Baby’s First Food: Cereal
Tessa will be 6 months next week. I can hardly believe it. Where does the time go? I know, I know it is like that for everyone. But no matter what, it is time to start feeding her solids.
With Isaac he was practically begging for food when he turned 4 months old. And we started him that young. I know there are mixed theories on when to start and most recommend 6 months but he would have never waited that long! Now Tessa, she is a different story.
Tessa didn’t really start showing interest in food until a few weeks ago. Hubby had encouraged me to start her on cereal earlier to hopefully help her sleep through the night but I didn’t want to go there until she seemed ready.
So we started with rice cereal. It was a DISASTER! Not because she didn’t like it. She actually loved it (see picture). She was just an explosive volcano of spit up afterward. And for the following 24 hours she acted like she was sick. And kept throwing up. So I did a little research and found that many moms had the same experience with rice cereal but seemed to fair far better with oatmeal.
I waited 5 or more days and then tried oatmeal. She liked it just as much and it stayed down. Score! So we have been doing oatmeal now for several weeks. I just moved to giving her a serving in the morning and in the evening.
Now all of a sudden she is eying everything that we eat. I am pretty sure she is ready to move on to vegetables and fruits. I have to look back in the archives to see what I first fed Isaac. But I am also interested in your experience and suggestions.
What did you feed your baby for their first fruit/vegetable? Did it go well or do you wish that you had done it differently? What suggestions do you have for me as we begin? Which do you think should be Tessa’s first? Hurry! She is dying to get her tongue around something! I think if she had her way she would start with pizza.
Avacado, egg yolk and banana were my baby’s first food. Now we are moving on to carrot, beans and maybe chicken soon. I don’t follow the “usual” introduction to feeding. I don’t do grains at all until almost a year due to babies lacking an enzyme to properly digest grains until then. Egg yolk and avacado are great because they are full of beneficial fatty acids.
Good luck with your eager eater!
How about sweet potatoes? My little one loved them. I liked the idea of her eating a veggie, but it was also sweet – like breastmilk! It was a good transition food for her. Plus sweet potatoes are stocked full of good things for little ones! (Well, actually they are good for big ones too. tee-hee)
Especially with my third, she ended up eating whatever we were eating. So I think her first food was garlic mashed potatoes.
We skip the rice & cereal stage and don’t go there until she is ready for cheerios. We start with fruits & veggies. She also loved avocado, potato, mashed sweet potato.
My son was 7 lbs when he was born, but that didn’t last long, from the time he came home from the hospital he was starving, he was up every 2 hours round the clock, so at 3 days old I started him on cereal, just a little bit at first, I know you are not supposed to, but once I did, he slept all night and put on weight like you wouldn’t believe. I used cereal for him until he was of age to eat real food (forget the age), he was the healthy and happy and today he is 29 years old. I always said, as a Mother, you know what your child needs. The doctors all said it was too early, but I proved it wasn’t with him. Take care
I waited until he could feed himself. We never did cereal. It has minimal nutritional value and I preferred to tank up my son on breastmilk.
He weighed 25 pounds at 6 months exclusively breastfed with a birthweight of 5.3.
My daughter did so well with rice cereal from 6 months on, but my son had much the same problem as your your little girly. We then tried oatmeal too, and it was perfect. (Has it helped with nighttime sleep? It didn’t for us!:) I always moved from cereal to yellow veggies for my kids, sweet potatoes, winter squash, pumpkin etc. And early on they also loved bananas and natural (homemade or unsweetened) applesauce. I made my own baby food for both kids, so I stayed away from carrots for awhile because of the nitrate issue, but they are a great first food too I think. Tessa is such a doll! I miss that phase so much!!! Love your site, all the info you give us and your recipes. Thanks!
I make my own to but sub in store bought from time to time. I looked back and I have no idea what I started my first on. Ugh. Thanks for the compliments, Tessa says thanks too!
We are doing “Baby Led Weaning” – which is basically table foods and baby feeding themselves right away. I love it, no purees or spoon feeding! She eats what we eat. Her first food was roasted broccoli. Other first foods were sweet potato fries, avocado, and roasted cauliflower and peppers.
AH! So, it has a name, huh? That’s what my second son did. He went straight to table foods and skipped the spoon stage. Whew! Now I can let go of the guilt!! TY!!
