Solids at 6 months

I will be introducing solids for my baby at 6 months - how much to give, lunchtime or evening dinnertime better and how often? Do I need to feed formula milk that has been replaced by the solids? At the moment he is taking 7fl oz formula milk 5 times a day and does not like taking water. Would appreciate some useful advice.

www.annabelkarmel.com gives some really good avice

Thanks Kimmi - will look into this.

Check out this thread, it covers this topic in depth:


http://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/forums/momsdads/threads/85714.asp


Here are some extracts, but the thread has LOADS of great info.


I think many of us started breast feeding thinking that 'solids will replace meals' it was a bit of a suprise to discover that the breast feeding is an ongoing part of the meals! Same goes for Formula.


Also, every baby and every family is different - so you need to find what works for you.


When to Start Solids:


Appriximately six months, with the below signs (unless otherwise told by your doctor or midwife)


KellyMom a very pro-breastfeeding resource has this to say:

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/solids-when.html#developmental


Signs that indicate baby is developmentally ready for solids include:

Baby can sit up well without support.

Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.

Baby is ready and willing to chew.

Baby is developing a “pincer” grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.

Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.


Dr Sears has the below to add:

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032000.asp


(see the paragraph called "How will I know when my baby is ready for solids?")


Able to sit with support, reaches and grabs, and mouths hands and toys

Watches you eat, following your fork as it moves from plate to mouth

"Mooches," reaching for food on your plate

Mimicks your eating behaviors, such as opening her mouth wide when you open your mouth to eat. Grabbing your spoon is not a reliable sign of feeding readiness, since baby may be more interested in the noise, shape, and feel of your utensils rather than the food stuff on them.

Baby can show and tell. Around six months of age babies have the ability to say "yes" to wanting food by reaching or leaning toward the food and "no" by pushing or turning away. Expect mixed messages as your baby learns to communicate. When in doubt, offer, but don't force


This site is great too: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com


I do think the first few foods are very important. And that it is important to feed one food for 4-6 days to be sure there is no reaction.

Now, for us at almost a year, we can introduce new foods very fast, but if your baby does have a lot of allergies you will have to be more careful longer.


For starters:

Baby Cereal Brown Rice with fortified iron

Ripe avocado (raw)

Ripe banana (raw)

sweet potato (steamed)


choose one of the above.

Mix with breast milk or formula.

feed at the mid-morning meal, after breast milk/formula

feed the same food for 4-6 days to check for allergies, then try a new food.


Many doctors and books suggest starting with the store bought rice cereal first because baby needs the iron. We started with Whole Grain Brown Rice, then Oatmeal, then Millett and Barley, then Mixed.

We buy organic, whole grain types which are available in the HK supermarkets.


This was our experience the first 3 weeks of solids...


Week 1 - 2


We are still breast feeding 6 times a day.


But for the mid-morning feed (around 10), we do one breast, then food, then the other breast.


The first 2 days:

2 Tablespoons Breast Milk mixed with 1 Teaspoon organic brown rice baby food.

It basically dissolved, and it was the consistency of breast milk.

I started with having him suck my finger, then we moved to a spoon.

I am sure more was outside than inside!


Days 3-6:

4 Tablespoons of breast milk with 2 teaspoons of brown rice

Same as above, just more. With slightly more getting inside!


Day 7:

We tried banana, didn’t like it, went back to brown rice mix


Day 8-11:

4 Tablespoons breast milk 2 teaspoons organic avocado

Amazing, but he LOVES this.

We even started letting him 'lick' the extra mashed avocado off the spoon, and he was getting an extra 2 teaspoons this way


Day 12:

4 1/2 Tablespoons breast milk with 2 Tablespoons Avocado

For the first time it wasn’t so liquid, but not quite the consistency of applesauce yet.

Quite thick, he ate it all, plus an additional Tablespoon and a bit more of mashed avocado.


We will try sweet potato next… and get up to two meals a day soon too.


What I noticed, was the first week it was really more like practice… for him and for us. Each day he got more and more inside, but still drank a lot of breast milk after. There was food on his neck, race, behind his ears, in his ears… you name it! After the first day, I just dunked him under the shower!


The second week, with the avocado, he ate a lot more, and drank less breast milk after. He loves avocado :) We tried banana but it didn’t work at all.


It has not been scary, actually it is a lot of fun. But it does take a very long time… 30 or more minutes some days…


Week 3


We started sweet potato. This is our third week of solids, and we are much better at getting it in his mouth and swallowed. Less on the outside, more on the inside.... and yesterday we had our first sweet potato poo...


