Have you seen this yet? Introducing solids before 4 months!? WOW.... (breastfeeding, orphan)
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Seems a bit young for solids. Especially the 9% of people asked who gave solids before one month. Are they nuts? We never bothered with the rice cereal at all. It's just junk food with no nutritional value. Exclusive breastfeeding until around 6 months. Then we started introducing pureed beans, apples, bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots. Meats like chicken and turkey a few months later.
advice like this goes back and forth. My mother was taught to only BF for a few weeks- it was not encouraged for uper class women at all and she about had a fit when I refused to give my son anything other than me for about his first 8 months. Son was healthy, growing just fine and had no interest so why force him. He's now 6'1 doing just great.( 3 other adopted kids I could not nurse)
I had friends who caved into what their mothers were advocating who started cereals, etc way too early. I hope more parents become aware of the necessity to breastfeed as long as possible and to hod off on the solids. Also when my kids did start eating I took the time to puree my own people food and froze it in ice
trays I bought prepared baby foods for emergencies like travelling, etc.
advice like this goes back and forth. My mother was taught to only BF for a few weeks- it was not encouraged for uper class women at all and she about had a fit when I refused to give my son anything other than me for about his first 8 months. Son was healthy, growing just fine and had no interest so why force him. He's now 6'1 doing just great.( 3 other adopted kids I could not nurse)
I had friends who caved into what their mothers were advocating who started cereals, etc way too early.
I know I did. I wish it had occurred to me before that my SIL's weird eating habits could be a result of her mother's freakish obsession with making sure the kids are eating "enough" by some absolutely incomprehensible standard that has nothing to do with health.
That is pretty awful although I don't think its always because the parents are ignorant or just following the advice of their mothers. Some parents I know gave their young infants baby rice to treat reflux because their doctors wouldn't prescribe medication.
I did baby led weaning, started at 5 and a half months when she tried helping herself to my pizza so I offered a whole banana instead, didn't bother with purees at all.
The 4 to 6 months thing has only been started recently actually. In the early 70s pediatricians advised starting solid food at around 6 to 8 weeks. Nursing was still encouraged and most of the nutrition was supposed to be from nursing, but solid foods were started to get kids used to the texture and tastes.
go ahead and flame me now. I had my oldest on solids starting at 3 months. I breast fed unil about six weeks. I was fine with continuing, but he was done with me. He just wouldn't breast feed. I put him on formula. The boy would eat every two hours and want more. At three months the doc suggested son get 'thick formula'. Basically formula with a little rice cereal. ahhhh the peace! He started getting enough to eat. At 4 months, I started feeding him with a spoon and widened his varieties of food. I had an old fashioned hand crank food grinder. Whatever we were having for dinner, he got a taste of. He would eat anything. He is now 6 foot tall with a 30inch waist. And picky about what he eats! Sometime in elementary school he decided he would never eat anything green again. The only odd thing about his diet... if you want to call it odd... is he is allergic to shellfish. Not anaphylaxis allergic, but benedryl allergic, which is a shame because he likes shellfish.
What doctors suggest change all the time. For instance, they used to say no pb until 1 yr and now they are starting to backtrack on that thinking the delay of introducing pb for a year may be reason of so many allergies (which I also believe to be true) and now they are saying to introduce earlier.
My son was born in 1989 and back then pediatricians advised waiting until 6 months for solid food. However, at a little over 4 months, my son started waving at our food and opening his mouth when we were eating dinner, so I asked the doctor, and he said to go ahead and start him on solids. He still nursed for many months, but he wanted his solid food, too. He was always in the 95th+ percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight, so he needed more calories!
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Are they nuts? We never bothered with the rice cereal at all. It's just junk food with no nutritional value. Exclusive breastfeeding until around 6 months. Then we started introducing pureed beans, apples, bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots. Meats like chicken and turkey a few months later.
