Hellobee Boards

I wanted to go straight to purees at 6 months and the pediatrician was ok with it, if I could get LO to eat enough meat for the iron. That was super hard. So I feed her baby oatmeal for the iron. I also use it to thicken purees for her. Butternut squash came out very liquidy, for example.

We started a week before six months, and we did blw so no purees or cereal to start, just very soft roasted or steamed fruits and veg. I did give her oatmeal sometimes because she saw me eating mine and wanted some, but it was real oatmeal, not baby.

I had read a lot on the internet, and read the blw book, and didn't feel there was any benefit to rice cereal. I figured breastmilk was best for her, so why fill her tummy with rice cereal which wouldn't offer any extra nutrition or prime her to like a variety of foods later on.

Tht said, she never seemed to be anxious for more than the breastmilk and never had weight gain issues. If she had I would have been more open to it.

I went straight to purees at 5.5 months. I did a lot of research on when to introduce solids in the 4-6 months range, and I could not find much either way, only that before 4 months is very bad, and after 6 months is somewhat bad. Breastfeeding advocates recommended 6 months, but I could not find any data to back that up. There is some evidence that introducing allergic food earlier, closer to 4 months, prevents food allergies. My pediatrician recommended starting at 4 months, but I was not comfortable with that. In the end I went with my gut, LO was sitting almost independently, and seemed interested in food, so I went with it. The pediatrician never said anything about cereal, so I did not introduce it. He has tried cereal, but not first, just to add more variety to his diet. At 8.5 months he is still not into solids, but has been growing fine. He has generally been 90th percentile in height and 50th in weight.

We tried to go straight to purees at 6 months, but my son wasn't having any of it. I ended up having to go back to rice cereal to really ease him into it (since you can make it nice and liquidy and mix it with BM so the taste is what they are used to).