Why does feeding solids have to be so confusing?

We didn't get much direction from our Pedi, other than start with rice cereal for 3 wks and do veggies before fruit. At the time I didn't realize how many questions I would have...

We're finally at the point that they eat cereal pretty good. We've done both rice cereal for awhile, and then oatmeal this past week. I've been giving them each 1 tbsp of cereal mixed with 1 oz of formula, and they eat it all. They don't act like they love it and can't get enough, but they'll eat what I give them.

So...how much in quantity should they be eating at a meal? does the 1:1 ratio seem reasonable? How do you know when to increase? (I read some other posts and found others were giving double by abt 6 mos, so now I'm afraid it's not enough)..

I want to move on to a veggie next...what would be a good one to start with? Should I start with the nastiest one first? (in my opinion they're all nasty!) And when you get a container of veggies, how much do you offer - like a tbsp (plain)? Do I mix with anything?

Should I add a veggie as a second meal and keep doing the cereal at another time? Does it matter if I do oatmeal or rice, or am I supposed to stick with rice?

What's the deal with mixing things with cereal, or other foods together...are you supposed to do this? I don't think I would have thought of it if I didn't read the other posts. Or are you just supposed to have fun and experiment...(this doesn't sound like much fun to me!)

Is there some sort of website/book I can follow? Is this supposed to be commonsense and I'm just an idiot or something?

 

It's not confusing as you are making it seem. You are doing great with the rice cereal, I would stick to that as their breakfast from now on and what I do is add in applesauce or pears with it. After you have tested the waters with different foods it becomes easier to mix it up.

When we started a second meal, we started slowly (at 7 mos) we started with veggies first for a few days. then another veggie for another few days.

We may have jumped to stage 2 foods at 7.5 mo. So now they share a jar of dinner food (chicken and rice) or (vegetable beef) with a side of stage 2 veggie (the love green beans) We change it up for them every day. So far so good.

they will let you know when they've had too much or too little. Thats why it seems right now them having half a jar and half a cup of veggie or fruit seems to be just enough.

We may jump to stage 3 in a month or so.

I hope I didn't confuse you anymore. Really it's just experiementing and seeing what your babies likes and dislikes. All babies are different.

 

QUOTE(DeniseT @ Sep 10 2008, 10:47 AM) [snapback]972950[/snapback]
We didn't get much direction from our Pedi, other than start with rice cereal for 3 wks and do veggies before fruit. At the time I didn't realize how many questions I would have...

We're finally at the point that they eat cereal pretty good. We've done both rice cereal for awhile, and then oatmeal this past week. I've been giving them each 1 tbsp of cereal mixed with 1 oz of formula, and they eat it all. They don't act like they love it and can't get enough, but they'll eat what I give them.

So...how much in quantity should they be eating at a meal? does the 1:1 ratio seem reasonable? How do you know when to increase? (I read some other posts and found others were giving double by abt 6 mos, so now I'm afraid it's not enough)..

I want to move on to a veggie next...what would be a good one to start with? Should I start with the nastiest one first? (in my opinion they're all nasty!) And when you get a container of veggies, how much do you offer - like a tbsp (plain)? Do I mix with anything?

Should I add a veggie as a second meal and keep doing the cereal at another time? Does it matter if I do oatmeal or rice, or am I supposed to stick with rice?

What's the deal with mixing things with cereal, or other foods together...are you supposed to do this? I don't think I would have thought of it if I didn't read the other posts. Or are you just supposed to have fun and experiment...(this doesn't sound like much fun to me!)

Is there some sort of website/book I can follow? Is this supposed to be commonsense and I'm just an idiot or something?


You are NOT an idiot..unless I am too I will be interested to see what folks have to say. I just posted the "gagging on solid foods" topic.

 

Each new food should be tried for 3 to 4 days to make sure there is no reaction.

For cereal we did rice, oatmeal, barley and then mixed.

A lot of people say start with veggies. You can do it say with starting with all the orange veggies then move to green, but you don't have to. You also don't have to start with veggies.

We do two meals a day. Depending on what new food we are introducing they sometimes get veggies at breakfast which is more than fine. Yesterday was avocados and they loved them.

I try not to mix anything in with the cereal so that they will eat it that way. Some babies once you mix in fruit or whatever, they won't eat it without it.

Once a food has been introduced and shown not to cause reactions you can move to the next. I usually do one meal that has a new food, normally breakfast and at their evening meal something they are use to and normally do a mix. Last night they had cereal and then apples and yams, which I mixed together. A cube(i make my own)of each then mixed in the bowl.

Dianna

 

I am certainly no expert and we are still trying to figure things out, too, but here is what our pedi said and what we have done:

Food ordering
Pedi said: cereals first - rice 1 wk, barley 1wk, oatmeal 1 wk. Then move onto veggies - go up the color spectrum yellow to green. Then start with fruits.
What we have done: the cerals as directed although the boys don't particularly like barley. And we started with the orange sweet potatoes then went to carrots before trying the squash. We are ready for green veggies now. The only fruit they have tried is pears - so I could give them pear juice with the rice cereal as it made B constipated.

Cereal Consistency
Pedi said: make it runny at first and when they get the concept work towards applesauce.
What we did: 2 formula scoops (probably about a tbsp) to 3oz of formula. Makes applesauce for us.

