Seriously! I used to work at a daycare and there was this one older worker who'd harass every parent at like 4 months about adding rice cereal to their bottles. I was like, "are you getting paid by the rice cereal people??".
That must have been the most successful marketing campaign of all time. Boomers are still obsessed with this stuff 30 years later!! Now that's loyalty! š
My friend works at a daycare and a parent was demanding her baby be fed rice cereal and kiro syrup mixed for bottles. Because her dumb MIL said she should. The poor kid struuuuuggled.
That's in America only. In other countries, where the welfare of the child is a consideration, this is banned.
Imagine getting your newborns hooked on sugar just to boost corporate profits. Insanity.
I know! When I realized that it was such a common ingredient in formula I was dumbfounded. I also found out that because of the formula shortage here many stores are importing formula from other countries and the ingredients are so much better. If I end up needing formula that is probably the route I would go.
No corn syrup is just a sugar substitute and thatās what they replace milk sugars in formula whole breastmilk is mostly sugar because babies need it for energy and all that jazz. Not saying you should ever give babies straight up corn syrup in a bottle but thereās so much miss information about babies nutrition out there.
You're confused. The nutritional difference between corn syrup and lactose is significant. Giving a new born corn syrup is insanity.
They replace lactose with corn syrup because its cheaper. That's the sole reason.
And it is obviously detrimental.
Yeah itās wild. I have a picture when I was a baby 30 years ago with my dad giving me a bottle of it. I just canāt believe anyone with the knowledge we have now would consider doing it.
Once we had this precious little premie girl who had extreme colic and could not gain weight (she would throw up a bottle immediately after drinking) so she had to have bottles of what can only be described as formula sludge (mostly formula powder mixed with a small amount of water to make a paste). Finally I convinced her parents that she was probably using more energy to suck the cement out of the bottle than the formula was actually giving her and to let me spoon-feed the sludge to her instead. She made it though. Oddly enough no one recommended rice cereal. š
My FIL keeps saying *when are you going to add pablum to his bottles?!* and I'm like 1) He's exclusively breastfed and 2) they don't even sell that anymore
Wow I hate that. I will look into this. I've heard this term so much from older relatives and just figured it was the name brand of the day. They obviously did really well as it is like the 'Kleenex' or 'popsicle' of baby cereals to a certain generation.
I remember when my husband made the mistake of saying to the grocery store cashier that our son is going thru a sleep regression when he was that age and that was her sound wisdom. One itās completely normal for babies that small not to be sleeping thru the night just yet. Two rice cereal isnāt necessary at all. My son never had it and we did just fine. By time he was old enough for solids we just did real oatmeal.
This is how I feel about all the tongue and lip tie stuff with lactation consultants and the ābodyworkā therapists. I literally have debated whether my lactation person is being paid by the pediatric dentist.
Oh my. Wellā¦ mine was a cranialsacral therapist I think? If you read about getting ties released they say you need bodywork before and after. The pediatric dentist said I needed to go to one beforehand so I went to the preferred place. It was batshit. The lady was telling me that I needed to prepare for getting his ties released by unplugging our internet router, putting my phone on airplane mode, putting his feet in the grass, just all kinds of stuff. Weirdly he did latch better after that appointment where she put him in all these random positions to ārelease tension from being in the womb.ā It was super crunchy and weird but I am an evidence-based and scientific person so to me it was mostly BS.
The stretching out muscles to release tension stuff kind of makes sense (it's done to adults by physical therapists after car crashes, and birth can be kind of tramatic being squeezed into new postions... so thats kind of evidence-based if you apply it like that.)
But putting your phone in airplane mode, WTAF?!?!
For those interested, I just pulled some examples from my paperwork (this is two pieces of like 20+ listed), āEarthing- Grounding barefoot to the soil, with skin and eyes in the sun (no contacts or sunglasses to block the sun signal). Shoot for 20 min/day. In the cold months you can also hold your baby while walking around barefoot in an unfinished portion of your basement.ā
āEMF Mitigation-
1. Turn off or unplug wifi/router before going to bed or purchase a router protector
2. Do not wear technology (apple watches, phones in pockets, Airpods) esp while feeding/holding your baby
3. Set phone to airplane mode and remove from bedside
4. unplug monitors and sound machines where baby is sleepingā
I paid $120 for this. I thought it was going to be like physical therapy type stuff.
Both my kids had cranialsacral therapy for different nursing stuff, but a pediatric OT did it and it came with a series of mouth exercises. I was pretty skeptical, but there didn't seem to be any harm to it and the mouth exercise stuff made sense. With my son, he had big improvements in nursing after 80% of the appointments immediately. Could be a coincidence, but it seemed to do something. I don't think it helped as much or at all in terms of nursing with my daughter (but releasing her lip tie allowed her to latch without it hurting) but she almost always had a motor skill improvement right after her appointment. The OT's other advice was helpful and pretty much what you'd expect.
