What is so Special About....

What is so special about Rice Cereal?

Is it really important to start your baby out on it?

What age did you start introducing cereal and first stage foods?

 

I don't know for a fact but I would guess that it is the most bland so it would be the easiest on a baby's stomach. I tried rice cereal at 4 months old but my girls wouldn't eat it. In fact, they never really ate cereal by itself. I started them on baby food at 6 months old and I would mix either rice or oatmeal cereal with a fruit or a veggie. When mine wouldn't eat rice cereal I tried oatmeal and that was a little better. It can't be too important b/c mine never really ate it and they're fine.

 

There's nothing special about it, other than that it's bland, like PP said. Mine were never crazy about it and never really ate it plain. I've never pushed it, since there's a lot more nutritional value in other first foods. You could easily skip the cereal. Avocado is a great first food.

 

Just a good starter cereal. We introduced cereal by spoon at 4 months for all of my kids. We did veggies at 5.5 months or so. Once they really had a good grip on taking cereal by the spoon.

 

Our public health nurse said that we didn't have to do cereals anymore. They suggested just going straight to meat and veggies and then fruit. This is a new recommendation since I had my first son. She said that the iron in the meats is easier to digest than the iron in the cereals.

 

IDK, but my ODD wanted nothing to do with it, so I didn't even bother offering it to the twins. We did orange veggies, then green, then onto fruits.

(This was over the course of a month, waiting a couple of days between each new food)

 

www.wholesomebabyfood.com has great info and is pretty easy to find the info you want.

Rice... I tried it a bit, but truly rice isn't that nutritious so I didn't bother with it much. we started with avocado, banana, sweet potato, carrots, squashes etc. for grains I did millet, then oats, barley these are all "rated" 6-8 mo.

I didn't even start our babies on any solids until close to 8 months. Solid feeding is a LOT of work IMO and since I bf, the solids aren't as important... so I waited a bit longer than I might if I had to do it over.

anyway, for me bf'ing was so much easier and quicker than adding in the solids... so it was a timing issue for me to wait.

as for cereals, you can see great info on that website regarding nutrition.

our babies still eat an oatmeal mixture with millet, barley, lentils in the mornings, I don't do any rice cereals. They also passed their iron blood test at 12 mo. with flying colors even though they never had any of the iron fortified cereals.

 

It's not as nutritious as some of the other cereals but has always been thought to be the least allergic food around. Very few people are allergic to rice. I believe that's why it's recommended to start with.