Baby First Food

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Fisona

Registered User
Hi all,

My baby is 4 months old and I would like to let him try drinking juice.

I know people usually try giving baby apple or pear juice first, is there any other juice I can feed him with?

I am also looking around for suitable baby cereal, any good suggestions?
 
I know my husband's first "food" was orange juice but that was almost 40 years ago. These days it is suggested to go with a rice cereal (or what used to be called farrex) mixed with milk (EMB or formula). Less harsh on the tummy. I used the brand Holle which is organic and can be found at Citysuper, 360 and several other supermarkets.
 
I would wait till 6 months old before introducing any solids. I started mine with rice cereal (Earth's Best, Organix, Bellamy's, lots of good brands in ThreeSixty, GREAT or Park N Shop International) mixed with formula milk. However, it caused serious constipation. You could consider starting with apple puree. Check out this website on what to do:-

Wholesome Homemade Baby Food Recipes, Make your baby healthy homemade baby food with our easy baby food recipes, solid food tips, baby nutrition & more!
 
Thanks for your replies.

Oze Kid, my MIL wants to feed my baby with orange juice, I've told her not to coz I've read an article about the negative effect orange may have on babies. Is this true?
 
orange juice is acidic and more allergenic than other fruits like apples or pears. i agree with city jammer in that you should consider waiting because it could cause constipation (not to mention trigger allergies) if your baby is only 4 months old. any particular reason you are starting him on solids now as opposed to waiting a month or two?
 
We went with rice and formula milk. Followed by the other grain cereals (barley, oat, multi), a new one every couple of weeks to make sure we didn't uncover any allergies.
And why not water instead of juice?
 
We also started with rice cereal and then moved on to pureed fruit (pears and apples steamed, peeled and pureed). The other issue with juice is that it often contains loads of sugar or at least the ratio of sugar to other nutrients is much higher than in the fruits themselves.

Also think four months seems a bit young, but if your child enjoys the solids and doesn't get so much that it reduces the milk that s/he is getting, I suppose that's neither here or there.
 
I would hold off on the juice as they still have immature digestive systems. Just stick with milk at this stage. If not, perhaps water once its gets hot and humid.

Remember that you are your babies mother and not the MIL!!
 
just a reminder: all "baby" apple juice/pear juice is is diluted regular juice... nothing else.

save yourself HEAPS of $... buy regular apple juice and dilute it...we used to do about 1:4 juice:water...my kids are now 3 & 5 and still have diluted juice, but now, it's 1:2.
 
We started the baby cereal/food at about 6 months, though.
First just the grains and then moved to mixing in the pureed fruits and vegetables.
Never started down the juice path, so saving even more money than carang saved.
 
LOL! i think we did juice because i'm not a huge water drinker... i can ONLY drink almost ice cold water, any other makes me almost gag.

so we did juice. actually it was so diluted it wasn't far off of water! i'm glad my kids drink plain water, too, though.
 
My son started with rice cereal with formula at 4 1/2 months and gradually move to pureed food (fruits, sweet potatoe), eye yolks and so on.

Don't start with orange juice (even freshly squeezed), too acidic for young toddlers.
 
I don't see anything wrong with starting the baby on solids before 6 months (mine started at just before 5 months), but I don't think they need to drink juice before then as for the first 6 months milk is the only essential fluid they need. Fruit juices, even diluted ones, still have sugar and you don't need to curb the baby's appetite for milk.
For cereals, I liked Earth's Best the most as the box lasted a long time (1 month max after opening). Healthy Times is good, and has a nice consistency for early eaters but it doesn't last long and so is bad value for money.
 
i couldn't wait till 6 months to introduce solids to my bub coz he would eye-up and lick his lips everytime we had our "adult" dinner even though he'd just got fed.

we know our bubs best so we don't have to follow the guidebook line by line. i introduced solids to him just before he turned 5 months too and he loved it!! if he didn't then i wouldn't have continued but wait. he still had EBM/formula with the solids and he loves plain water (i add gripe water on the morning feed).
 
carang said:
LOL! i think we did juice because i'm not a huge water drinker... i can ONLY drink almost ice cold water, any other makes me almost gag.

so we did juice. actually it was so diluted it wasn't far off of water! i'm glad my kids drink plain water, too, though.
Click to expand...

Still saving money because the kids don't really like juice and soda. They have tried both, but just prefer water.
Although the youngest has a sweet tooth, can tell already.

If I remember my baby books correctly, you are supposed to judge the baby as an individual and the baby sort of lets you know when it is ready for solids. Some will be 6 months (which I am guessing would be "normal") but some will be 5, some 7, etc.... Not everyone is the same.
 
The recommendation is to avoid juices before 1 year because of the relatively high proportion of sugar per volume vs nutrients. Natural sugar but still sugar. So definitely not a good first food.
Not really sure why the rush to give the baby anything other than milk at such a young age,even if it doesn't do any harm it isn't going to be any benefit so why not wait?
 
I'd agree, four months is young - it's generally recommended to wait till around six months but you know your own baby best.

Fruit juice really isn't the best first food anyway for all the reasons everybody's already covered - acidic, sugary, not as good for them as you would think and just not necessary.

If I were you I'd wait for two months and then start with some whole fruits and veggies rather than juices then they'll be getting the fibre as well.
 
starting solids is really dependent on each baby...usually it's if they aren't getting enough with milk then you'd supplement with solids (in my case I used rice cereal...made it with the formula she was drinking).

i'd avoid juice for now...soon enough (6mths approx) you can give fruit puree (apple, pear - which I made with lots of water so it wouldn't be so sweet...already very sweet for them though cause they haven't tried something like that before) orange juice (and any fruit that is acidic, i believe should be avoided until after 1 - can't remember where I read that)...
 
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