Rice Cereal - Liberty,MO

i started giving my son rice in his bottle at 4 months and it really helps fill him up. My son is 5 months old now and takes 6 ounce bottles. I put 2 tablespoons of rice in his night time bottle. I tried doing in the day as well and he got really constipated from to much rice, so just be aware of that!!!

Hi Susan, my doctor (yes the doctor) told me use use about a tea spoon for an 8oz bottle. You just want to make is slightly thicker. You may also need to get a fastr flow nipple, or use a pin to make the holes just a little bigger. They can get clogged up with the cereal.

Good luck!

You should be able to put at least 2 tablespoons in 4 oz of formula without any problems. Try sqeezing the nipple to see if it will squirt through & if it will he should be able to suck it through. I would just keep adding a little more every few days until you are up to a comfortable amount. They use to sell a juice nipple (I don't think they do anymore) & that's what I used, but I do think they sell them by sizes & I would move up to the next size if needed. We also use to cut the nipples which you are terrible person if you do now days, sometimes I wonder how my kids survived me, I'm only 33, I learned from my mom & gma, who had 13 kids. You can also buy infa feeders (hard to find these days, but I think I saw them at Walgreens & WalMart may be carrying them again) & that let's them suck cereal thick enough to be fed by a spoon through a nipple. My kids were hungry through the night & I didn't have a choice but to feed them anyway possible. They were going through 52 ounces of formula a day & 3 large boxes of rice cereal a week by the time they were 4 months old. My oldest is now 14 & skinny as a rail & my youngest is following the same line.

Putting cereal in a babies bottled is very old school, and I do not recommend putting cereal in a bottle. If you want to feed your child cereal do so with a spoon; however, it often times takes a lot of practice and patience to get it to go in and stay in sometimes. Talk to your child's doctor about any concerns you may have. I also recommend you not put juice in a bottle, instead use a sippy cup.

You may want to talk to your doctor. If your child is vomiting, there maybe a food or formula allergy or other issues going on. I know when my daughter was a baby, she had a missing enzyme that dissolved the milk sugars, so I had to have her on a special formula. The percentage was small, so she eventually outgrew it, and she is able to have milk and milk products as she grew older.

Good luck.

One of the previous posters mentioned that rice cereal can stop him up. My little guy had that problem and we just switched to oatmeal instead and no problems.

Hi Susan,

Wow, it is sad that we are beginning to put the disclaimer for people to be nice and supportive at the end of our requests...I've had to do it too.

When our baby was getting rice cereal we did it separate from the bottle. We mixed up some of my breast milk with her cereal just to a consistency thicker than the milk, and gradually make it thicker as she was doing okay with it. She absolutely loved it too!

As far as how much, I think they recommend like a teaspoon or maybe half a teaspoon of cereal and then enough milk to make it thicker. Maybe start in the morning, and then increase it to a couple times a day, and increase how much you give him, and move onto thickening it too. I've never done it in the bottle, but I've heard that you need to cut a bigger hole in the nipple so the cereal will go through it. Hope this helps :)

Happy 6 month birthday to your little guy!

Jody

I use rice cereal in all my sons bottles. It fills him up so he's not as hungry. I use a old formula can and I pour it in there and use one of those scoops so I know I'm puting the same amount everytime. I like rice cereal, my son won't take any other cereal...

I saw your "thank you" note about how your little boy won't eat cereal from a spoon. My youngest stopped eating anything from a spoon, and my mom found a perfect alternative: she uses pretzel rods and dips them in whatever it is we are trying to feed him. He eats things great that way! I get the ones that have low or no salt, but she just uses whichever kind they have on hand. He eats a lot now!

My husband doesn't like to do that, so when he feeds our little man, he will use a medicine syringe. It gets the food in and keeps them both clean in the process.

Hi, if he is already 6 months, you should start feeding him rice or oatmeal cereal with a spoon. By 6 months, he should also be eating mashed up veggies with his cereal and getting less milk during the day. He needs man food (te he he) to develop correctly. It will also help him stay fuller longer, even at night. Just make sure you are feeding him in an upright position with that cleft lip and palate... which I am sure you already know. Good Luck!

Good Morning Susan, it is basically mix a little maybe a half TBS, to see if it is still thin enough to get through the nipple. You don't want it to think to get the nipple plugged up.

Full tummy will help him sleep through the night. Make sure he still burps after though.

Sorry I didn't respond to your first question on Folic acid, I have NO idea what is the best way to take it or use it.

God Bless and hope you get the results you are looking for
K. Nana of 5

Been there, done that too! My oldest could never seem to get full at night. Dr. said to nurse her longer. I needed some sleep. I put about half a teaspoon in a bottle, mixed with breast milk and wham! She slept for longer than a couple of hours. In fact, I had to go in and check her to make sure she was okay! I got a break, she had a full tummy. I didn't hesitate doing the same thing with my next child...
good luck!

I actually started adding a small amount of cereal to my son's bottle when he was about 4 weeks old. He was on diuretics so it seemed like he was just peeing his bottles out immediately and I wanted a little bit to "stick to his ribs" so he wouldn't be eating every to hours. I'd start by adding a tablespoon or so to his bottle. Make sure to have a fast flow nipple on or it will get plugged up and he will not get anything. I tried the tri-cut nipples and those did not seem to work as well as I thought they would. Also make sure not to use the cereal with fruit bits in it (did that by accident once and it didn't work so well!). I think we got up to using about 2 tablespoons worth in an 8 ounce bottle.

