6 Month Old Starting Solids... HELP

Every kid is different. I would start with just a tablespoon or two of cereal then increase it a little bit each day. Then maybe every 4 days or once a week, introduce a new food the same way. You'll get to know how much is not enough or too much. Don't be too hard on yourself.

If you want to make food I found a link for you with intructions on how to do it: http://www.nncc.org/Nutrition/make.babyfd.html

I started my first son on rice cereal at 6 months and he got really constipated so I started my second son (also at 6 months) with oatmeal (much better on his tummy). I fed them solids only once a day for a few months (you can pick the most convenient time for you). I fed them as much as they would eat.
They don't necessarily need the nutrients just yet at this age they're just learning to eat solids and experiencing the new tastes. I fed them only cereal for a few weeks before starting veggies. They say you should give them the same veggie every day for 2-3 days and watch for allergic reactions. So for about a month we just gave them single-food veggies (just peas, or just carrots, or sweet potatoes, etc). After that we did the same with fruits. Once they had eaten each veggie and fruit we would buy them mixed fruits or mixed veggies or mix them ourselves. AT this point we also started meats. It wasn't until about 9 months that we started giving them 2 meals of solids a day - the morning meal was the one was mixed with cereal.
We didn't change anything with their milk though. The solids are just supposed to be a supplement, not a replacement for anything since most of their nutrients are supposed to come from breast milk/forula until they're 1.
Hope that helps...

Hello M.

I have a 5 month old girl who has been on food for a month . I started with the rice cereal for about a week . then I gave her bananas for 3 days and did the same with pears, apple sauce, peaches and now she is on sweet potatoes and next is squash then peas....my Dr basically told me start with light color stuff first. not sure why....but I hope this helps

D.

I was the same way, freaked out and asked everyone what they did. Here is what worked for us: The first morning I started with 1 tbsp. of Earth's Best rice cereal and added 3-4 tbsp of breast milk. I did that for about a week to see how he did. I gradually added another tablespoon of the cereal and once he handled that I gave him 1-2 tbsp of cereal at dinner time. My pediatrician suggested 1 meal for 2 weeks, then add dinner for 2 weeks then all three meals for the 5th and 6th week. He was having cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, not all 4 tbsp at each meal. About 1-3 tbsp., depending on his hunger at the time. You can also introduce applesauce once you see she can tolerate the cereal and they say to wait 3-4 days per new food. Once my son was good with a food I would just add it to a meal, so I added applesauce or pear or banana to breakfast. He had veggies and fruit for lunch and then cereal , veggie and fruit for dinner. If you are making her food there is a great cookbook, First Meals (onestepahead.com) you can cook and freeze meals, and wholesomebabyfood.com is also a great site.
Good luck and have fun with it!
Hope this helps!

Hi M.,

I am mom to an almost 8 month old and she has developed into quite the little piglet :) I started with rice cereal for a week or two, but it bound her up big time so now I use barley or oatmeal which she eats happily. My doctor said start with green veggies (so she didn't get used to sweet stuff only ...) I started out with Gerber organics. I finally made the move to making my own food, with a little help from the Mommy Made cookbook - now in the freezer we have cubes of sweet peas, string beans and carrot purees. Next month I will start with fruit. I mix the purees with the cereals and she LOVES it!

Good luck, I am sure you'll do fine!

- R.

Oh my gosh-I remember the confusion so well. And none of the books seem too helpful, just more confusion. Basically if your doctor said you can start food-go for it. There are a few solid signs that they are ready; strength (ie, they can sit up and eat sludgey foods with out slumping and choking), interest (they can't stay away from the food on your plate), and development (they are growing so fast that formula doesn't keep them full-or they have some teeth and need to use them!) That all seems to come together at about 6 months-but many people believe waiting just a little bit longer has shown to keep diabetes rates lower, at 8 months. Don't let that stress you out-get going if you feel in your gut that she is ready.
My doctor always said to trust my gut over many people's advice!
You start with a "cereal" (the fine-powdered stuff in boxes) and there are about 5 or more kinds. I did what everyone advised and started with rice (the mildest and least prone to allergies) and BOTH of my kids HATED IT and I wasted alot of money listening to people. (I kept trying and then finally tasted it myself and realized my babies had a point!) I started with oatmeal instead-then moved to mixed grains and stuck with it.
Just try a table spoon of cereal, mixed with formula-nothing else, 2 times a day at your meal times, to start with. Do that for AT LEAST 3 days. This way if some funny rash (or another allergy-like symptom developes) you will know exactly what new thing it was that you fed your baby and may have caused a reaction. After a week try a new cereal, OR stick with the same one and add one ingredient, ie apples.
Theere is alot of advice on whether to give them fruit or veggis first-i started with veggis out of sheer health interest. Some people are afraid of rejection so they go for the sweet fruit-but believe me. Food is fun for babies and they truly don't know what they are missing if they haven't had it before!
Slow and steady, observe for reaction. After a few weeks it will pick up speed and you will be introducing new stuff every few days.
But keep it simple at the start-for your baby and your own sanity!
Have fun swabbing the decks, have a camera ready-
M. P

#1 Rule, when you introduce something new to your child keep feeding that type of food to her for a couple of days,and don't introduce to many new things to her at once ( that way if she get's a beely ache you can STOP feeding her that type and know what it was that didn't agree with her). #2)Rule alternate between a "orange" colored food and a different color food because if you feed her nothing but carrots and sweet potatoes ( for example) she will turn a orangish tint color ( it goes away but someone forgot to tell me that one HA HA), to many bannana's will make her constipated, and your fruits that begin with "P" will make her poop.
Ok now down to feeding her: solid foods give them to her for breakfast, I started off with the fruit and I MIXED it with their cereal. I put the fruit into the cereal like I would have done with the water and then put a little bit of water into it so it wasn't so clumpy. Then for supper/dinner I would give her some more cereal and fruit together. As a copule of weeks went by I started noticing that her bottles weren't holding her through the entire day so I added lunch in there, by this time we started having vegies for lunch and supper and the fruit was still being mixed in with our cereal for breakfast.And we were also having a juice bottle with our breakfast too. Just take it one day at a time and your little one will start to let you know that they are ready for more food during the day.!!! Good luck and get the camera ready because those facial expressions when they get their frist bite of real food are ones that you are going to want to keep in their books!!!!!!!!!!!