Question: why did you give your baby food/cereal before 6 months?

Question

The doctors STRONGLY recommend you guve babies food/cereal starting at 6 months but some of you guys said you started at 5 months. What made you start at 4 months and not 6 months?

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I always did it earlier because the milk wasn't enough for my babies.. And adding the cereal helped them sleep better too. This is my third and I will continue to do so for this one as well..

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My doc said I could start at 4 months with cereal. It seemed to upset his tummy do I stopped and am waiting till 6 months.

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I never gave cereal before 6 months, but I did give broths. So if I made beans, caldo de rez, sopa, etc... Baby would drink it from a spoon. This was just to start getting them used to the taste of our food. My boys are not picky eaters. I started after 4 months.

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Their guts aren't fully formed yet which is why they tell you to wait so I will be waiting.

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I actually had to put cereal in my first born at 8 weeks old and started him on baby food at 3 months ... Doctors orders because he had severe reflux and wasn't gaining weight and no matter how many times we switched his formula it didn't help. And with my third she stayed hungry 24/7 so doctor said baby food at 3 months as well because she was eating 9 ounces every 1 1/2 to 2 hours... She's five now and still eats a ton and she is normal weight ..

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I was actually told by the pediatrician to start with vegetables at 4 months. He's been a pediatrician for 30 years and I trusted his judgement. :) no judgement here though if people want to start later.

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Before the baby I'm having now, I had 4 kids to take care of and I wasn't the mother to any of them and I was a teen; as long as it wasn't making them sick and they weren't crying hungry, it worked imo. I know more now and I have better resources but I understand that money usually plays a big part in this. Especially since the price of milk keeps rising and formula is hella expensive (and in my area u have to be 18+ to buy it for some reason. Dunno if that's normal or not)

Per usual though: doctors advice trumps anything any one else has to say about it.

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My doc gave me the go ahead to start introducing my daughter to rice cereal or oatmeal and foods at 4 months. She showed a lot of interest when we ate and would reach for our food. Her sole source of food was formula of course, I didn't make these feedings her main meals, just helping her to learn how to eat food and ease her tummy into the new goodies.

She didn't like rice cereal by itself so I didn't force her to eat it, we tried eating baby food every 3 or 4 days but because it's new to her tummy I mixed it with rice cereal to ease her into it cause let me tell you that first feeding caused a major blowout! I switched to oatmeal after awhile cause rice cereal caused semi hard stools and oatmeal doesn't do that to her.

So at 5 months she got the grasp of eating down and we now have 3 meals a day and her bottles during and between meals.

Again I didn't force her to eat meals in the beginning, we would try a few spoonfuls and if she didn't wanna do it I would wait a few days and try again.

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Our pedi gave us the go ahead a 4 months to start trying foods. The pedi evaluated thst she was ready. Not using them as a source of nutrition for her but just getting her use to new tastes and textures.