He is having 100 ml of sweet potato mixed with 50 ml of breast milk - and he finishes it... we will be increasing the amount tomorrow! Considering we started talking about teaspoons of food just 2-3 weeks ago, this progress to larger meals happened very fast!

Thanks, Cri - this is very useful. One disdvantage is that I'm a full-timer worker so my mother-in-law will do the majority of cooking and as she is a very traditonal chinese woman she stands by congee mixed with meat, fish or vegetables. She is not very adventurous with food. Will congee be nutritious enough? I've been told that it is not very good feeding solids in the evenings around 7pm - is this because the baby will not be able to have time to digest before going to sleep. At the moment, for the evenings we feed him formula around 7pm then again at 11pm through to 7am the next day and so on.

You have to do what works best for your baby, you and your family. The whole baby thing is super stressful anyway, don't stress yourself out more by worrying about not following a specific book or feeding schedule.


You are very lucky that your baby's primary care giver is a relative - while she might have her own 'old fashion' ways of doing things, you know she loves your baby and does have your baby's best interest in mind - that is wonderful!


There has been some research saying that Congee is not very nutritous and should not be the only food for a baby. So it might be best to have a schedule that includes congee, but other food too.


You could start with the whole grain brown rice baby cereal mixed with formula and teach your MIL how to make it - it is sooo easy! Then slowly add more foods and eventually congee. And do your own research to find the most nutritious things to add to congee, so your baby is getting lots of good things inside as well :)


Maybe you could convince her to try it with whole grain brown rice... but at the end of the day, this woman raised your husband and his siblings, so she has lots of expereince and overall peace in your house is much more important than anything else!


The first solid should be the mid-morning meal, the reason for this is so that if there is any bad reaction it will be in the afternoon - not at 3am when you are sleeping! You will eventually increase to 3 meals a day but that is after a few months. Maybe you can do the first feeds on a Saturday and Sunday so you can be there?


Hope that helps a bit.


Just be sure your baby is getting weighed regularly and gaining well.

technically, my daughters meals are based around a congee. And I consider her to be a very healthy eater. I make a base of whole grain congee (millet, brown rice and barley) and into it I add frozen cubes of different veggies. Perhaps if you approach it in this manner, your mother in law will be more prone to accept it? It is congee - just not plain white rice, and that you have a whole series of vegetables to add.


Furthermore, if you're not too tired, perhaps you can make the food in the evenings and then that responsibility wouldnt' even be your mother in laws and hers would be just making sure it went into your baby's mouth. I have a schedule of introducing foods when (from the Super Baby Foods Book by Ruth Yaron) in a word file I'm happy to send you. My mother in law was a doubter of this whole system until she saw how strong and healthy both of my kids ended up. (my second was born on the small side -2.25 kg.) She started using it with my sister in laws kid. She's not as adventurous as I am with introducing crazy unusual foods (kale, beets, eggplant) but she likes it. SHe also makes a base of rice, and then steams and purees and freezes in ice cube trays different veggies.


What time does your baby go to sleep? Mine eats at 5, has some milk at 6:30 and then in bed by 7:00. CRJ is right - your formula will not be replaced - merely reduced, and not even in the inital first few months of feeding. FOrmula will stay pretty much the same. So if you're giving a bottle at 7:00, I'd just offer food at an earlier time.

HKCC - how do you make your whole grain 'base' - on the stove or in a rice cooker?


Do you grind the grains before or after you cook?


We haven't perfected this yet...

Hi hkchoichoi, yes I would love to receive your word copy of schedule. Please pm me. My baby was breastfed for 3.5 mths then on formula when I returned to work. He takes 6floz at 7am, 6 to 7floz at 11am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm. The reason why we feed him at 11pm is because he was below normal birth weight when he was born and his weight gain for these couple of months has been slow. If we omitted his feed at 11pm, he cannot sleep through to 7am and requires a feed in the early hours. At the moment his feeding intervals works ok for us.

CRJ -


I use a pressure cooker. But i've tried a number of different things. I cook the grains (sometimes with the legumes) in a pressure cooker, more than necessary -so it's mushier. And I also cook it with more water than necessary.


then I just take the handblender and puree the whole thing and it is good enough for three days food for Bella. Not a bad thing.


alternatively, if you and your hubby both eat whole grain rice I would cook that in the rice cooker, and set aside enough for you and hub. Then take the cooked rice, and then boil it some more in some more water, and then puree that. I've done both. Now it's not such a big deal, and it's pretty easy. I have to say that I think the pressure cooker way is easier, but the rice cooker is just as effective.


I've found that millet, barley, brown rice combo quite nice - slightly sweet, but mild.


