My son is 5 months old, and VERY interested in food. With my doctor's go ahead, I have decided to feed him one serving of oatmeal cereal a day in a few weeks...when he's closer to 6 months. The thing is, I don't know how to do this without getting really engorged, or having a big drop in supply.
Can someone please share their experience with me and provide some tips on how to go about it? You only want to start with a couple spoon fulls of cereal once or twice a day. It won't be much. I would offer about an hour after nursing. It shouldn't make him eat a whole lot less milk at this point. The transition is slow so you shouldn't have engorgement issues at all. A solid meal will not replace nursing completely for several months.
I started with one meal right before bed time around 6 months, added lunch around 7 months, and added dinner around 8 months. By 9-10 months we added snacks. when my brother was about 4 or 5 months we put a little bit of cereal in his bottle.
just pump and feed him with a bottle and put a little bit of cereal in.
some bottle nipples are made larger so cereal can flow through easier. like stage 2 nipples, around 6 months just feed him some cereal with a spoon.
we put 2 oz of formula in my brothers cereal to start off with, now that hes older we add a thing of baby food to it.
:] Well, you're supposed to mix cereal with milk anyway so you can either hand express into a cup or do what I would do and pump your milk. Even if you end up with too much, you can store it or toss it. I knew a woman who made yogurt with her expressed breast milk to feed to her twins as a solid meal. ;-) Breastfeed before you give your little one any solids. Milk is stil there main source of food until a year old. It is more like practice and a learning experience than getting all the nutrition they need from the solids. And make sure to start all new food earlier in teh day to check for allergies. Use a breast pump to make a bottle and add a few spoons of cereal...should fill his belly more and give him a better sleep i would just feed him a little before breastfeeding.. or as much as he wanted afterwards. 1) You shouldn't breastfeed on a schedule
2) You don't replace nursing with solids at that age.
3) If you let baby feed himself you don't have to worry about overeating
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...
Should solids replace breastmilk?
No. Solids during the first year are only meant to complement breastmilk, not take precedence over it or replace any breastfeedings. It is more of a way to add textures to the baby's diet, to allow the baby new experiences, and to help her develop hand/eye coordination through finger feeding. Your baby should still be allowed to nurse on demand, as your milk should be her primary source of nutrition until closer to the end of the first year. Continuing to allow on-demand feedings also better ensures your milk supply.
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If your baby is younger than a year (and you are not weaning), make sure that you always nurse before offering solids. Babies who start solids early, and babies who eat a lot of solids tend to wean earlier.
It often works well to offer the solids about an hour after you nurse. If nursing has come before the solids you can continue feeding your baby the solids until she shows signs of fullness; i.e. turning her head, closing her mouth, batting at the spoon, wanting down, spitting the food out, etc. (trying to feed past this point is overfeeding). Most babies will balance their milk intake with their solid food intake well if you feed in this way.
[...]
Should I offer solids before or after nursing?
What we're aiming for during the first year is to have solids complementing breastmilk, not replacing it. This means that when solids are introduced the breastfeeding pattern is not interrupted at all, but baby is fed solids in slowly increasing amounts as his appetite increases. Baby will be getting the same amount of breastmilk (or even more) as he gets older, with increasing amounts of solids on top of that.
I think the main point in the matter is maintaining breastmilk as baby's main source of nutrition throughout the first year. This is important both to baby's good nutrition and good health. The nutrients in breastmilk are particularly important for growth and development during baby's first year. In addition, some (but certainly not all) of the health benefits of breastfeeding are directly related to the degree of exclusivity of breastfeeding (the greater the percentage of baby's diet made up of breastmilk, the greater the health benefit).
Nursing before (rather than after) the solids is a good way to help keep the transition to solids proceeding slowly so that mom's milk supply is maintained and baby gets the breastmilk that he needs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...
After six months, Mrs Rapley said babies were capable of taking food into their mouths and chewing it.
Therefore, feeding them pureed food at this time could delay the development of chewing skills.
Instead, she said, they should be given milk and solid pieces of food which they could chew.
Mrs Rapley argued that babies fed pureed food had little control over how much food they ate, thus rendering them vulnerable to constipation, and running a risk that they would react by becoming fussy eaters later in life.
She blamed the food industry for convincing parents that they should give children pureed food.
She said: "Sound scientific research and government advice now agree that there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids."
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...
6 - 7 months Offer solids once a day, at most. Many start out offering solids every few days or even less often.
