starting solid... how much to feed?

Gataloca

Gataloca

Registered User
I started giving my baby his first taste of solid few days ago. I am not planing to wean him completely or to reduce his breastmilk intake, as he is just 4 1/2 month old. I just want to introduce him to a range of solid food before I go back to work when he is 6 month old, as I will not be able to be around to watch for any food reaction by then.

My question is, how much solid should I give him? I started with baby rice, and actually he loved it! I read that the baby would eat like 1 to 2 teaspoon, so I mixed 1 tsp of rice with 3 or milk, which made around 4 tsps of cereal. Today I fed it one hour after he had his regular milk feed, so that the solid will not replace his milk intake, and he ate it all, and cried for more! Should I feed him more next time? ..... Again, this is just for him to taste the solid, not to replace or reduce the amount of milk he should eat each day.... poor thing... he was so disappointed when there was no more baby rice. I let him lick the spoon, after that he started crying.... :haha:
 
no, i would NOT feed him any more. it may even be too much. his digestive system may not be able to handle it. also, he could develop constipation quite quickly.
 
I've started to feed my 4 1/2 months little girl 2 weeks ago. I gave her one tea spoon of rice cereal mixed with my milk so it would be quite liquid, and did this for 4 or 5 days. Then I added the equivalent of a tea spoon of apple puree in the afternoon. She loves eating and she is surely asking for more, but I also want her digestive system to get slowly used to it. So far she had no constipation problem so I just go on. This morning she had 2 teaspoons of rice cereals, and I plan to give her one more every week. On top of that, I didn't change anything to my breastmilk supply as milk stays the main source of nutrients.
 
Thanks a lot. I wasn't sure if I should let him eat as much as he wants, as he seems to love it. I plan to feed him a new single food every 4 days, like banana, apple, pumpkin, etc. before mixing them up.
 
you don't generally give the baby just starting solids ONLY banana or ONLY apple. you mix it with the rice cereal, otherwise it is too difficult for the baby to digest AND the flavours are too strong.
 
weaning so early increases the possible food allergies. To be honest if you really want to start so early I'd just stick to rice for now and introduce other food at 5 months or even a bit later. I know you worry about going back to work but to be honest you will have more worries if your child turns out to be allergic to stuff - my baby is and it's a pain. I started at 5 months and now wish I waited longer.
 
Agree with Mela, the general advice is to wait until six months now, I understand why you want to do it earlier but you don't have to introduce 3 meals a day when you start him on solids - milk can be their main source of nutrition up until about a year old as their digestive system slowly matures and adapts to the solids so there's no problem in starting him off slowly at six months, say for one meal a day, when you're around if you're worried about allergies.
 
Thanks a lot for the feedback. I just thought that it would be easier for me if the helper could feed solids to the baby. Because I don't know how convenient it would be for me to express milk at work... I am thinking that I will be able to breastfeed the baby early in the morning, and at night before bed. Probably can manage to express some milk for 1 or 2 feed if I pump at work during lunch break, and at midnight (provided that he doesn't need a midnight feed)..... Don't know if my supply will drop.... Of course, I guess I can introduce formula as well....
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You can introduce formula for the day. Either way 6 months is way too early to drop the milk for the baby. Solids at that stage are to supplement the milk not to replace. I totally understand where you are coming from and I remember worrying about it a lot when my baby was little but you will work it out in no time. I really recommend Gina Ford's book in weaning - it takes you through weaning schedules and shows you how to do it. I used it to help me work out the amounts of food and the frequency. However as I said earlier all books and most doctors recommend waiting until 6 months. The extra benefit also is you can then introduce new stuff much quicker. To stop your milk supply from dropping you need to pump when at work - even if it's pump and dump. I also started storing milk away in the freezer if I had any extra so my helper was able to give it to the baby when I was away.
 
formula would be lot better than three solids at this age. you would need to slowly introduce solids, settle each meal in and then start the next. and it's not very reliable either - babies change their preferences and their amounts all the time. you'll see your bub refusing to eat food X which he absolutely loved a while back :) and refuse food altogether some time. and polish off whole bowl next day etc etc etc. the thing is their system is too immature to handle too much solids; and milk would be the primary "food" source for a few more months to come.
 
Yes, I know I should not replace milk for solid at this age. I just wanted him to taste different food before we mix them together. I am just giving him feed teaspoon of solid just once a day after his regular breastmilk feed, and trying not to reduce his daily milk intake at all.
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