To ask whats wrong with baby rice??

[havinhoops1974]

i've seen alot of hate for the old baby rice , I used a mixture of rice, mashed up food in a mini blender

I did get my wrist slapped by a HV for using rusks even though they are sold as ba by food aarrggh !

can someone fill me in whats so bad about them??

Don't know what is wrong with Baby Rice, I was given some by HV?
Rusks are full of sugar and s**t, that is why they are bad.

It's gross, pointless and only needed if you wean baby earlier than necessary.

I don't know what's wrong with baby rice. It is just very finely ground rice, nothing unpleasant or weird.

Baby rice is fine but i found if used alone did cause constipation.
But if i blended a bit os puree apple or apricot into it it was fine.

Nothing intrinsically wrong with it if you wait until 6 months. But it's not necessary - babies that age don't need 'special food', they can eat proper food.

It's often used by some people earlier than 6 months in the mistaken belief that it will fill babies up quicker than milk which is rubbish so that could be it?

I love ground rice pudding, so baby rice is actually quite an appealing prospect. It really isn't awful, just rice in a very easy to swallow form.

Mmmm Rusks
They are very sugary though so that is probably why the HV told you off.

I used baby rice as a thickener when was forced by HV to wean DD at 16 weeks, but with my other two who were weaned at 6.5 and 6 months, I had no use for it, they can cope with chunks easily by then.

I don't see anything wrong with baby rice - I used it as a first taste and then mixed with stronger tastes to get the baby used to them - that may or may not have been pointless but it worked for me!!

It's not so much it fills them up quicker, it tends to keep them fuller and more satisfied for longer.

Or it did in my experience when it was recommended to me by my HV and GP.

Anyway, a good sprinkle of salt and a squirt of Ketchup livens it up no end

Possible explanations.... Baby rice used to be added to bottles to thicken up milk for hungry babies - not recommended now. It was a starter food when babies were weaned at 12 - 16 weeks - and now that practice fallen out of favour. There's nothing intriniscally 'wrong' with the product, more that its uses are now out of step with the current advice. I used to use it as a thickener with purees... helped them stay on the spoon!!

baby rice doesn't really have any nutrients particularly- if you want to give carbs, you could go for something like quinoa which has protein in too, otherwise I'd start a baby weaning on pear, carrot, apple, parsnip- they are all fairly inert intolerance-wise, and contain vitamins.

Rusks are loaded with sugar. Better to get baby used to unadulterated food first.

Good luck!
a nice website to check out is babyledweaning btw- loads of ideas on there for first foods.

Real food is easy to swallow if you're developmentally ready for it.

It is unnecessary and just another thing to waste your money on. And as CristinadellaPizza said, babies if weaned at the correct age can eat normal proper food.

Just because the manufacturers say something, it doesn't mean it's true. They also sell jars to wean at 4 months, when the advice for the last several years have been 6 months for weaning.

Rusks are full of sugar plus when given to a baby with teeth, they stick to them and can lead to tooth decay over time.

Do your own research (like you're doing now) and make your own informed choices.

worral- you could just use baby porridge for that though! there is a nice plum baby 4 grain porridge (that I used as a thickener for pureed blueberries etc) that has arananth (?sp) and millet, which have protein as well as carbohydrate.

You could just use normal porridge, which is cheaper.

True Captain but then again, you could just use baby rice.

The baby will get everything they need from the milk anyway so rice is simply the filler.

It's one of those things I'm totally non fussed about and I don't see why so many people get worked up about it.

In a few years time when the guidelines change again people will look back and wonder why they spent so much time discussing the way other people feed their babies.

I use baby rice and mix it with milk and pure fruit purees for breakfast. That satisfies my daughter. For dinner she usually has veg with mash. Just do what you think is right. With my first daughter I fussed and worried and got myself into a real tiz over weaning, how much to give and when etc. This time round I'm just giving her what she's happy with and stopping when she's full.

Baby rice is good as the first food because it's just thickener for milk and so gets the baby used to a different texture without adding a new taste.

Nothing wrong with it at all, if you like the taste and consistency of wallpaper paste.

depends how old your baby is. if you're pouring it into a 2month old to make it sleep through the night then it's a big no. i'm pouring it into my 8month old to make him sleep through the night (not working btw)
am using it as a thickener for fruit and milk etc as well as porrige and weetabix.

But why would you want to use a filler? it's a baby, not a pitted wall.

pear or apple make perfectly good fillers too, and have nutrients in. First food is for tastes really, not filling- that's what milk is for.

sorry naturalbaby- that was a x-post, and directed towards worral's comment, not your comment.

Why use a filler? Why add flour to a sauce? Why put a potato in a soup or gelatine in a dessert? It just makes the texture more manageable.

Because we were told to use it as a filler if our babies needed weaning early. That way they became full up but wouldn't dislike the taste because mixed with their milk...there was no taste.

'First food' and tastes came later on back then.