Mixing Rice Cereal in Nightly Bottle?

Hi T.,

I have heard from numerous people, doctors including that it is not a good idea to put cereal in a bottle. What I have found was true- that babies will sleep longer only when they are developmentally ready, and every baby is different. First off- rice cereal or any cereal for that matter does not provide nearly as many calories as formula or breastmilk. Protein / fat is what is sustained and needs to be broken down slowly that metabolizes, so actually cereal isn't sitting in their little tummies to satisfy them. Give her a little more milk before she goes to bed, I have found that when I listen to my baby, he usually tells me what he needs. If he is full, he will go down in his crib very calmly and fall asleep. If I feed him what I think he needs, then put him down and he starts crying- usually the only reason is because he wants more eat. They will be satisfied with the formula- just give a little more. I started my son on 1-2 teaspoons of cereal at 4 1/2 months but mainly to practice swallowing and get him ready for other solids. He is a great little eater now at 7 months- but remember it is only supplemental at this point- the formula/breastmilk is the main nutrition.

Good Luck!

Hi T....with 32 ounces of formula a day shes is getting enough nutrition. My ped. recommended that I start putting rice cereal in my boys' bottles at 2 months. 1 tsp per every ounce. It makes the formula thicker and helped cut down on their spitup (believe it or not). I'm not sure it really helped with their hunger it all...in fact I didn't notice a change in their hunger levels. At 4 months we started with solids...first just at night and we fed them sweet potatoes and that seemed to last them through the night. I know they say solids are just for practice at that age...BUT our boys started sleeping through the night immediately after we started feeding them solids and we were able to cut back on the formula. At four months mine were doing 36 ounces a day. Now they are down to 24 and they are 8 months. As for the nipples I use the playtex bottles with the fast flow nipped and it works well. Sometimes you have a particle or two that gets stuck, but its easy to fix. I have a couple of advent bottle and it works with the variable speed nipples just as well for those. I am sure the fast flow nipples would also work.

i just used the medium flow nipples what i did was put like 1/2 a tspn into the formula mixed it up and then saw if it would come out the nipple when squeezed. if it did i added a lil more. i did the same thing you did with my daughter. also what worked for me was cluster feeding her at night -- feeding her rice cereal then 3oz of formula (about 1 1/2-2 hours before bed) then for bed i would mix the rice cereal in her bottle and feed her the normal amount. good luck!

I've also read from numerous sources that this is not good. The reason is: babies have a natural ability to know when they are full when drinking liquids (breast milk or formula). When you mix food in with it, their body doesn't have a way to detect the extra calories so they'll take more than they really need, which can contribute to obesity later in life. I'm all for letting your baby keep that ability for as long as possible, since we tend to lose it as we get older anyway, esp. with all the processed, high-carb foods we eat. I agree with the mom who said to give your baby some rice cereal from a spoon if possible. On the other hand, there are plenty of moms who have done the cereal in the bottle thing, and I know not all those kids grew up to be obese! Still, with so much of our population struggling with being overweight and obese, I feel we have to give our kids every advantage we can to help avoid it.

I started putting cereal in my kids bottles around 4 months. I just put a teaspoon or so per ounce of formula.

You can try to use the fast flow nipple and if it doesn't come through you can make the hole bigger.

They also sell infafeeders(sorry for the spelling) that are made for cereal feedings. They sell them pretty much anywhere bottles are sold and are usually next to the sippy cups at the store.

I did this with mine starting at about 6 weeks with my oldest. (But I think they advise against it now...) I believe I used about 1 tsp. of cereal per ounce of milk. I used Nuk nipples and just bought different sizes and found the one that worked the best. It's easy to tell the difference between them due to the size of the holes. I would not recommend making the holes bigger yourself. Tearing the nipples could cause bits of the material to come off in your baby's mouth. Good luck!

I've been feeding my 5 month old rice cereal through a bottle at night since he was four months old. I got the fast flow nipples and he seems to do just fine with them. He probably slept a little longer than usual after I started giving it to him, but not by much. I think they are ready when they are ready. I think I'm going to start feeding it to him from a spoon soon. I tried mashed up pears for the first time today and he couldn't keep it in his mouth so I've decided to try with rice cereal first until he gets the hang of it.

I have heard that is not good to do. If she can hold her head up well I would just put her in the highchair and start feeding her from a spoon! :)

Hi T., you can either make the hole bigger, not to big, and make sure that the cereal will flow through at pace that won't choke her, it does not matter what type of bottle nipple you use, and you won't need to keep them seperate, cause you will be able to tell by looking at the nipple, what you can do is put one bottle and nipple aside just for cereal. I did the rice cereal thing when my babies were 6 weeks old, but I bought an infant feeder, it it's rounder like the Avent bottles and it's open on the bottom, and its has a round disc at the bottom and as the baby eats the sucking draws the disc up the botle pushes the cereal to the nipple and continues to move until all the cereal is gone, I used it to when i started them on fruits and vegies, this was in the 1983 when I got it, I don't know if they still sale those or not but you can check around. Also clean up is easy because there is no formula or cereal residue left in the feeder like you have with a bottle. J. L.