Six months has come and passed. David is now eating solids. We started with rice cereal for 4 days, and now we feed him baby food in those yummy jars for breakfast and often supplement the 2.5 oz bottles with 4 oz formula in the morning. In the evening, we focus on rice cereal (2.5 oz worth as well) and add about 6 oz of formula.
Oh yes, I have been giving him Earth’s Best.
Tomorrow I will introduce him to peas, which I’m SURE he’ll love (yes, it will be on video, and Earth’s Best will get a copy as part of a contest promotion they’re running until the end of the month). 😉 But in any event, we haven’t been given a lot of direction about how to do feedings so I’m not even sure I’ve gotten this right.
What I have learned is that it’s best to give the baby a specific food for four days and not introduce the baby to any other foods until you are certain he does not have any allergies. That’s why we did pears at first, and despite some unforgettable facial expressions, he really does like it. So I’ve gotten that much. But how often should a baby actually get baby food? How many times per day? If we’re giving the baby jars, how much formula should we also give to the baby? It seems like this particular munchkin is hungry a lot more often, so despite me giving him formula plus food in the morning, I have to feed him 2-3 hours later. It’s nearly 3am and he got up 3 times in the past hour; I finally gave him 2 oz of formula to calm him down. (He had 6 oz right after his rice cereal and then 2 oz about an hour later to get him off to dreamland… clearly he’s being well fed but he’s not actually, erm, completely filling up from it).
The next question relates to real foods. Can I give him some pumpkin pie to try? A little turkey to play with? Is he too young for that? Some doctors allow babies to start with solids at 4 months. My friends’ pediatrician started their son at 5. Mine started mine at 6 and I don’t know how quickly or how slowly to accelerate to the next level, nor do I know if I’m feeding him well enough.
That’s why I’ve written this post, to see if someone here has a little more experience with this. We got paperwork from the pediatrician, but I think it’s open ended because there really is no right or wrong way to do this, but I don’t want to do anything totally off the charts either.
> But how often should a baby actually get baby food?
This is definitely a case where every baby is different. At six months our twins were getting 2 solids meals a day of about 4 oz each (i.e. each baby ate a 4oz jar). They were also getting 4 bottles a day, of 6 oz each. They were typically eating every 3 hours during the day.
We were feeding them about every 4.5 hours during the night at 6 months. This was a mistake we made: we didn’t stop the nighttime feedings until they were nine months old, and it was much more difficult than if we’d done it earlier.
> Can I give him some pumpkin pie to try? A little turkey to play with?
IMHO, sure! However unless he has already had every ingredient in the pie, they’ll count as a new food. Depending on the recipe you’ll have pumpkin, eggs, yogurt, milk, pecans in the crust, etc. If you’re concerned about allergic reactions, this could be a problem.
If you make the pie yourself, setting aside some pumpkin puree for the baby might be a good compromise.
We started feeding the twins meats at about 6 months, pureed into the vegetables.
> It’s nearly 3am and he got up 3 times in the past hour; I finally
> gave him 2 oz of formula to calm him down.
Six months is a good age to stretch out his feedings over night, if you wait much longer it gets more difficult. We gradually tapered off their 3 am feedings to half strength formula, then quarter, then warm water, and eventually stopped altogether. We found the Baby Whisperer techniques very helpful, though opinions vary considerably.
Remember that in general, food before age 1 is for practice and play. Breastmilk/formula is still the primary food until age 1 and in some countries and cultures, solid food isn’t even introduced until after age 1. Don’t stress too much about it until closer to 12 months!
> But how often should a baby actually get baby food? How many times per day?
At 6 months, once or twice a day at the most is plenty. I gave Audrey solid food a few times a week at 6 months.
> If we’re giving the baby jars, how much formula should we also give to the baby?
I’m not sure about this and it’s something I still can’t quite figure out. I try to watch for hunger signs and go by that more than measurements of anything.
Can I give him some pumpkin pie to try?
In regard to “real” foods (that is, stuff other than what comes in baby food jars), I go by the ingredients. I’m fine with Audrey having some pumpkin (she likes it a lot!) but am I okay with the amount of sugar in pumpkin pie? The dairy? Not yet. If you’re introducing one food at at time and waiting a few days in between, pumpkin pie would be like introducing 10+ foods at a time. If we’re eating baked squash with stuffing, I’ll scrape some of the squash out and give it to her without the stuffing because I don’t want to give her all of the spices and salt that’s in the stuffing.
A little turkey to play with? Is he too young for that?
We don’t do meat, but I’ve heard that meat sure be started around 9-12 months. I’m not sure WHY, though, but haven’t paid much attention to meat since I don’t eat it. Actually, we do eat some fish but I don’t consider that meat! That said, Audrey hasn’t had any fish yet.
