Rice Cereal versus meat

I am about to introduce solids and always thought I'd do rice cereal like I did with my son. But now I'm reading books/opinions that say meat and veggies are better choices especially with breast fed babies b/c of the iron drop. Anyone else do meat first?

 

We start with a vegetable. Usually Sweet Potato or Avocado. We don't do rice cereal.

 

Neither rice cereal nor veggie.
You might want to research the White Out campaign for cons about Rice Cereal. The pros are it's sooooo conviente and it's very mild for people starting before six months. If you wait until six months you have a wider range of options to start with.

In Southern Mexico the typical first food is the liquid that black bean have been cooked in--bean broth.

 

Thanks. So, I need to start solids at 5 1/2 months b/c they are too hungry and waking up much more often. Can I do something besides rice cereal before 6 months?

 

we don't do rice either, despite our peds advice. i started with oatmeal cereal. it is fortified with iron, too.i could never get my older dd to eat pureed meat. that stuff is nasty!

 

We started rice cereal but switched to oatmeal because they got so constipated. In vietnam and most of asian countries, we always give babies rice soup as the first food though. You can introduce cereal, avocado, sweet potato as their first food. But personally I would not introduce meat though. Their systems are not ready to process meat yet. They just going to have stomach pain/disconfort.I remember I gave my son cereal mixed breastmilk at 5.5 months. He was fine. We gave him some carrot a week later. He refused it and had stomach pain and actually pooped out carrot. So we waited another 2 weeks to introduce veggies: avocado and sweet potato.

If you concern about their iron drop, talk to ur pedi, ask if you can give them polyvisol with iron.

 

my doctor actually recommended meat as a first food & we started it almost right away (my girls loved poached chicken breast pureed with apple sauce). we also did slow cooked beef pureed with sweet potato and/or squash. the iron from meat sources is much more easily absorbed than the iron from infant cereal (which is why they put so much into the cereal - unfortunately, one of the side effects of all that left over iron is constipation). we stopped feeding the girls infant cereal almost right away. they didn't like it, it backed them up, and it was expensive.

honestly? i would start with whatever your kids like. it's just for practice right now & an opportunity to introduce new textures & flavours. GL!

 

Ditto on both!

 

we did avocado and sweet potatoes.

a great resource I loved was wholesomebabyfood.com there are sections on types of foods and by age.

I also loved the "Super Baby Food Book" by Ruth Yaron.

And I know many people recommend Ellyn Satter's "Child of Mine" - I just ordered that last night and can't wait to read it.

One thing that I did for cereals was to grind my own and cook it. I started with Millet, but then I waited until the kids were almost 8 mo. old so there were many items on the "list" for 8 mo. olds...

here's a one page chart by age & food categories. 1 page chart

 

We did cereal and oats. But our main first food was avocado and pear. Avocado is great, get a ripened one and you can just mash it up - as well as pears. You can add breastmilk if you are breastfeeding. We could never get them to eat pureed meat - mine had some texture issues to work through and still do. But I agree with Rachel...you can pick. I don't buy the veggie before fruit (or is it the other way around) stuff...my kids have their own preferences and it had nothing to do with order of introduction. They are so different. Anyway, good luck on this fun new endeavor. Won't be long before you can really get creative!

 

The first foods are really just for practice and not much for nutrition, so I'd say start with what you want! I have heard that meat is just fine to start with, like Rachael said. We started with brown rice cereal and we were on to avacado and fruits right away. I think we introduced meat within a month of that.