Introducing foods

Re: Introducing foods

• Stillharbor member

  November 2013

  Don't give up on the rice cereal. It may have constipated LO at first b/c their digestive system is getting used to moving more solid stuff. My LO didn't like fruits at first. She was strictly a squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots girl. We ended up using the apple and banana purées in her morning cereal bottle. Don't worry too much about the gagging. You still want to keep an eye on them eating but babies have a higher gag reflex and gagging while eating is not unusual. They have to work out exactly how to keep the food in their mouths, where to put it to chew, and swallow. You may have to introduce the same food several times before they really decide to like or dislike it. If you are just introducing solids, you don't want to give them so much that they aren't taking milk. For LO the solid is more of a new experiment, instead of a meal. The older they get the more the solids will start replacing the milk and the milk just becomes a drink to go with the meal.

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• Stillharbor member

  November 2013

  I meant to tell you. Try rice cereal in a bottle of milk. Just enough to thicken it and make sure LO can suck it out of the nipple. (You may have to get a fast flow/ cereal nipple.)

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• EmeraldCity84 member

  January 2014

  A book I have been reading suggests not to introduce more than 1 food per day, in case they have a bad reaction you will know what the source was.  Just a thought.

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• Beth.1212 member

  January 2014

  There's nothing wrong with avoiding rice cereal. Rice of any kind makes my little guy a bit constipated if I give him too much. 

  
  

  I would recommend that you avoid putting rice cereal in a bottle unless advised to do so by a doctor for reflux problems. 

  
  

  For a great website about feeding a baby, see https://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/

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• darkangel42 member

  March 2014

  Just doing one food a day is easier when you first introduce it, starting with bland stuff like rice or mashed potato then working up to more flavourful things like carrot or pear.

  
  

  The gagging thing will happen until your baby gets used to textures other than milk and should stop quickly, as should spitting food out. It's not intentional, they just don't know how to keep it in their mouths yet.

  
  

  Can you get Farley's rusk where you are? It's a cookie for baby that you mash into milk to begin with then can feed as finger food later on, mine preferred that to rice cereal at breakfast time as it was an easy food to start with.  If not, there's probably a similar baby cookie you can add warm milk to and mash up with a spoon.

  
  

  Be aware too that your baby might have a preference for sweet or savoury foods and not show much interest in the other kind at first.

  
  

  Putting cereal in a bottle seems like weird advice, surely that would just confuse the baby when they're starting to learn about spoons??

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