest while their systems are immature, so they get all the calories and nutrition from it, rather than just pooping it out. Their stomachs are too small to just give filler - they need every ounce of milk or formula they can get. That's why the only real reason to give a young baby any cereal is reflux - if the cereal thickens the milk enough that they keep it down, that's better than them throwing it all up. They need the easy to digest calories in milk or formula.

I don't disagree with anything you are saying, at all. But there is a big difference between giving cereals to a 4 week old with reflux compared to a 4 month old who could use some extra calories to help gain some weight. I don't agree with giving babies cereal to STTN either. In my case, we added cereals immediately after BF in addition to offering the breast more often throughout the day (and purposefully waking at night) even when he wasn't showing signs of hunger. So much for the feed on demand rules in my case. He never filled up on cereals, it was a bonus for him after nursing and did not affect his other regular feeds. I did research, talked to other mothers who were in a similar situations and talked to half a dozen med. professionals before implementing our plan. Some mothers even added avacado, sweet potato and real full fat yogurt to their 4m old babies diets. There becomes a point where you can't force a baby to drink any more milk or formula. I think that it's fine that people are anti-cereal with the young babies for reasons other than reflux but be careful to judge the decisions some mother's (and their docs) make for other reasons. Every baby is different, we all know this. Cheers

KARICH21 · December 2013

My daughter is 5 months old, her doctor recommended oatmeal cereal for 2 reasons. One, she wasn't getting full just with b/m or formula alone and waking up for midnight feedings and two, she was underweight. Now after a few weeks of her being on cereal, she has gained weight and she sleeps through the night. She is a pretty healthy and a happy baby

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