Introducing baby rice at 17 weeks

[offonajolly]

Hi, my daughter is showing signs of being ready to wean. I know the current guidelines say 6 months but I wanted to start introducing her to baby rice.

My question is, could I just give her a teaspoon of this a day and leave the introduction of other foods and purees until 6 months? Or do I have to go the whole hog with weaning once I start and keep introducing new foods every few days?

I'm also not sure what I will need equipment wise. She is my first so I am totally clueless. None of my friends yet have babies so I wasn't sure where else to turn with all my questions!

Thanks

you could do but it tastes absolutely vile and she probably will hate you trying to shove a spoon in her mouth.
What signs is she showing?

Why do you think she is ready to wean? A teaspoon of baby rice a day will do nothing surely? If she is hungry then give more milk which will fill her up better than a teaspoon of rice.

Why would you? Milk is much more nutritious.

Honestly? Save yourself the faff and just wait.

She is constantly chewing on her hands and dribbling, plus where she used to be satisfied to go longer between feeds she is now more hungry and has started waking in the night again where she has been sleeping through for 6 weeks. It seems she needs something more in addition to all the milk she is getting.

I've read that baby rice is the first food to introduce ahead of all the other fruit and veg that comes in later.

I would say the later you leave weaning, the easier, and more fun it is. I waited until 5.5 months and started on puréed carrot, which dd loved, but the most exciting part was at 6 months watching her eat toast fingers, gum piece of tender stem broccoli.

Second the point that baby rice tastes vile and doesn't really add anything to her diet/make her sleep better..

Please read the NHS guidance on when to start weaning. Also consider whether your keenness to start weaning is entirely down to your baby or because you are excited about moving on to the next step.

I started my child at around that age as he was having 8oz every 2hours.
I started him with a few spoons after dinner.
(1spoon baby rice plus milk makes a few small spoons)and then aafter days introduced it after breakfast and then after a few days after evening milk.

I then went on to the other baby rice stuff (cheesy veg I think it was) for a few days then slowly started jars
hes now 5months and has his milk and then 1 dinner jar and 1 fruit jar.
Not done him any harm.
And dr is happy with him as hes content but only do it if child iss ready.
he was 9lb at birth and jamp to 10 within a week so as you can imagine he is a big lad but hes settled and content and once they start walking and are more active they lose their baby weight

I would up her milk during the day and wait to start weaning. There are lots of reasons she might be waking in the night, and the dribbling and chewing is probably the beginnings of teething.

Is she's started waking in the night again at that age it is more likely to be a growth spurt/ 4 moth sleep regression. Dd stopped sleeping through the night at that point, and now (at nealy 8 months) sleeps through for about 2 weeks then has approx 2 weeks of disturbed sleep, due to teething/developmental changes I reckon.

She recently had diahorrea and I stopped her solids and went back to milk only - made no difference to her sleep patterns

Pre teething and 4 month sleep regression? Mine's doing exactly the same.

Totally up to you though. I'm waiting.

Can she sit unaided? That is one of the signs that a baby is ready for weaning. The chewing could be teething, as a pp said.

I would wait and give more milk if I was you. You don't want to give food before she is physically ready for it.

I would say teething and sleep regression, with a growth spurt - not readiness for food. We have not long been through this. Plus baby rice tastes like gak, much better and more likely that she will take to food quickly if you hang on until 5&half/6 months.

I started to wean ds at 20 weeks because I thougth he was ready and to be honest, I was a bit excited at doing something new. I spent weeks pureeing stuff.

I really couldn't be arsed weaning dd, as I remembered the faff and it didn;t seem quite so exciting second time round. I waited til 6 months and put her straight on lumps of food. Much easier.

Didn't stop her waking in the night though - she's 2, eats like a horse and been off the boob for a year, but still wakes every night.

I was going to say that the dribbling and chewing sounds far more like teething than a sign that she is ready to start weaning, ofonajolly. the night waking might be signs of a growth spurt - so maybe she needs more milk or the hungrier milk (if you are formula feeding).

Looking back to when mine were that age (and they are 16, 18 and 20 now, so it is a while ago), we were advised to wean at 4 months, so that is what I did. I started them on baby rice, and then went onto the fruit purees in jars - though ds1 hated all the sweet ones, and would only eat the savoury ones.

With ds1, I pretty soon started making my own purees - I would cook up veg and different proteins - using the jars as inspiriation - puree these all up and freeze them in ice cube trays - then I could give him a cube of (say) parsnip, one of white fish and potato, and one of peas. With ds2 and ds3, I didn't have the time or energy to do this, so I usually blitzed up a bit of whatever I was cooking for the others - you do have to make sure you are cooking with no salt or additives.

Equipment wise - you will need some baby bowls and spoons, bibs, and if you are going to make your own purees, a small hand-held or stick blender, because that will do small amounts most easily.

All that said, I think if I were doing this now, I would definitely wait until 6 months, and would then be looking at baby-led weaning, either alongside using purees, or instead of using them - from what I have read here, that seems to be reasonably stress-free.

Thanks for all your comments, perhaps I will wait until 6 months then and just increase her milk in take. I'd like to begin the process of winding down on breastfeeding though so that might be best done before I introduce food.

OP, milk should form MOST of their calorie intake until they are one year's old so there's no need to wind down the breastfeeding.

However, if you do choose to wind down the BFing then you will have to replace this with formula.

Hi OP. I would also add that there is some evidence that continuing to breastfeed whilst introducing solids can protect against coeliac disease and allergies (the NCT have a Starting on Solid Foods.pdf summary sheet that references this). So it might be an idea to continue with some breastfeeding whilst you introduce solids, even if it's only once or twice a day alongside formula.

Oh, buggered up the link:

Starting on Solid Foods.pdf

Argh, sorry. Here's the webpage I meant to link to:

www.nct.org.uk/sites/default/files/related_documents/BF11 Starting on Solid Foods.pdf

Just to say, baby rice isn't an automatic first food. In fact, I would actively avoid it as a first food for lots of reasons. It is highly processed, tastes vile, and is a grain. Personally, I would start with fruit and veg, whenever you start.

I started my son on foods at 4 month after a long discussion with my hv. She said that puréed fruit and veg is way better than baby rice, or at least put some fruit purée with the baby rice to make it taste a bit nicer lol. My son has never looked back. He has fruit purée and a bit if baby rice for breakfast, veg purée for lunch and more veg purée for dinner with a fruit out or from age frais. He is now starting to nibble on bits of toast and steamed veg. Weaning is an incredibly exciting time for you and your little one, try not to stress, go with what baby likes and your instinct. I strongly believe no one knows your child better than you. If you thinks your child is ready, try, if they are not you will soon know!, lol. Mum knows best ;-) xx

Breastfeeding alongside introducing foods protects your baby best against developing allergies or intolerances. I would wean first and then move to formula.

Baby rice has no nutritional value and has less calories than breast / formula milk anyway. Wait for as long as you can.

I have no idea why the NHS guidance states starting baby's on rice