Hellobee Boards

Cream of Wheat cereal is the only thing I can think of aside from toast maybe? I kind of did baby led weaning starting around 4 months, and I want to say he ate toast a little before 6 months.

@LBee: I totally forgot about those! They came out with these after my son was eating everything basically, but want to use them with baby #2. My husband is an allergy from living in a bubble so we went the course of introducing early on everything we could.

I have celiac too - I mixed a little fruit puree that I already knew she liked and tolerated well with the Beech Nut organic oatmeal baby cereal. I think we used either bananas or applesauce - it became one of her favorite meals!

@MaryM: I just used regular cream of wheat cereal, not one especially for babies. It has instructions for preparing for a baby on the container.

@Mrs.Someone: I’m thinking you mean Cheerios, not Cheetos as a first baby first

We just did lightly toasted bread cut into sticks, but we did mostly baby led weaning. Or well cooked pasta, like rotini are a bit easier to pick up. But I didn’t start until 6 months really.

@Foodnerd81: nope! Just like Macintosh said!

@MaryM: So this is me to the T. I have celiac and we had my two oldest tested whether they had the genetic components to develop celiac as well. Both of them did, we never got around to testing the twins. But with all four we introduced gluten early.

Luckily my parents are friends with one of the world's best celiac reseachers so I got a lot of good infos. She said current research indicated that starting gluten gradually with minimal amounts and then slowly (as in about monthly) increasing the amount of gluten. I acutally just used wheat flour with my first. With the other three I used a baby oatmeal that contained gluten. I used a spoon to measure it, so I would mix one small table spoon of plain wheat flour/oatmeal (it was labeled as 6+ months) at 16 weeks and mix it with breast milk and then feed it to LO. By 20 weeks I increased to 2 tablespoons. Then at 24 weeks I went to 4 table spoons and so forth until they had a normal sized portion of (gluten containing) baby oatmeal at around 10 months. Then I gave them unlimited gluten. Their diet was otherwise glutenfree up until that point. Mine were late to showing signs that they were ready for solids so I didn't introduce any other solids until 7 months.

So far all four seem to be doing fine on gluten (the twins are 17m, LO2 is 3.5 and LO1 5). Let me know if you have questions.

Toast, cut up into thin strips! That’s one of the first things we fed my second (we didn’t do BLW with our older baby). Or breadsticks were also a big hit.

Just secondin the above recommendation of Bamba for nuts. I'd also do a little almond and/or cashew milk maybe to try easy exposure to other nuts.

@MaryM: Thank you, this is really helpful!

@Sams Mom: Thank you - this is good to hear!

DH has lots of food allergies, so this was our method for introducing anything that he has an allergy to:
- Rub some on the foot or hand first so you can see if there will be a skin reaction. If so, obvi don't proceed with feeding until you check with the dr.
- Have a pre-measured dose of Benadryl ready.
- Only try allergenic foods on a day where 2 adults are home.
- Do it in the morning to monitor reaction all day long.
- If possible, do it on a weekday, so that if it's a mild reaction you can go to the doctor instead of the emergency room.

DH is allergic to melons, bananas, all nuts, lettuce, and mushrooms... sooooo...... we are maybe more cautious than most!

@DesertDreams88: These are awesome tips!

LO has fairly severe eczema - even after working out a treatment plan with a pediatric derm - which is also a red flag that food allergies may be at play. But on just bm I can't figure out what could be causing it (eliminating dairy didn't help). So I feel like between this and my allergies, we'll likely have a reaction to something....