Cereal?

[literacylaunchpad]

My DS goes for his 4 month check-up this week. Will they suggest cereal feedings at this point? How do you guys feel about cereal at this age? Good? Bad? Does it help them sleep longer?? I'm very curious.

[aecryan]

I followed my dr's recommendation for cereal at 4 months with both of my dds. This time around, my 8 month old ds is still ebf. Cereal seems like empty calories to me. I didn't notice any sleep differences at all.

HTH!

[Emmaleigh3699]

it doesn't help them sleep and it doesn't have any nutritional value. They now recommend waiting until at least 6 months because babies have an "open gut" http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/delay-solids.html that explains it all better than I could :) AAP is recommending waiting until 6 months, but most pedis don't even keep up with the recommendations because they change often. Shae is 5 months and EBF - she sleeps ok through the night, some nights she sleeps all night, some nights she nurses all night :) I figure, she knows what she needs. She knows if she's hungry better than I know. Breastmilk is the perfect food, so why mess with that perfection?

[MammaNilsson]

Despite a lot of old wives tales, it does nothing to help them sleep longer (according to the latest studies). Most physician organizations do not recommend anything other than breastmilk for the first 6 months because introducing other things sooner than that contributes to the development of food allergies.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask as my just-turned-8-month-old is sleeping in my arms having never tasted anything other than my milk. I just don't believe there's a need to feed the baby anything other than breastmilk until they can feed it to themselves...but that's definitely just me! :goodvibes:

[BumbleBear]

I agree with pps - I bfed my twins and didn't give solids until 6 months and mine slept thru the night around 16 weeks. I think the whole rice cereal helps 'em sleep myth is an old wives tale - both my mom and my MIL tried to get me to give my girls cereal in a bottle when they were like 2 months old! :yuck:

[arayasunshine]

The only reason for baby cereal is the iron its fortified with. A lot of people completely skip cereal and move into veggies/fruits. The APA recommends waiting until your child is at least 6 months old to start solids. Its really about if your child is ready though. Can your child sit up and hold its head steady? If not your child is not ready. HTH!

[clb]

Our ped told us no food, including cereal, until 6 months. He then said we could start with any food we wanted from the 4 month or 6 month list of foods from common baby books. We just started solids in October and choose avocado as a first food.

I too had read that cereal is not necessary, but in addition to fruits and veggies I wanted to introduce my lo to grains so I did buy some cereal for convenience. Oatmeal was our first grain and it took so long to grind the steel cut oats down to a powder and then I had to cook it twice since I was afraid to keep more than a two day supply in the fridge that when I saw Earth's Best brown rice cereal on sale I snapped it up.

Of all the foods we've tried to date (avocado, sweet potato, oatmeal, acorn squash, pears, rice cereal and apples) the cereal is ds's very favorite. I like it too because it is so easy to prepare and get it to the right consistency for a new eater.

As for sleeping, since started solids ds has actually had more frequent night wakings, but I'm thinking it is due to teething, not eating, since he cut his first tooth this weekend.

[literacylaunchpad]

Thanks ladies. That's super helpful!