everyone tells us not to feed baby until he is 4 to 6 months old my mom keeps telling me it is ok to start baby on ceral now just by putting a little rice ceral in Bottle he was born dec. 19th help me out please.
She say it will him him sleep better at night he is uasally waking up every 2 to 3 hours
No cereal before 4 months at the earliest--their tummies don't digest this yet. It is a myth it will make them sleep longer. And when baby is ready (4-6months) put it in a bowl with a bit of his formula/breast milk and feed it on a spoon. There is never a need for a baby to learn to drink solid foods! Tell mom, thanks for the suggestion, but doc says no and so do you.
There is new formula out now with rice protien added for babies under 4 months old who just aren't getting full on formula alone. Trust me it's a life saver. My daughter never seemed to stay full. It was great . I started all my kids on it at 2 months. All 4 did great with no problems and by night 3 I was getting sleep it was SO GREAT!!!!!. hOPE THIS HELPS.
i dont think he is ready for cereal just yet myself. true he may sleep most of the night or he could wake up with quite the stomach ache. 4 months is early enough to try some more solid foods.
He is NOT ready to be on cereal. Your mom is giving you advice that goes against current medical wisdom.
He is only 2.5 months old - he's not supposed to sleep through the night. People who have children who do at this age are much more the exception than the norm. Babies stomachs are simply not large enough at this age to be able to hold enough in them to keep them filled more than a few hours at a time.
The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend starting solids until 4-6 months. Both of our kids started at 4 months because they were solidly on the growth chart and were thriving.
Call your pediatrician and get their advice. The most important thing you can do for your child is nurture and love him at this age. Unfortunately, we have to make personal sacrifices (such as our own sleep) to provide this to them.
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/f...
I believe the American Pediatric Association (not sure of the name) reccomends starting at 6 months on solid foods. There are a host of problems with introducing solids, even rice cereal to infants too soon, including allergies and digestive problems. Consult your Doctor and give it a search on the internet, you can use the info as a defense with your mother. It might be time to lay your boundaries with her where you patiently expliain that her insight is helpful, appriciated and invaluable, but ultimately YOU are the mother now and will make the descisions. Go with what you see id right for your baby, and don't be swayed....the conventional thinking has progressed much over the last 20 years. Good luck, Mommy!
When I had my daughter I had alot of advise. For me, the best advise was to differentiate between her "nap" time and "night-time." I put her in her crib ONLY when it was night-time. When she went down for a nap, it was in different places, i.e. my bed, her playpen, couch, etc.
After about a week, she knew that when she was in her crib, it was night-time and would realize that meant she needed to sleep until morning. She was sleeping through the night (from 8:30pm to 7:30am) at 5-6 months.
Hope this helps.
I understand. I follwed what my daughter's doctor said give cereal at 4 to 6 months. The baby is not supposed to be sleeping through the night. Even with cereal he may not sleep through the night. My daughter did not sleep through the night until she was 2. Some say bathe them with lavender baby wash. If he sleeps mostly during the day, he is doing what he is supposed to do. Sounds like mommy needs the sleep. All babies are different they sleep through the night at different times. Good Luck.
putting cereal in his bottle is not going to help him sleep. I know that some people have done this with their babies and it worked but that does not mean that you should do it.When I had my first child at 22 I listened to my moms advice and put cereal in her formula when she was 2 months old. That was the worst thing I could have done. I ended up being up more with her during the night becaue it gave her tummy troubles. Some babies start sleeping through the night earlier than others that is just the way it is. I have three children and they all started sleeping through the night at different times. I have a 4 month old right now and she started sleeping through the night about a month ago. I was kinda shocked when she started sleeping through the night cause she is a breastfed baby and breastmilk digest quicker than formula. Just rememeber that this is just a short period of time in your childs life. Before you know it he will be sleeping through the night. Just enjoy the snuggle time with him now cause they sure do grow up quick.
I am not sure there are any answers for a baby that young. Babies tend to wake during the night for various reasons, illness, growth spurts, teething, etc, for the first one to two years. I think that unrealistic goals are taught to young mothers about babies sleeping through the night therefore unfair expectations put moms under a lot of pressure.
My daughter began sleeping through the night at 2 mo, with nursing only. She would sleep 8-12 hours with nothing in her belly but breastmilk. Howeve at app. 11mo she began teething and my sleeping through the night baby was gone!. I also now a mom that started solids early, 4mo, hoping that her baby would sleep longer at night, but it did not help. All babies are different and have different needs. If you think that she is hungery you could try giving her her formula/nursing more often in the late afternoon/evening hours. I think it is called cluster feeding or something like that. that helps some babies sleep longer stretches at night. I would not feed the rice cereal through the bottle. If you decide to give cereal early, give it on a spoon.
