Verified answer

Okay, racking the memory here.

Older daughter, tried to start her at around 4-5 months on cereals. Did not show much interest. Eventually got her to eat cereal and then introduced fruits. They usually ended up on my shoulder. At 6 months, while on vacation, we noticed that she was trying to grab forks and spoons from us and we said, okay, lets try fruit again. She took to it immediately.

Younger daughter, completely different story. She was a bigger baby to start, refused to be supplemented with formula and we started cereal at around 4 months and she loved it. Slowly introduced the strained baby food and had no problems.

The only foods I would not give them was the strained meats. They didn't appeal to me and I didn't think they would appeal to my children. So until they could chew, they were essentially vegetarians and thrived.

I think 6 to 9 months is the recommended age. Cereal at 5 and solids a 6 should be fine if your baby is showing interest in eating it.

My second child had nothing but breast milk for a full year and she grew just fine. (Had a feeding tube, so totally different circumstance)

Watch your baby for signs that he/she is ready for solids. Not just what the pediatrician says.

i all started solids at 5 a million/2 months. contemporary advice IS to attend until 6 months except infant is obviously waiting slightly faster. (undergo in suggestions, basically using fact they say you 'can' commence solids at 4 months doesnt' propose you ought to, or that it will benefit him in any way.) once you commence, no count if at 4 months or 6 months, there is no rule you ought to grant cereal first. a infant who's waiting for solids can eat end result or vegetables basically besides. (the only benefit to cereal is that it somewhat is much less high priced and bother-free to mixture up in small quantities, so there is way less waste for a infant who's basically taking a teaspoon at a meal.)

I tried introducing solids at 6 months, but he was just not interested. So we put it off for a bit and then tried reintroducing at 9 months.... still not ready. So we waited a bit more. After a few times of trying to reintroduce, he finally took to solids between 14-15 months.

We skipped cereals and purees and went straight to large pieces of soft foods that he could feed himself (baby-led weaning). We find cereals unnecessary, they are overly processed, tasteless, and texture-less.

I started with about a tsp of cereal at about 4 months, and jarred at about 6...

i started hunter on cereal at 2 months and baby food at 3 months but i would do whatever you feel you think is right for her

Yep, that is perfect timing! Waiting until those ages helps to make sure your babies digestive system is mature enough to handle those foods at that time, & it is healthier for them in the long run to start at those times!

Yeah that is the advice given these days.

All mammals are protected by the same thing -they can't physically eat food until they are physiologically ready to digest it. For humans this means picking up the food, placing it in their mouth, gumming it, moving it back with their tongue, and swallowing it. The most obvious of course it the tongue thrust that newborns have -this reflex actively keeps food out of their body until they can digest it. But the other steps all have safeguards as well.

For healthy, full term infants the ability to eat food develops around 6-9 months. In recent years there have been numerous studies looking at the risks of certain things (allergies, asthma, anemia, etc) in relation to when solids are started and almost all have shown that the lowest risks are when solids are started between 6-9 months.

However it should also be noted that babies with allergies may refuse solids for up to a year, and that breastmilk is nutritionally complete for at least the first year of life despite earlier statements that it is not. An unpleasant feeling in the mouth is often a first sign of allergy and may cause babies to spit out rather than swallow allergenic foods. This is a very useful safeguard that should not be overridden.

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...

The following organizations recommend that all babies be exclusively breastfed (no cereal, juice or any other foods) for the first 6 months of life (not the first 4-6 months):

* World Health Organization

* UNICEF

* US Department of Health & Human Services

* American Academy of Pediatrics

* American Academy of Family Physicians

* American Dietetic Association

* Australian National Health and Medical Research Council

* Royal Australian College of General Practitioners

* Health Canada

Why Delay Solids?

http://kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/del...

http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/fit18.asp

No, you should wait until he is six months old, unless he is not gaining weight and your doctor advises you to start earlier. This subject keeps coming up, and the answer is still the same: the current recommendations (I didn’t make these up) are to wait until six months before starting solids. Starting foods too early can result in digestive or allergy problems later in life. We have learned that the old guidelines of 4 months are just too soon, and I am willing to bet that in ten years we will be recommending later than 6 months. But for now, the six month guideline seems reasonable. Click here, or here, to read previous FAQ's on starting solids or learn more by reading our Starting Solid Foods article.

