Baby rice at four months old

[Smellybears]

Hello!
Little one turned four months old on Tuesday. He has cows milk protein allergy and reflux.
He’s only on 3oz bottles as advised by the feeding nurse. He’s hungry still but is terribly sick if I give him 4oz bottles. I’ve tried a few times giving him 4oz but he ends up throwing up loads (comes out of his nose too).
Do you think giving him some baby rice would help? He is due to be weaned early, the feeding nurse is seeing us to start at five months but I feel he’s still hungry.
I know I have to be careful what I give him due to his cmpa.
Thank you in advance for your help!

I’m worried that if I give him rice then I may cause his reaction to flare up again. I know to make sure there’s no lactose and to obviously avoid products that say ‘may contain traces of milk’. That’s why I thought maybe wait till Monday and see if the nurse recommends this neocate spoon?

Ultimately, it's your choice in all respects and opinions are just that - including medical professionals. I wasn't happy with what I was being told (no allergies, it's just the reflux, you're overfeeding etc) so took matters into my own hands changing milk to lactose free, against their advice. You can buy Nutilis powder from pharmacies and amazon if you feel the sick issues are partly due to gravity.
The carobel was terrible for us, upset her stomach and caused so much pain and discomfort, awful trapped wind etc.
It's so hard to know what to do for the best (I'm a first time mum too) but I try to listen to my gut, it hasn't failed me yet. X

My DS was weaned at 4 months for similar reasons @Smellybears . Started with baby rice and very soon moved on to purée and mush! He is a healthy 14 year old now.

Rice caused my DS a lot of pain. As it goes through the digestive tract it swells and some immature digestive tracts are unable to cope with it. The pain he was in was horrific, and was really difficult to pinpoint as it took 10 days for it to completely clear his system once i had stopped giving him any.

He was fine to have rice from about 2 1/2 years old.

If your DS already has problems I wouldn't risk it.

You have helped wonderfully thank you! I’m going to speak to his nurse on Monday and if she isn’t much help then I’m going to put him on baby rice myself. Waiting till Monday I’m sure won’t make much of a difference, I’ll keep to 3oz bottles more often.
Thank you so much and it’s great to hear that your little ones are thriving

Whatever you do will be fine. Don't sweat the small stuff, and ignore the doomsday nay-sayers.

OP, sorry I haven't Rtft but don't be concerned with early weaning / in your case it's a positive thing. Mother made some great recommendations. Can I suggest you look at the EAT study pleeeeaaaasse. I had one multiple allergy child (lots of foods he couldn't eat). I wish the study had come out earlier; early weaning on a wide variety of foods would probably have helped reduce the list. On phone now but pm me if you can't find the info. Best of luck!

Sentence thank you so much! That study is very interesting, just had a quick look but will look properly when little one has his nap......along with a cuppa and some biscuits!

Smelly, I swear my dc3 hasn't got allergies only because of me following the study! She had a rocky start even with breastfeeding but it all sorted out and she eats everything without issue now.

I live in the US and the advice we were given was to start weaning between 4 and 6 months. Most people wait til closer to 6, but I know several of my friends started baby rice around 4 ish months and it’s essentially just thicker milk to get them used to the idea of it.

We were told it was our choice (waited til 6 months and did mostly blw) but a friend with refluxy baby was advised to go down the baby rice route and it seemed to help a bit. Certainly didn’t make it worse

Thank you! Was talking to my husband about it and how I’d posted on here and he’s agreed with me, speak to the nurse tomorrow and see if she will give us the neocate spoon. If not, tell her we will be starting him on baby rice.
Thank you all so much for all of your advice

Hi all! I spoke to his feeding nurse and asked her advice and about neocate spoon. She told me she’d never heard of it?! Silly woman! Anyway, she agreed to try him with some baby rice. He’s just wolfed down three baby spoons of it! He wants more but I’m just going to keep it as this and see if he reacts to it. Fingers crossed he will be ok!

How are you getting on op?

Thank you for asking @GrumpySusan. He’s doing so well! He loves his rice. He had it once daily from Monday then I’ve put him on it twice daily from yesterday. He gobbles it down it seems to have helped ease his sickness a little too. I am now also able to give him 4oz bottles which I’m so happy with and so is he! He is still a little sick after the bottles he has when I don’t give him rice afterwards but not as much as before.
I’m so proud of him!

Lovely post from SDT.
Another mum of 20+year olds here, both 6'4" and perfectly healthy.

Both of mine had severe reflux (though it didn't have a label 20 years ago). As SDT says the weaning guidelines then were four months.
Both were EBF and because of the copious vomit they had 12 feeds a day up to about six months.
DS1 was weaned at four months onto banana etc. I was actually told by the paediatrician to wean DS2 at six weeks though I waited until four months. In the end he refused solids until he was six months anyway.
However the reflux did not stop with weaning. We just had orange sick instead of milky! It finally stopped when they were 10 months old.
It's such a worry and hard work when you are a new mum. It's just a phase, one of many. Don't let it spoil your enjoyment of this time and I promise in the long term none of it matters.