Quantity
Pedi said: Start 1tbsp (dry)each and work your way up. The net goal is to keep them eating 24oz-32oz of formula (primary nuritrion source and all). If they take less cut back on the solids. If they want more formula up the solids. Also watch their cues. If they refuse to open their mouth or turn their heads they are done. If they still act hungry when you are done, feed them more. "Use commonsense." I had to smile at that one...

Jars of baby food
Pedi said: If you aren't sure how much they will eat or how much they will like take some out of the container and put it into a bowl. Feed them from the bowl. That way if they don't take it all the rest can go in the fridge for the next meal. (warm it up to room temp)
What we did: fed them straight out of a stage 1 jar. They split one in the AM and have their own then PM. They devour it, so it was never an issue for us.

Mixing
No advice here. I am not a mixer. I give cereal and fruit in the morning. I don't mix them simply because I am a picky eater and don't like my foods to touch. So I offer a couple of spoonfuls of cereal, then a spoonful of fruit. I am sure you can mix, I just don't.

What our schedule looks like:
7am 6oz bottle
8:30 cereal & fruit (~4tbsp dry to 5oz formula & 1 stage 1 fruit all shared)
11am - 8oz bottles
3pm - 8oz bottles
6pm - stage 1 veggie (each)
7:30pm - 8oz bottle

HTH! Good luck!

 

I just play it by ear. Heck, I even started with stage 2 food after we gave cereals for a week - they haven't notice the difference between that and stage 1, and neither have I.

I typically give half a jar, and sometimes add some cereal and formula, sometimes not. I feed them after their bottle so I'll mix some leftover formula from their bottle if they didn't finish it. Sometimes I mix two foods once I know they're fine with both. I did rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, squash, and will probably do apples next. I do breakfast, but add some solids after their last bottles if they didn't finish it or still seem hungry. With the two of them they usually finish, although DS is picky and so far will only eat half the stuff - I still offer the spoon if I feed the stuff he doesn't like again though, and he'll usually have a spoon or two before clamping his mouth.

I'm in no hurry to give them dinner more regularly honestly, I'll probably stick to one meal and introducing new foods for another month before I give them another meal.

 

Thanks guys, this helps a lot!

Beemer, I especially like all the information from your pedi vs what you found works. I wish ours had been that informative!

 

I agree with not mixing if your kids will eat plain cereal. Or at least to offer it plain regularly. I see the point of feeding veggies first, but for us it would have meant DS would probably end up hating food, so we gave fruit too, so he'd have something yummier to eat and realize that eating solids isn't that bad. DD would eat anything.

 

I remember being SO concerned about amounts and ratios and then I got confused and threw up my hands! I put a little cereal in the bowl and then put the formula in until it wasn't too runny, but wasn't too pasty.

I fed them until Meara stopped eating (Ana would just keep eating and then puke).

I know thats not helpful, and I'm not trying to be cavelier because I really understand your questions- I had them too and never found really good advice. So we winged (?) it and it was fine. I just kept telling myself, its not about nutrition, its about practicing using the spoon.

As for veggies, we started with orange first (sweet potatoes and carrots), and then moved to green (green beans, peas, spinach), and then did fruits. My girls LOVED sweet potatoes! We started out splitting a stage 1 container.

Hope this helps a little (at least you know you aren't alone!).

 

Ditto to what Leighann said ... I remember when Leighann and I both started with the solids at the same time, had a million questions, and basically had no idea what we were doing! Eventually you just kind of figure out a routine for yourself. And keep repeating to yourself ... it's not about nutrition, it's about practicing eating! The majority of their nutitrition will come from formula/breast milk for the first year.

We started with solids at 4 months. For the first week we did VERY runny rice cereal with formula. I don't remember exact ratios, and they never finished it. After a week we quickly switched to oatmeal due to constipation. We never did any of the other cereals.

At 5 months we started with fruits and veggies. We just switched every 4 days ... veggie first, fruit next, veggie again, etc. We mixed the oatmeal into the fruit or veggie. It was easier that way. If it was a super runny item (like peaches) we just mixed some dry oatmeal in to thicken it up ... then if it was too thick, we would add formula. The kids would split one level 1 container with with oatmeal. We did this until 6 months ... then went to 2 meals a day, one fruit with oatmeal, one veggie with oatmeal.

It seem so overwhelming, but I promise you, you can't screw it up! Good luck, and post lots of questions!

 

We started with rice cereal

the girls each eat 2 oz of veggie at lunchtime ( I make my own so this is two ice cubes that I either thaw the day before or in the microwave)

At suppertime
the girls each eat 2 oz of veggie and 2oz of cereal mixed with fruit I measured out the amount of cereal in a plastic bowl then took a sharpie and marked a line, so I don't have to measure each time. (before mixing the fruit into the cereal I tried it on its own to make sure there wasn't a reaction). They will eat plain cereal, but why not add a fruit to get a little more variety.


As for which veggies to start with the lighted tasting ones like sweet potatoes, carrots, green peas.

I usually introduced a new food and if there wasn't any reaction in a couple of days would introduce another one. There are no food allergies in our family, so I am not overly concerned.

I alternated between veggies and fruits I would introduce a new veggie then a couple of days later introduce a fruit.


In my house sweet potatoes, carrots, peas,applesauce, cantalope, and bananas are the favorites.

Good luck

 

There is a great web site that you can visit.... WWW.wholesomebabyfood.com it shows you how to make your own baby food also has helpful charts to follow!