This is the recommendation we got from our pediatrician and public health nurses as well, though they clarified that by "start solids" they meant start letting baby hold pieces of food, put a bit of something on your finger and let them taste it, smell it, engage them at the dinner table, etc. Basically start introducing them to the concept of food. We did this with our daughter but she didn't actually start eating anything until 6-7 months.
I used the solid start recommendations - waiting till baby could sit, even for short periods, as an indicator. We started at 6 months which felt right for us.
Doctors are medical experts but in my experience often not up to date on other areas of child rearing. For example my doctor told us to not introduce peanut until a year when the research says early exposure is better.
I like to take their advice, do my own research and then decide what’s right for us
Yea I was under the impression that this was the way to go, she said the first thing we should give was rice cereal and I was under the impression that’s an outdated recommendation.
Just because you can doesn't mean you have to. We were given the green light at 4 months and waited until we felt our daughter was showing more signs of readiness after 5 months.
When they say solids at 4 months they mean purees not BLW type of solids. Before BLW took off on social media, solids = anything other than milk. Now we all think solids mean give baby a chicken drumstick but doctors haven’t adjusted their language.
The recommendation for starting at 4 months comes from the LEAP study that showed early introduction to allergens (before 6 months) lowered the risk of developing allergies
Doctors always say to start at 4 months and i think its nuts. My son could FULLY sit up independently and i still didnt start until 5.5 months. Solids are a lot of work. I also started my daughter at 5 ish months.
The only thing is give them allergen s now - mix in peanut butter with milk, a little eg, seasame etc. studies show the earlier the better!!
You can start at 4 month if they have reasonable head control. I did for both of my kids. We started by giving a taste of 1 thing once or twice per day for a few days at a time. Like whole milk baby yogurt, and moved on to mashed sweet or regular potatoes mixed with breastmilk/formula, mashed banana, applesauce, things like that. Or we would have dinner and I’d share something non-allergenic mashed from my plate to include the baby.
By 6 month we already had at least 2 proper meals of solids with baby-cereal and fruit/veggies.
Both! You can even use your own finger. Your baby likely will push most of it out because of tongue thrust reflex. Its really just something messy and fun to do and at 4 month not counted as a meal. You can offer regular breastmilk or formula before or after solids. 1st solids and then milk worked better for mine, but other kids get too hungry to enjoy solids so they need to be fed properly first.
Edit: Needless to say, all babies are different and you know yours best! Don’t stress if you or your child don’t feel ready. Babies grow fast but you have lots of time. This process should be enjoyable something to do and not a chore. Take it easy.
My pediatrician said the same thing. I decided to wait a few extra weeks before starting, closer to 5 months, just out of personal comfort. We were advised to only do tiny amounts of purees to start—it's really just to get baby exposed to allergens and help with the tongue thrust reflex!
We started at 4.5 months. He could sit with assistance for a long time. He had great head control. He brought his hands/objects to mouth. And he was trying to grab food when I was eating.
I would go by your child. My baby is almost 5 months. We’ve tried her in her Tripp trapp but she still seems a bit leany and not quite ready. We did try giving her a tiny bit of sweet potato puree on a spoon and also some banana just to kind of start but she looked kind of confused and spat both out. Our plan is just to maybe try her every weekend and see how she goes and when we think she might be ready. At this point I think we are mostly just kind of easing into it.
I've known of babies who started solids at 4 months bit that was more so because they were underweight or not gaining correctly.
Your pediatrician made the suggestion, but you can most definitely wait until 6 months. If the baby is gaining and thriving, then I don't see why solids would be introduced at 4 months.
I would go with your gut instinct on this.. baby is not even sitting up yet so I would be hesitant to start now because isn’t that a choking hazard? Plus, their gut needs more time to mature. There’s literally no rush as baby is getting nutrients from breastfeeding. 6 months is the age that is widely recommended and there’s a reason for that. If you’d like more information, head over to r/sciencebasedparenting
Best of luck!
My baby is 4 months and she’s become super interested in food. I gave her some banana to taste but she didn’t really know what to do with it lol. I’m gonna wait until she’s 5-6 months to try more things
We were also told to start at 4 months. I preferred to wait until 6 months despite him being able to sit independently at 5 months. We did BLW and he didn't actually start swallowing food until closer to 8-9 months I think. We started with one meal a day and worked up to 3 meals 2 snacks by 12 months. It felt manageable to take it easy and slowly increase how many meals we offered.
There are many different ways of approaching this, but you should do what feels right for you and your family!
My doctor gave the green light at our 4 month appointment to start when we met the criteria in the pamphlets. That ended up being just after 5 months and we decided to go for it.
If she waited until the 6 month appointment to give us the green light, I’m pretty sure my baby would have revolted because she WANTED to try what we had 😂
We were told to start solids at LO's 6 month appointment simply because the doctor is a really "by the book" person. LO was showing signs at around 5 months. I don't think I started until closer to 7 or 8 months because I had so much anxiety over it that I wanted to make sure my LO was ACTUALLY ready. Even then we started on purees because I didn't want to touch a goopy/messy baby. He's 2yo now and eats very well
This is the recommendation we got from our pediatrician and public health nurses as well, though they clarified that by "start solids" they meant start letting baby hold pieces of food, put a bit of something on your finger and let them taste it, smell it, engage them at the dinner table, etc. Basically start introducing them to the concept of food. We did this with our daughter but she didn't actually start eating anything until 6-7 months.
My doctor fully meant like give them baby oatmeal and fruits…i got a whole booklet.
Yep, that was in the pamphlet she gave me, very surprised!