WHY WAIT? 6 REASONS

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/t032000...

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...

It appears that a baby's general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it.

Pureed baby food is 'unnatural'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...

She said children should be fed only with breast or formula milk for six months, then weaned onto solids to improve control over how much they ate.

This could prevent babies becoming picky about food.

[...]

Solids best

After six months, Mrs Rapley said babies were capable of taking food into their mouths and chewing it.

Therefore, feeding them pureed food at this time could delay the development of chewing skills.

Instead, she said, they should be given milk and solid pieces of food which they could chew.

Mrs Rapley argued that babies fed pureed food had little control over how much food they ate, thus rendering them vulnerable to constipation, and running a risk that they would react by becoming fussy eaters later in life.

She blamed the food industry for convincing parents that they should give children pureed food.

She said: "Sound scientific research and government advice now agree that there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids."

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...

The babies who participated in the research were allowed to begin at four months. But they were not able to feed themselves before six months. Some of the younger babies picked food up and took it to their mouths; some even chewed it, but none swallowed it. Their own development decided for them when the time was right. Part of the reason for this study was to show (based on a theory of self-feeding) that babies are not ready for solid food before six months. It seems that we have spent all these years working out that six months is the right age and babies have known it all along!

It seems reasonable to predict that if parents choose to provide babies with the opportunity to pick up and eat solid food from birth they will still not be able to do it until around six months. The principle is the same as putting a newborn baby on the floor to play: he is being provided with the opportunity to walk but will not do so until about one year – because his own development stops him. But: everything depends on the baby being in control. Food must not be put into his mouth for him. Since it is very tempting to do this, it is probably safer to recommend that babies should not be given the opportunity to eat solid food before six months.

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...

Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have learnt to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get the food into his mouth in the first place. On the other hand, the action used to suck food off a spoon tends to take the food straight to the back of the mouth, causing the baby to gag. This means that spoon feeding has its own potential to lead to choking – and makes one wonder about the safety of giving lumpy foods off a spoon.

Why not cereal?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page...

Take rice cereal, for example. Under conventional American wisdom, it's the best first food. But Butte says iron-rich meat — often one of the last foods American parents introduce — would be a better choice.

Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.

"These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.

The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...

Cereal is not at all necessary, particularly the baby cereals. Regular (whole grain) oatmeal is more nutritious for your baby.

http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/ci2.asp

The truth is, there is nothing special about these foods that makes them better to start out with. Babies don't actually even need rice cereal

http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec...

Meat provides additional protein, zinc, B-vitamins, and other nutrients which may be in short supply when the decrease in breast milk occurs. A recent study from Sweden suggests that when infants are given substantial amounts of cereal, it may lead to low concentrations of zinc and reduced calcium absorption (Persson 1998). Dr. Nancy Krebs has shared preliminary results from a large infant growth study suggesting that breastfed infants who received pureed or strained meat as a primary weaning food beginning at four to five months, grow at a slightly faster rate. Dr. Krebs' premise is that inadequate protein or zinc from complementary foods may limit the growth of some breastfed infants during the weaning period. Both protein and zinc levels were consistently higher in the diets of the infants who received meat (Krebs 1998). Thus the custom of providing large amounts of cereal products and excluding meat products before seven months of age may not meet the nutritional needs of all breastfed infants.

Meat has also been recommended as an excellent source of iron in infancy. Heme iron (the form of iron found in meat) is better absorbed than iron from plant sources. In addition, the protein in meat helps the baby more easily absorb the iron from other foods. Two recent studies (Makrides 1998; Engelmann 1998) have examined iron status in breastfed infants who received meat earlier in the weaning period. These studies indicate that while there is not a measurable change in breastfed babies' iron stores when they receive an increased amount of meat (or iron), the levels of hemoglobin circulating in the blood stream do increase when babies receive meat as one of their first foods.

http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou...

Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a bab