Cereal in the Bottle?

It's amazing how every family member has 2 cents of advice to give you!! The latest is cereal in the bottle. Has anyone put cereal in the bottle and if so how much. I've heard that when you start the cereal you should feed it with a spoon. What's the norm? :unsure:

 

The pedis always say to start cereal on a spoon. I did with my DD at 3 1/2 months. I was given "enfafeeders" for the twins...they are special bottles to feed cereal out of. We may actually try it in a month or so. But the docs recommend against it. I have heard if you are dealing with reflux to add a bit to the milk to help "weigh it down" but I have been to scared to try it. The "norm" is cereal at about 4 months I believe. I have several friends who used the enfafeeders and started at as early as 6 weeks.

 

Hi!
I'm so glad you posted this question! My kiddos are the same age as yours!!
We just had our 4 month appointment yesterday and our pedi suggested we put the cereal in the bottle for one (to help with a recent reflux development) and then spoon feed the other). The recipe he suggested for the bottle was for 1 tsp. of rice cereal to every 2 oz. of formula (or breast milk). He suggested we begin with 1-2 teaspoons and work our way up to 3-5 tablespoons in the morning and evening.

I've read that doctors are different and can suggest feeding rice cereal in either the bottle or via spoon.

We haven't started it yet, but plan to this weekend. I need to buy some wider nipples. We use Dr. Brown's bottles, and I think their "Y" shaped nipple might work??

Good luck!

 

I put about 2 tsp of cereal into my girls 6 ounce bottle to help with their reflux....

 

Unless your babies are having reflux issues cereal should always be fed with a spoon never added to their bottle. It used to be the norm to add cereal to a babies bottle because it supposedly helped them sleep better. In my experience it doesn't actually really help them sleep. I started cereal on a spoon at 4 months per the Pedi's recomendation.

 

We have recently started adding rice to their last bottle of the night. WORKS LIKE A CHARM to get them to sleep through the night!!!!! I add 2 tsp for an 8 oz bottle. We did try spoon feeding some thickened cereal the other night. What an experience! They ate it, just was very messy! (oh boy what am I getting myself into??)

Do what you feel comfortable with. I tried the rice a couple weeks ago with the boys, and they could not take it. But they are doing great with it now!!

 

We added it to the bottles for reflux from the beginning, but to add it as a meal, it should be off of a spoon. We started spoon feeding at 4 months. Good luck!

 

I just posted the same response to a similar question:

Rice cereal does help things to stay down better and lessen the amount and frequency of spit up. I reluctantly began putting cereal in my girls' bottles (especially Emily) when they were like 4 months (2 months) adjusted age. I was worried about their little systems being able to process the cereal. I didn't have a paritcular mesaurement at first...just went with a little bit at a time until I knew that their little tummies could handle it and that we found a good balance of formula:ceral ratio. It's trial and error. I also had to go through the whole poke holes in nipples thing until that didn't go over well at which time I just bought fast flow nipples and medium flow nipples and nipples that were cross-cut and nipples that had the tri-cut. This was the way of life until I realized that I could start cutting back and we were finished at right around a year with putting cereal in the bottles. Emily still spit up a couple more times after that when she got on milk, but that's all it was. It was worth it though to make them have a happy life.

 

I began feeding cereal in the bottle at two weeks. My guys had acid reflux and the doctor told us to do it. About 1 tablespoon to six ounces. However, I was also told by all the "older" mothers that I should do it because it was something they did with us when were babies.

 

I know a lot of people say not to, but I swear by putting it in the bottle. Most of my girlfriends did it too and it worked for them. They slept thru the night for the first time EVER after drinking their ceral bottle. I started at about 1 tablespoon to 4-6 oz. Once they got used to it, I moved up to 2-2 1/2 tablespoons for 8 oz. I gave them a bottle first thing in the morning and at their bedtime. I just used a larger nipple for the bottle. Good tip I used, make it real thin like the consistency of the milk. It's an experiment to see how your kids like it. HTH. Oh also rice constipated my kids so I switched to oatmeal.

 

I saw the post about Dr. Brown's bottle...I found the level 4 nipple worked better for us than the Y nipple.