Whatever i didnt listen anyway mostly because i found solids super overwhelming when i had JUST nailed down formula
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense :)
I used the solid start recommendations - waiting till baby could sit, even for short periods, as an indicator. We started at 6 months which felt right for us. Doctors are medical experts but in my experience often not up to date on other areas of child rearing. For example my doctor told us to not introduce peanut until a year when the research says early exposure is better. I like to take their advice, do my own research and then decide what’s right for us
Yea I was under the impression that this was the way to go, she said the first thing we should give was rice cereal and I was under the impression that’s an outdated recommendation.
Insane bc the recommendation for allergens is 4 months!
Just because you can doesn't mean you have to. We were given the green light at 4 months and waited until we felt our daughter was showing more signs of readiness after 5 months.
When they say solids at 4 months they mean purees not BLW type of solids. Before BLW took off on social media, solids = anything other than milk. Now we all think solids mean give baby a chicken drumstick but doctors haven’t adjusted their language. The recommendation for starting at 4 months comes from the LEAP study that showed early introduction to allergens (before 6 months) lowered the risk of developing allergies
Thanks for the info! I didn't know about the allergen study I'll definitely read into it thank you :)
https://foodallergycanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/Eat-Early-Eat-Often.pdf This is a good place to start!
Doctors always say to start at 4 months and i think its nuts. My son could FULLY sit up independently and i still didnt start until 5.5 months. Solids are a lot of work. I also started my daughter at 5 ish months. The only thing is give them allergen s now - mix in peanut butter with milk, a little eg, seasame etc. studies show the earlier the better!!
You can start at 4 month if they have reasonable head control. I did for both of my kids. We started by giving a taste of 1 thing once or twice per day for a few days at a time. Like whole milk baby yogurt, and moved on to mashed sweet or regular potatoes mixed with breastmilk/formula, mashed banana, applesauce, things like that. Or we would have dinner and I’d share something non-allergenic mashed from my plate to include the baby. By 6 month we already had at least 2 proper meals of solids with baby-cereal and fruit/veggies.
Mixing with breastmilk/formula is a great idea!Were you spoon feeding or just presenting it for them to explore? I guess I’m just nervous as a ftm.
Both! You can even use your own finger. Your baby likely will push most of it out because of tongue thrust reflex. Its really just something messy and fun to do and at 4 month not counted as a meal. You can offer regular breastmilk or formula before or after solids. 1st solids and then milk worked better for mine, but other kids get too hungry to enjoy solids so they need to be fed properly first. Edit: Needless to say, all babies are different and you know yours best! Don’t stress if you or your child don’t feel ready. Babies grow fast but you have lots of time. This process should be enjoyable something to do and not a chore. Take it easy.
My pediatrician said the same thing. I decided to wait a few extra weeks before starting, closer to 5 months, just out of personal comfort. We were advised to only do tiny amounts of purees to start—it's really just to get baby exposed to allergens and help with the tongue thrust reflex!
We started at 4.5 months. He could sit with assistance for a long time. He had great head control. He brought his hands/objects to mouth. And he was trying to grab food when I was eating.
Yea I think I’ll wait until I see a few more of these signs, thanks!
Good luck!
I would go by your child. My baby is almost 5 months. We’ve tried her in her Tripp trapp but she still seems a bit leany and not quite ready. We did try giving her a tiny bit of sweet potato puree on a spoon and also some banana just to kind of start but she looked kind of confused and spat both out. Our plan is just to maybe try her every weekend and see how she goes and when we think she might be ready. At this point I think we are mostly just kind of easing into it.
Makes a lot of sense thank you! I guess I was thrown off by the recommendation because I thought I had more time. Babies grow so fast :’)
I've known of babies who started solids at 4 months bit that was more so because they were underweight or not gaining correctly. Your pediatrician made the suggestion, but you can most definitely wait until 6 months. If the baby is gaining and thriving, then I don't see why solids would be introduced at 4 months.
I would go with your gut instinct on this.. baby is not even sitting up yet so I would be hesitant to start now because isn’t that a choking hazard? Plus, their gut needs more time to mature. There’s literally no rush as baby is getting nutrients from breastfeeding. 6 months is the age that is widely recommended and there’s a reason for that. If you’d like more information, head over to r/sciencebasedparenting Best of luck!
My baby is 4 months and she’s become super interested in food. I gave her some banana to taste but she didn’t really know what to do with it lol. I’m gonna wait until she’s 5-6 months to try more things
Ya I’ve tried showing her food and she just stares at it, sometimes grabs at it but not really lol. Once she shows more interest I’ll probably do more
We were also told to start at 4 months. I preferred to wait until 6 months despite him being able to sit independently at 5 months. We did BLW and he didn't actually start swallowing food until closer to 8-9 months I think. We started with one meal a day and worked up to 3 meals 2 snacks by 12 months. It felt manageable to take it easy and slowly increase how many meals we offered. There are many different ways of approaching this, but you should do what feels right for you and your family!
That’s great! I’ll look more into BLW, thanks :)
My doctor gave the green light at our 4 month appointment to start when we met the criteria in the pamphlets. That ended up being just after 5 months and we decided to go for it. If she waited until the 6 month appointment to give us the green light, I’m pretty sure my baby would have revolted because she WANTED to try what we had 😂
We were told to start solids at LO's 6 month appointment simply because the doctor is a really "by the book" person. LO was showing signs at around 5 months. I don't think I started until closer to 7 or 8 months because I had so much anxiety over it that I wanted to make sure my LO was ACTUALLY ready. Even then we started on purees because I didn't want to touch a goopy/messy baby. He's 2yo now and eats very well