YAY! Congrats on finding first grain that works for your baby! My son liked rice cereal, but I did feed him oatmeal a couple of times. Did you know that you can grind up your own? Use a mini food processor! It worked for me! Not that I’m a “granola mama”!! Oh, but I did make my first son’s food. We did applesauce (which I just peeled and put in the mini food processor – no cooking or anything like that), pears (same way), pureed carrots, plums, bananas, peaches, green beans, peas, all kinds of beans . . . oh, it was so much fun!! Of course, my second son didn’t like mush food, so we put him in semi-solids much earlier. He did green beans (canned, so they were soft), pasta, peaches, lunch meat . . . I dunno. I got lazy with him!!
We skipped baby food altogether with our second child. I would just chop up whatever we were eating in to teeny tiny pieces and feed them to the baby. I’d make sure to cook (or not cook so much) any food for baby to make sure it was soft enough to swallow. Much less fuss! I just got so tired of cleaning up the baby food mess and since the morsels of food were teeny weeny and soft, he did just fine! (And he’s the better eater out of the two, also!)
My first was like yours and was begging for our food at 4 months. He also spit up the rice cereal. Although most kids have an allergy to the soy in rice cereal, he was actually allergic to the rice. It took him 3 years to outgrow his allergy.
My second waited until about 5 months to start looking at food. He is now 11 months and is about to eat us out of how and home. I started both my boys on veggies but I don’t think it really matters what you start them with.
My youngest just started on veggies….we began with butternut squash, and she loves it. LOVES IT! It has a pretty mild, slightly sweet flavor. I guess they’re not in season now, but it was still pretty cheap and easy to cook up; one squash got me 12 cubes, plus another serving. I actually came to your site for inspiration of what to cook up next.
Definitely sweet potatoes and squash. Some applesauce mixed into the oatmeal. And peas. Loved those peas!
We started with cereals then banana, avocado, and onto others, but banana and avocado are still our and her favorites! We are just getting started with table foods. Check out wholesomebabyfood.com, its a great resource!
I’ve heard rice cereal can cause that reaction. (Happened repeatedly with my niece) I’ve heard the suggestion that dairy intolerance could be the culprit. (which may be short lived). We kind of like to do table foods pretty early, it makes you prepare more soft foods, thats’ for sure!
ah! I just love when babies start eating solids. I think it is so fun. I also enjoyed the making it part. I think we started my daughter with sweet potatoes and carrots. She sure wasn’t on solids for long though. That girls loves her food!
What fun!! My little one started on avacado, and he is now 2 1/2 and still screams for “cado” or “mole” for guacamole when he sees it. he loves it. We steamed alot of food that we liked for those months and then pureed it, poured it into ice trays and froze it, the thawed for meals. it was nice and easy, and he still loves to eat. Wishing you fun and easy to whatever you choose there are lots of options, she will guide you..
I’ve had 2 very different experiences with introducing solid foods. I’ve had great luck just feeding regular baby-friendly foods to my second child. I wrote about it here:
http://eco-novice.blogspot.com/2010/05/baby-eats-normal-food-simple-cheap-and.html
Egg yolk was my daughter’s first food. We go by the Weston A. Price Foundation for nutritional information. They actually say NOT to introduce ANY grains till 2 years of age.
Here is a great link from one of my favorite nutritional blogs explaining why.
http://thehealthyhomeeconomist.blogspot.com/2010/05/right-way-to-feed-babies.html
This is my 3rd and he just turned 6 months on Sept. 2nd. His first food was avacado and then bannana. Now him and my 3 year old share a bannana every morning for breakfast. He still has avacado a couple times a week. We are moving slow and feeding table foods not purees. Oh we also tried applesauce but my son clearly hates that.
[...] meaning to give you an update on Tessa and feeding
and fill in some of the back story between the moving to cereal
post and moving to solids post. Ugh! Where does time go? At any
rate, let’s get back on [...]
We started first with banana at 3 months and a half, then
apple, baby cereals, low fat yogurt, low fat cheese – after a
recipe which is especially designed for babies.
Egg yolk [from free range chickens and fresh, if poossible, but not the white part], bananas, sweet potatoes, avacados, greek organic yogurt are all eccellent.
AVOID ‘WHITE RICE CEREAL’[OR ANY PROCESSED CEREAL FOR THAT MATTER] and ALSO AVOID ‘all’ LOW FAT, NO FAT FOODS, SOY. CORN OIL, SUGAR [HFCS] ETC. Babies need the ‘good fats’ FOR A HEALTHY brain and body.