If you are mixing it into his bottle so he will sleep and he has never had cereal before I would try thr first one before a nap. Rice is usually gentle on the tummy but if it does give him a belly ache you don't want to find out about it when you are trying to get some sleep youself. Good Luck

First of all, congratulations on your baby! Pediatricians are recommending that we don't give cereal in a bottle. The nipple is too small and makes it too hard for the baby to get the cereal out. If you cut the nipple it flows too fast. When I started cereal with my daughter I gave it to her with a spoon around dinner time. And then I fed her again before she went to sleep and she slept much longer. Don't worry if he doesn't take it right away, he will take it when he is ready but he is definitely old enough to start trying.

Susan I did this with about every other bottle with my kids b/c they just weren't filling up enough...You'll need to move up to the larger nipple b/c of the thickness of the rice in the formula. What I did was just use one of the formula containers and emptied the rice cereal into it and used the forumla scooper. I did the normal amount of formula -2 scoops for the bottle and added 2 scoops of the cereal. Now, I should also tell you this may constipate him...so to counter this, I also put 2 oz of either prune or apple juice in the bottle and filled the rest with water... (mind you this was for an 8 oz bottle). In your case I would put in an ounce of the rice cereal and juice into the 4oz bottle...just even the rest out with formula.

I would also recommend having gas drops on hand in case it does cramp him... I never had any problem with my kids taking the bottles and they ate them with great gusto. Bottom line is you may have to play with the combination a bit...I noticed on my kids that I could do the 2 out of 8 oz on every other bottle for them without too much trouble...so just experiment and see what works for you. Best of luck!

If he's not acting hungry, why are you trying to feed him more? Cereal in the bottle is not reccommended, but I take it you know that since you asked us not to tell you that. Just remember (or try it yourself), if you put a bottle in his mouth, he has to swollow it or choke/drown. Therefore, just because he does swallow it doesn't mean he wants it, needs it or likes it. Maybe if he's not hungry, he doesn't need the not reccommended cereal in his bottle. Sorry if this seems negative, but it feels like common sense to me. And, if he's already having feeding issues (the vomiting), I would certainly try to figure that out before I compounded it by doing this. The vomiting is not normal and I hope you get some advice from your son's doctor. Good luck.

Hi Susan! I didn't get to read your other reseponses (sneaking this in at work) but my 2 year old son had acid reflux when he was a newborn. His doctor actually RECOMMENDED putting rice cereal in his bottle at just 8 weeks old. My poor little guy puked so much after each feeding. I started off breast feeding and at 8 weeks started transitioning him to the bottle and it was just as bad. That's when his doc recommended the cereal. She said that making the formula a little thicker might make it stay down a little better. She was right! It did. He still threw up some but not nearly as much. I put 2 tablespoons of it into each 8 oz bottle I gave him. Basically I put 1 tbs to every 4 oz of formula. Best of luck to you and your little guy!!

My sister gave all three of her kids cereal in their formula at night rom about 9 weeks of age up, she felt it helped them sleep longer. I alwasy just did what my Ped told me to do and I never tried that. But at about 4 months my Ped had me start feeding very runny rice cereal to my sons. I always fed it to them before their bedtime, so I guess essentially I WAS doing the same thing as my sister, but just from a spoon rather than a bottle. At first I'm not sure how much they actually take in anyway since they are just learning to eat off a spoon at that point. My Ped told me he liked the kids to be progessing along to actual baby food by the time they were six months, so I started with the very formula-watered-down cereal and progressed slowly to baby food and a more regular feeding schedule. Anyway, don't know if that helped, but that's how I did the rice cereal thing.

I'm not sure why we are told not to put cereal in bottles, I just know that I've heard over and over that it's a no no. Saying that, you still need to have a solution to your problem. I was buying formula the other day and noticed that Enfamil have a new one now called bedtime formula (or something to that effect). I believe that it is supposed to be thicker and help fill babies up for the night. I haven't used it so I can't personally recommend it but I might be worth checking it out.

If he is already 6 months old you dont really have to add it to his bottle, you could feed it separately a few tablespoons. my son started rice cereal at 4 months and loved it. by the time he was 6 months he was eating it 3 times a day and eating puree. i am guessing that you are wanting your son to sleep through the night. my son ate tons during the day both breast milk and other food and didn't night wean until 7 months. Good luck

If you asked your ped about it they would probably tell you not to put it in the bottle cause it can be a chocking hazard. But by this again the whole reason to introduce food is to get them use to using there tongue in a different way. That is why it is so messy in the beginning because the tongue will push it out. Eventually they will stop that and start to actually eat the food.

Although you've had a lot of good responses, I thought I'd throw my advice in too! My daughter had acid reflux (went stiff as a board, we thought it was a seizure! scary!!!) and we added 1 tsp/4 oz of formula. Weighs it down, no acid (she's 10 months now and I'm told to keep her going on formula until 14ish months)...and she sleeps 12 hrs (or a little less) a night. Yeah, lucky me...on the flip side, I have a bloody shoulder from her chewing on me (I didn't really notice it until too late)... Boy, those little teeth are sharp!