Only you can know what is best for you and your child. Don't let anyone pressure you including mom. Do what you are comfortable with and what is good for your family.
It's a myth that giving ceral in a bottle or even before bed will make him sleep longer.
Him waking up every 2-3 hrs is pretty normal. Ignore what mom says in this case and feed him on demand. He and everyone else will be alot happier for it. he could end up with a tummy ache and then you have a baby fussing not cause he hungry , which you can fix, but he's got a hurt tummy , something you cant fix.
When I was trying to get my baby to start sleeping through the nights I did put a little rice cereal in his bottle. I also started feeding him less often during nighttime. For instance I would let him wake me up once to eat and then the other times he woke up I would simply put his pacifier back in his mouth and make sure he was covered. He didn't always go right back to sleep so I would just check on him every 10 min. or so. Every now and then I would get him out and rock him. Probably after a week he was only eating one bottle around midnight and then he slept through most of the rest of the night. Until then... if you ever get the smallest opportunity to nap during the day, take it!
What does the pediatrition say?
The reason they do not want you to intoduce foods to early is two fold. It seems the earlier you intoduce new foods the more likely the incedance of food allergies will develope. Also if your child does have a bad reaction to a new food the medications available to help your child are limited and pose greater risk to a child younger than 4 months. Neither one of these scenarios is worth extending the feeding interval by 1 hour which is what typaclly happens at this age.
Feedings every 2-3 hours are typical for children under 4 months. This means they will wake every 2-3 hours. Yes, some children on rare occasion do sleep through the night at that age but, that is because evey child is different and it is up to the child.
Nap often, it will be over soon you are over half way there!
my pediatrician told me to put a little rice cereal in my babies bottle when he was a little over a month old. she advised that a happy, well rested mommy is what is best for the baby..it did help him sleep in longer increments and he is now a healthy, happy, allergy free, average weight, fantastic 5 year old! you can certainly try it, it's not going to hurt your baby, see how it works and go from there. i agree that medicine has changed dramatically since we were children, but those that mothered before us still offer a wealth of information, experience is so valuable..
Do what your pediatrician says. There is so much research out there on why you don't give babies rice and food until they are six months old. You shouldn't feed your baby rice cereal when he/she is too young just to get he/she to sleep you could be causing way more harm than good. Some babies don't sleep through the night until they are 12 months old or older. My first didn't sleep through the night until he was 12 months old and my second started around 6 or 7 months - its just how babies are. I wish there was some magic sleep potion for babies but unfortunately there isn't.
My children range in age from 3 to 29 and I feed all of them from 10 days old. My oldest one had colic and I would never had gotten any sleep if I had not given her cereal and baby food, my next one ate almost 24 hours a day and if she had only had formula she would have never slept. This is your baby and you need to do what you feel is right for you. If you think you mother did a good job of raising you why not listen to her. I swear that now days Doctors are paid by formula and baby food companies to tell us that our child should only have their expensive products to keep us broke and frustrated as parents. Look at it this way millions of babies survived and were healthy adults who never had a bottle of formula and ate table food that their mothers fixed for them as soon as they ran out of milk themselves or the cow died.
My children are all healthy and have never had any health issue and in fact the oldest one was eating table food at 10 days old which included seafood because that was what we had.
My babies were born big and hungry (8+ lbs. each). By the time the 1st was 6 weeks old, he was getting a little rice cereal in his last bottle and this would at least get him to stay full and sleep from about 9 p.m. until 3:00 before he would wake for another bottle and then go back to sleep for a few hours. Our 2nd baby was getting rice cereal in her bottle around 8 weeks and had the same results. If not, they were too hungry to make it very long they would wake up in about 3 hours for another feeding. The cereal didn't bother their systems at all and they were much more content.
First off dont listent to "everyone" even your mother because things change and each baby/child is different. The best thing you can do is consult your physician or even just call the nurse at your childs pediatricians office. They are great at helping you trouble shoot. Everyone has an opinion.. Also you can google it. Here is a tip i found.. Hope this helps.
Your baby may be 3 months old or 4 months old when you start to feel she may need "something more" than formula or breast milk. Maybe she is beginning to awaken more often at night or eat more often than "usual" and you wonder if introducing solid foods may be what she needs.
a growth spurt will occur between 3-4 months of age. Your baby may begin to wake more frequently at night for a feeding and/or may begin to eat non-stop (cluster feed) as she once did as a newborn. This growth spurt often accounts for the increased hunger in your baby and it should not be taken as a sign that your baby needs solid foods added to her diet.
Try offering your baby more frequent nursing sessions and/or bottle feedings instead of solids; you will find that within a week or two, your baby is oftentimes over the growth spurt and back to feeding "as usual".