Continue nursing on cue. Solid foods should not replace nursing sessions unless you're actively weaning.
Limit water to SIPS from a cup with meals.
Juice is not necessary for baby's nutrition. If you offer juice, limit to sips from a cup with meals and introduce it gradually just like any other new food. It's best to dilute juice with water and limit total juice intake to no more than 3-4 ounces a day.
7 - 9 months Watch baby's cues - this is particularly easy if baby nurses beforehand and most/all of the solids are offered to baby to self-feed. Increase solids gradually if baby is interested, with a maximum of 2 meals per day.
9 - 12 months Watch baby's cues - this is particularly easy if baby nurses beforehand and most/all of the solids are offered to baby to self-feed. Increase solids gradually if baby is interested. Aim for baby getting no more than 25% of her calories from solids by the age of 12 months (some babies eat less than this at 12 months and that's also normal).
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032000...
How do I start?
Use your finger as baby's first "spoon." It's soft, at the right temperature, and baby is familiar with it. Encourage baby to open her mouth wide. Place a fingertipful of this glorious glob on baby's lips while letting her suck on the tip of your finger. Next, advance the fingertipful of food to the tip of your baby's tongue (where there are tastebuds receptive to sweetness). If this gets swallowed, or at least is not spit back at you, try placing the next glob toward the middle of baby's tongue.
Watch baby's reaction to this new experience. If the food goes in with an approving smile, baby is ready and willing. If the food comes back at you, accompanied by a disapproving grimace, baby may not be ready. Some babies make funny faces just because this is all so new to them. What happens in the mouth may be a more accurate indicator of whether a baby is ready to eat solids. If the mouth opens for a second helping, give it another try 鈥?you may have a winner. Even if the food comes back out, the baby may just need to learn to seal his mouth shut when he moves the food from the front to the back. Rejection of the food could also indicate that the tongue-thrust reflex is not yet gone, and baby can't move the food to the back of his mouth and swallow it. If your baby just sits there, with an open mouth, confused by the glob of food perched on her tongue, she's probably having difficulty with the tongue-thrust reflex. Let her practice a while. If she still doesn't seem to know what to do, wait a week or two before you try again.
NUTRITIP: First Spoon
We advise that baby's first "spoon" be your finger. It is soft, at the right temperature, and by this stage baby is very familiar with its feel. Your finger also knows if food is too hot. Few babies like to begin their feeding life with a silver spoon in their mouth. Metal holds the heat in, so baby has to wait longer for each bite as you cool the hot food by blowing on it. A hungry baby finds this infuriating! A coated demitasse spoon is a good starter utensil. Plastic spoons with smooth, rounded edges are best 鈥?and quietest when banged or dropped. Use shatterproof plastic bowls that can survive battering on the high-chair tray and numerous tumbles to the floor.
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How much food should I offer?
If your baby eagerly accepts the first fingertipful of food, offer a little more the next time. At these first feedings, baby may actually swallow only a teaspoon or two of food. Gradually increase the amount you give baby until you are offering a quarter-cup or more at a time. Remember, your initial goal is to introduce your baby to the new tastes and textures of solid foods, not to stuff baby. As with all areas of development, babies take two steps forward and one step back. Expect erratic eating patterns. Baby may take a couple tablespoons one day and only a teaspoon the next. Baby may devour pears and refuse bananas one day, then the next day ignore the pears and gobble down the banana. That's all part of the feeding game. Relax and realize that you can't control your child's every mouthful. Don't force-feed a baby. Know when enough is enough. (Your baby knows.) Observe stop signs:
* Baby purses lips, closes mouth, and turns head away from approaching spoon.
* Baby leans away from the advancing spoon, uninterested or wanting to avoid the food entirely.
* Leaning toward the food or grabbing the spoon or hand of the feeder indicates a desire for more.
NUTRITIP: Milk Plus
Consider solid foods an addition to, not a substitute for, breastmilk or formula, which are more nutritionally balanced than any solid food. This food fact is especially important for breastfeeding babies. For a breastfeeding baby, it's best to start solids slowly, so that they don't become a substitute for the more nutritious breastmilk. Also, solids fed at an early age can interrupt the supply-and-demand cycle, resulting in decreased milk production.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page...
Take rice cereal, for example. Under conventional American wisdom, it's the best first food. But Butte says iron-rich meat 鈥?often one of the last foods American parents introduce 鈥?would be a better choice.
Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.
"These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.
The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...
Cereal is not at all necessary, partic |