I just bought The Family Nutrition Book: Everything You Need to Know About Feeding Your Children – From Birth through Adolescence. I haven’t read it yet (it just came a few days ago!) but I’ve heard it answers a lot of these questions and more.
Also, we use Earth’s Best baby food, too! I mash up other food in the kitchen, like the squash I mentioned, but the majority of Audrey’s food is Earth’s Best. They have good prices for it on Amazon. 🙂
Thanks! I have these 2.5 oz jars, making it difficult to switch up to 4 oz. When I get through these, I guess that’s my next step. Or I’ll just give him 1.5 jars or something once he gets through the foods for the first time, which is mostly my concern.
As far as the pumpkin pie, that was mostly a hypothetical question – I know there are a million and one ingredients in there (and I’m not too keen on sugar knowing that I have a major sweet tooth. That’s also why I won’t do chocolate for a long time). I guess the question really is if it’s okay to give him anything that we adults eat. I guess it depends on what is contained within. Once I get through baby food jars, I’ll start more complex foods. I think that’s safe.
The sleeping issue is one I thought I had solved a few weeks back, but he’s reverted to older ways. Last night I had to attend to him 3 times and then he was up at 7, three hours short of his 10am wakeup. It’s 9:30 and he’s on the floor in the office making little whines. I guess that means I really should feed him, but it’s not on the right schedule. 🙁
I’ll call you to talk about baby-led weaning http://babyledweaning.com/. We used this method with Aaron and he loved it – he’s never eaten any pureed baby food except for cereal every evening (it was dessert mixed with applesauce) and a couple of jars here and there just to try it (he wasn’t a big fan). We started feeding him solids at 6 mos. with steamed, cubed sweet potato then added steamed apple, pears, broccoli, etc. I think we added meat (chicken) at about 7 mos. He’s a great eater now, eats nearly everything and all by himself.
Ok, so I am late to the comment party. Lot’s of good info from the other commenters IMHO. I just wanted to add that formula fed babies @ 6 months are generally supposed to have 24 – 32 oz per day of formula. As for baby food solids, I agree that 2 stage 1 jars are good per day. At about 9 months (or sooner depending on his like for foods) go to stage 2 foods. The main difference in my kids at this age was changing how much formula they had at once. From 6 months on, they moved up from 2 oz to 4 oz then later (around 9 -12 mos) to 6 oz at a time. Then after 1 yr, 8 oz at a time.
Thanks Anna. The doctor said he could be ready for stage 2 immediately but it depends on whether he understands how to eat (as in knowing to move the food from the front of the tongue to the back of the tongue). Eating was rather messy at first but he’s gotten better at it. After I go through our Stage 1 foods, I’m going to go with Stage 2. The bottles are bigger and I think he’d be more satisfied.
I just wonder if I’m giving him enough liquids to wash everything down. Last night he slept through the night, but the night before was pretty bad.
As for liquids, he’s been getting 32+ oz usually. Four times a day we used to give him 8 oz bottles. Now we’re giving him less liquids in favor of solids (usually it’s about 8oz less altogether). I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. This is the breakdown:
Breakfast: 2.5oz food, 4oz bottle, formula
Lunch: 8oz bottle, usually breast milk
Dinner: 8oz bottle, usually formula
“Snack”: About 2.5 oz rice cereal mixed with formula plus 4-6oz bottle, formula
Bad? Good? Does he need more formula?
The rice cereal; how could I forget?! Yes, that is how I used to start my kiddos’ days. I think that rice cereal is a good breakfast (personally). Anyway, I would say that too much food at night *could* make a baby gassy and thus he would wake up in the night. Rice cereal is pretty gentle, but you may want to give the cereal an hour or so before bed time just in case, then the bottle closer to bed.
I think this is a pretty perfect amount of food, and a good schedule. For my kids, they weren’t doing 8 oz at once this young, but they didn’t always eat as much at once as other kids (still don’t, hehe).
How long do you do rice cereal for? I prefer the fun stuff with real taste!
I did rice cereal past 1 yr for my kids. They both liked it. Also, the fun is mixing in baby food (bananas, pears, applesauce). Or you can buy the rice cereal w/the added foods (I think Gerber has a banana one if I recall). Technically you are supposed to move them to mixed grain, and oatmeal baby cereals at some point, but no matter what I did, my kids puked oatmeal every single time… so rice cereal it was, lol.
When I mixed the rice cereal with applesauce baby food, I used water to make the cereal instead of formula. The baby is getting plenty from the cereal and fruit, so you don’t *need* the formula in there. It is a good way to save a little cash too 😉
Oh, and mixing sweet potatoes and green beans into rice cereal is how I tricked my kids into veggies. Mixing any veggie with the baby applesauce is a great trick too. 🙂