BBVV, feeding your baby sounds right. I wouldn't drop anything just yet. When you start feeding the baby more solids, you'll notice a reduction. I honestly don't think I noticed a reduction in my daughter's intake (she is breasfed so a bit harder to tell) until almost 8 months. NOw she only feeds three times a day, and she's almost 11 months old. i'm getting read to drop her afternoon feed, because generally because i'm working she only takes 75 ml expressed milk, and I'd like to change it to a light snack of yogurt or fruit. We'll see. So you have a while to go with the whole reducing formula.


CRJ above has posted a very interesting thread on how to help increase baby weight gain. It may be of help to you - we both also used flaxseed oil in our baby's diets, for health reasons and weight gain reasons. (My baby is in the 50%ile, so it's not great, but not bad.) I'm pming you the word file. It's just a simple summary of Ruth Yaron's book. She has a website too...

THanks HKCC - I need to try again this weekend, although was considering Brown Rice, Oatmeal, Millet and Lentils.


BBW - here is the thread on low weight babies - there are lots of very very long posts, but it is really helpful. Our baby dropped to under 10% and now we have been at a steady 12% and are thrilled (he eats huge amounts but is super active so burns it all away)

http://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/forums/momsdads/threads/90558.asp

Wow, I love this forum!! Just popped on to do some research as I am gearing up to start our little one on solids when he hits 6 months in a couple of weeks time and this thread has already been so informative. Crj and HKCC, you guys should write a book on bringing up babies in Asia.


Right now, we are on roughly the same feeding schedule as BBVV (although currently having problems with the lunchtime feed at 2:30pm -- bubs just never seems hungry after having eaten at 11:00am -- but that is a matter for another thread...). I also never dropped the 10:30pm feed since bubs is in the 50%ile and I preferred to keep his weight up. He could probably do without it since he is never that hungry for the 7am feed anymore but at least he is happy and loves the routine.


Anyway, he has been chewing on his hands non-stop and keeps trying to grab food from my plate so I'm going to see how he takes to his rice cereal. Ordered Super Baby Foods from Paddyfield and off to buy a Tripp Trapp tomorrow so we are raring to go... Except for one thing -- HKCC, could you possibly also PM me a copy of your feeding schedule? Don't think I can start solids without consulting that first!


Thanks as always ladies...

Hi bbvv,


I think every baby have different solids experience -it depends on how the child is taking to solids and also the person preparing the food and feeding the child. Take this forum for example, i think quite a few of us have super baby foods, books by annabel karmel, etc which we referred to in the beginning but we all go our different ways after that to suit different families.


My 9.5 month old has been on solids for almost 5 months now. Initially it was just vegetable purees. by 7 months, we started on freshly steamed chicken with his veggie purees. But we progressed very quickly after that (while being careful with allergies, I introduce 1 new ingredient every 2 days) because life is too short to cook different meals for the entire household. For the past few weeks, I have started cooking for hubby and I the same foods that I cook for baby, but the adult version with seasoning.


I am Chinese and there is ALOT of pressure from my family about feeding my baby Asian food - i.e congee. They fear that my baby will become too Westernised (hubby is British).


But I have resisted that because I totally disagree that congee is the only food that a child can take. But at the same time, I also think he should be exposed to a variety of foods.


So I try to compromise - weekdays he eats casseroles, pastas, etc that i batch cook. but weekends when hubby is free to watch baby, i will cook some congee with some meat and veggies for lunch.


So maybe you can try that - balance the congee that your MIL will lovingly cook for your baby with other solids during the weekends when you are around that you wish to introduce to your baby but your MIL is unlikely to. batch cooking is very easy in the beginning, just make sure you have a good blender, lidded ice-cube tray and good weaning books.


good luck!

Well, we're Canadian Chinese, so ultimately, Congee/Rice is a MUST for at least one major meal for our children.


My baby eats congee/rice with meat and vegetable for dinner. For lunch it's milk and cereal (brown rice, oatmeal, flavored cereals). In between he eats 4 milks (9 0z), and he loves to eat his biscuits, and fruits, and drinks lots of water from his favorite sippy cup.


He's 1 year old now.


I think plain congee is bad. But Congee, and if brown rice... even better, with meats, or soups from stews, long soups( chinese style)... mixed in- then it's highly nutritious.


Both grandmas insist, stewing pork bones, or chicken broth (homemade of course).... then no need for baby to eat the ingredients from the soup, just soup and rice/congee together..... makes a nutritious, delicious, and baby will love it meal.

Mayafox -


pm'd you. hope it is helpful.

