How young were your kids when you began feeding them food?

My son, who was a voracious eater, was eating baby oatmeal and rice mixed with his milk/formula at three months. It helped him sleep through the night and kept him satiated much longer.

As for cows milk, my pediatrician said it was ok at the 1 year mark.

When our oldest daughter was an infant, giving her just a bottle wasn’t satisfying her. She was still fussy afterwards. My husband, who was one of 6 kids, said that’s it. We’re feeding her something to EAT. We got the Gerber rice stuff, mixed it with formula, & started feeding that to her at 3 months old. Our doctor threw a shit fit, but HE wasn’t the one taking care of her. That’s all that was wrong with her. She was hungry. Some may think that’s too young, but it worked for us.

My kids were about 4 months old when I began feeding them baby cereal, rice, etc. (only one new food at a time.) Cow’s milk at about a year although they both were still nursing some then too.

Four months is the recommended time, as I recall. What our doctor said was, “When they still seem hungry after nursing and start to look around for something more.” That happened at four months.

As for milk, what I remember is that protection coming from the mother’s immunities lasts for about a year and that milk allergies are less likely to develop after one year, so cow’s milk is ok then. We actually fed ours soy-based formula for about the first 18 months or so. I nursed them for only the first six months because I had to go back to work.

**also, keep in mind if your wee one has any pooping issues, you would want to use baby oatmeal as rice can be constipating.

4 months for my kids also. The reason I started was that they both got a few teeth then and long periods of nursing were painful because they chewed on me.

We started our daughter on rice cereal at 6 months and whole milk at 1 year. It took her a few months to get used to eating pureed solids and we went real slow in introducing different solids to make sure she didn’t have an allergic reaction to any.

5 months. I tried at the “ideal” 4 months, but neither of mine were ready. Also, after you introduce the cereal, remember, don’t start with the sweet foods. Sweet Potatoes – things like that, usually the “orange” foods. Go through the green foods, first. Some babies struggle with the green veggies, when they’ve tasted the sweet veggies, mainly the orange veggies. Save fruits until the end. (bananas, applesauce, peaches, pears)

Cow milk, not before a year! Also, hold of on peanut butter before a year. If I remember correctly, they are starting to find some correlation to the early introduction of peanut butter. I can’t remember the recommended time on peanut butter, I waited for a long time, before I introduced peanut butter.

7 Weeks

Yes, I remember being told to avoid peanut butter, eggs & honey. PB & eggs for the allergy development. All I remember about avoiding honey was the reason seemed very scary as a new mother; something about spores and botulism?!

@bythebay – I forgot the honey thing! Yeah, it was for scary reasons like that – just gross! The eggs weren’t a huge problem for me. Not a huge fan of eggs!

Honey can not be pasteurized, and you need to wait till their immune system is up and running, before ingesting.

I started them on cereal at six months, no cow’s milk until they were a year old. No honey or peanut products before their first birthday either.

My parents started me on my food when I was a little over 4 months old. Mostly baby oatmeal and cereal, and then I started getting little chopped up mushy baby vegetables and baby “meat sticks” (I didn’t stop eating the baby meat sticks until I was 6, they were just too delicious!)

Unpasteurized juices and honey is a definite no-no.

My daughter started on rice cereal at 5 months. She wasn’t interested before. By 6 months she had happily moved on to strained peas but rejected any of the “meat” pastes (in fact she still at age 16 eats relatively little meat, and then only chicken or salmon). She fell in absolute love with strained prunes, although she wore about as much as she ate. By 8 months she had one tooth up and one tooth down and so delightedly started on cheerios. By the time she was one her favorite meal was “peas and papas” (whole green peas and mashed potatoes) followed by the daycare classic, anything with ranch dressing.

My son started on rice cereal at 3 months because he was always starving and moved on like his sister to strained foods at about 6 months – he couldn’t quite get the hang of swallowing it until then. He did like the various meat pastes but really disliked the vegetables except for carrots and seemed to like the pears best of the fruits. His first word, at the age of 13 months was “hamburger” and then he reached over and grabbed my husband’s and tried to take a bite. We broke one up into tiny pieces and he went to town and has never looked back.

Both of our kids are lactose-intolerant so we didn’t start cow’s milk until they were two, and then it was the acidophilus-treated milk.

@Darwin – LURVE to you!!! “daycare classic, anything with ranch dressing.”

mine started around the 6th month. It was also the time when her teeth were coming out. She loved yogurt and cremes etc, and I also gave her some mashed fruit (but doctor said not strawberry for some reason) and biscuits or rusks that she’d chew on. By the time she was 16m old, she’d eat fish, cheese, and even some chicken (but in small manageable bites). She ate practically everything a short while after that.

She never breastfed, so I moved her from formulas to milk (special children’s milk) at around 2. Due to practical reasons, I ended up giving her fresh cow milk (the same I drink) when we were on the road last summer (aged 3+)

Max started cereal at 4 months. I found that rice can cause a lot of gas and made him very uncomfortable. We then went to oatmeal, but he really doesn’t care for cereal of any kind.

At 5 months we began playing with fruits and veggies.

Now at 6 months, he’s tried tiny pieces of banana. He wasn’t too fond of actually having to chew!