Babycereal and BF

[Dorien]

Hello there,

My DS is now 6.5 months and on solids twice a day. Soon I want to introduce a third meal and i am thinking of babycereal. I am only a bit confused about the preperation. I am BF so should i express milk to prepare the babycereal or can I use formula or cow's milk (as some books recommend..)But what if i use formula, does that mean I am actually dropping one of the four BF i give a day or is it additional. And what if i express milk, how much should I express (until nothing comes out or a certain amount?)

I also read in this board that you can prepare babycereal with fruitjuice or water. But shouldn't you dilute the juice to prevent bad reactions and developing a sweet toot? (i read this somewhere else).

THANK YOU

DORIEN

[maggieruth]

the amount of milk you are going to add to baby cereal is probably going to be less than 2 ounces (what i express for my ds's breakfast to go with a wheatabix and 1/2 banana now that he is 11 months old) tho you may want a runnier consistency than my son takes.

you can use expressed breast milk or formula but you probably shouldn't use cows milk for your lo until he is a year old (unless you are cooking with it)

i always just considered the extra EBM Ethan got in his cereal to be a good little top up but not a proper meal (are you still offering a feed before or after meals? breast milk is still a baby's MAIN food source with other meals just being more about experience than calories for some time) 

HTH and that your lo enjoys his meals! x

[Dorien]

Dear maggieruth,


That was very helpful, thank you
I still BF before every meal. I just find it so confusing how to combine the bf and the introduction of solids. And still BF 4* a day but dont know what the number should be in the coming months. How often are you feeding you lo and at what times?

dorien

[RachelC]

Dorien,
Our day looks like this:
7am wake and bf
8/8:30 solids
nap
11am bf
12/1230 solids
nap
3/3:30 bf
5/5:30 solids
6:30 bf
7 bed
10 dreamfeed... but we're working on eliminating that feed.
So, right now we are at 5 going to 4 bf a day and dd2 is 7 months old

I have not had as much time with dd2 to express milk, so we've been using water for the cereal and to add to any food that may be too thick.

HTH
~Rachel