Thanks for all the advice. Lots of read before my son turns 6 months at the end of the month.


hkchoichoi, I've noticed that the schedule you pm me has not included any meat or fish - when is the best time to include these in their meals? The idea from Katetam about using meat soup to make congees sounds good.

everyone has differing opinions on the whole meat thing. I raised my daughter as a vegetarian for her first year of her life, and my second is along the same tracks. Not for any particular reason, but I am of the opinion that lots of children these days love meats more than their vegetables and will forgo eating veggies. So I just made their early diet more about vegetables and even now, my older, although she has meat, will eat more vegetables over the meat.


I know asian cultures stress the necessity of meat in the diet, but I do feel that there should be a greater emphasis on the vegetables. you could certainly make the congee base and meat and grain base if you like - boiled chicken or beef stock with small chunks of meat in it. No reason why not to. AS for when to introduce meat - as I didn't with mine, can't give you a definite answer, but I think most books I read say after 7 months.

Which brand of rice cereal are commonly used by you mothers? I see a lot of Heinz sold over here. Also are ready made food sold in supermarkets any good? Also for frozen pureed vegetable, can long can these be frozen up to? Sorry about all the questions.

I am a vegetarian, but my husband is not.


We added meat to the diet in Month 11.


We do two things:

1. if there is a roast turkey/chicken we will cut off small pieces for him to eat, and he loves it - which we discovered this holiday season... he might have to wait until next year to get it again - ha ha.


2. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I add a small jar of organic baby food with either chicken or turkey to his homemade vegetables.


Basically, when it comes down to it, the food has to be what you are comfortable preparing and what fits into your house. We don't eat a lot of meat, so neither does baby. If we were a meat loving family I am sure we would have introduced meat more comprehensively.


Fish on the other hand is more specific as there are certain types that babies should not have and you need to be more careful with allergies at first - so you might want to read up on this in more detail.


With all the advise above, and your situation, maybe you can make a congee recipe (create your own) that you feel is healthy and nutritious and fits into your family lifestyle and that your MIL will accept to feed your baby.


But keep in mind a congee with 12 ingredients should not be the baby's first meal - you should test each ingredient first to be sure about the baby's acceptance or allergic reaction.


I think you are on the right track with the questions you are asking and maybe your MIL will be impressed with your healthy baby congee!!

Thanks everyone for your useful advice. Just so happen that I will the first one feeding my son as his 6 months will fall on a Saturday - yippee! When we put a piece of fruit infront of him he does lick his lips as if he wants to eat it - it's quite funny seeing this. I'm sure he will be puzzled when we feed him solids.

I suggest to stay away from Heinz cereal. They used to be made in Australia. I used it for my first baby. Now, they are made in PRC. A few months ago, their Heinz stage 1 cereal was found to have GMO ingredients in it .... they say it's not really harmful to babies, but they recalled it b/c the ingredients on the packaging doesn't say anything about it.... I just use Organix, Earth's best, and Milupa (this one is too sweet though).

for the 1st few feedings, do make the effort to feed organic versions if you are doing white baby rice. the non-organic ones are very sweet. i recommend organix first baby rice..not sweet at all. later on as you progress, you can add some homemade pureed fruit into the rice to make it more tasty.

Where can you buy these Organix from? Local supermarkets, City Super or Health shops?

I give my baby lightly pureed quinoa mixed with rice instead of just plain rice, and then add some steamed pear or zuccini. I'll try sprouts next. My addition of new foods is very slow because he's so allergic.

Healthy Times and Earths Best are at CitySuper, HealthGate and sometimes the larger ParkNShops and Welcomes.

Baby rice cereal is an appropriate first food. You can mix it with breastmilk or formula milk to a consistency like thin gravy. You may start with a couple of teaspoons and slowly work up to a couple of tablespoons once or twice a day, depending on your baby's appetite.



Introduce one food at a time over a period of several days to help identify any food allergies. When baby is tolerating cereal you can move on to pureed vegetables and fruit. Baby's milk intake is adequate but may decrease as more solids are consumed, which is normal. Introduce your baby to a cup when commencing solids.



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Matilda International Hospital

Hong Kong

http://www.matilda.org

My intention is not to take over this thread with advertising, but you might be interested in knowing that I am teaching a course on healthy cooking for infants at the YWCA (English members department) on 23rd January.

I will discuss reasons for making baby food at home, when to introduce solids, when to add texture and when to start finger foods. I will also demonstrate recipes incorporating all the important food groups and some handy tips on preparing and storing baby food.

Have a look at this website or if you have any questions you can send me a PM.

http://esmd.ywca.org.hk/


Course title: Healthy cooking for infants

Course Code: MI001