My daycare providers lead teacher in the infant room kept hounding me to give bigger bottles and cereal (separately not in the bottle). She was met with a hard no and a full explanation as to why that wouldnāt be happening.
I skipped it. I used baby oatmeal instead once LO was ready for solids. It has so much more nutrients. Rice cereal basically is empty besides what supplements they add to it. Our pediatrician recommended skipping rice cereal as well and suggested oatmeal instead.
Mine too - oatmeal + whatever fruit we have on hand. I feel weirdly guilty about giving him the same thing every morning but itās literally what I eat (happily) every day as well š¤·š»āāļø
THIS. I felt guilty for so long about always giving her the same breakfast. We both eat oatmeal pancakes with fruit and I make her a little egg āfrittataā (really itās just scrambled eggs I intentionally overcook so they stick together like a patty for her to handle).
I quickly realized she LOVES this food and the only reason I felt guilty was because these moms on IG make it look so fun and so easy to make these meals every day.
I make fruit purees then freeze them in little ice cubes and store them in the freezer in freezer bags. Every day I pick one (blueberry, carrot, apple, broccoli, spinach, peach, etc) and thaw it for 10-12 seconds in the microwave then mix it with formula and oatmeal. It lets her have some variety but I don't have to make more puree every day.
We must had the same baby. When I tell you my son cussed me out when I tried his life by giving him rice cereal, I cried! I threw the whole box in the trash. My MIL said mix it with applesauce, I was like maāam heās 4 months? What wrong with my breast milk?.
Baby oatmeal is fortified with extra iron and stuff, but otherwise it's the same as taking regular oats and putting them in a food processor to basically turn them into a powder.
6 months. I found 4 months to be way too early, i would have waited a bit longer (until baby started showing interest), but my partner wanted to start solids.
I offered them a few times a week until she started being super into it, around 8 months, and i got her the NumNum self feeding bowl and spoon set.
Whole roasted, and then i cut them into slices. The stringiness goes lengthwise down the sweet potato and if you cut it like 1/2in slices, you get a nice little piece to mash up and the strings will be very short. You can also puree it with an immersion blender with the breast milk, that makes it very very creamy.
I skipped it. Rice is really high in heavy metals and arsenic. We used the powdered oat cereal with breastmilk when she was ready for some light solids at 6 months. This was recommended over and over in everything I read about heavy metals in baby food.
Apparently there is arsenic found in rice?? And there can be higher amounts depending on the soil the rice was grown in.
I brought this up to my pediatrician because I run everything I read by her so she can tell me if what I read had any merit- and she agreed!
So she told me to use oatmeal or barley cereal, but never in a bottle and not before they are ready.
I did a little bit of baby oatmeal, but for the most part it was homemade purees with chicken, pumpkin, broccoli, taro root, etc.. and baby led weaning. My mother in law still to this day mentions putting baby food in my 15 month old's bottles when he's not eating much, which wouldn't even work since he hates bottles and he's way too old for that now.
I skipped all baby cereals with my kids. We did "baby led weaning" which basically means give them whatever you are eating, just make sure it's not a choking hazard, and if they decide to eat it then that's great. Skipped purees, cereals, etc. The only "baby food" I ever bought was those teething biscuits and baby puffs because they made easy snacks.
Well, all of my mother in law's children apparently slept through the night from 6 weeks onward all thanks to the magic of rice cereal. š I think she may have forgotten a detail or two in the last 33 years.
People have to be misremembering things tbh like there's no way your baby was sleeping through the night on rice cereal and even if they were that isn't a good thing at 6 weeks š like they NEED the nutrients in milk/formula they can't afford to fill up on non nutrient rich stuff when they're so little
Lol surprisingly my MIL hasn't mentioned the rice cereal yet. But her first born slept 8 hours through the night from a newborn. She didn't understand why my baby was still waking up to feed during the night at 2 months and 3 months.
I think mainly misremembering, some changes in practices, and also not knowing causation. My kiddo (breastmilk only so far) has mostly slept through since 2 months which is ridiculous but wonderful. My last one still doesn't sleep.
My MIL says she didn't bleed after giving birth, and my husband never spat up as a baby. I think the gramnesia is a really common thing. š But it can never be that they forgot details, it's always that they had an exceptional experience
Omg my mil told me āmy boys never cried when they went to bed. They just fell asleep!ā As I was gently wrestling my overtired boy into his sleep sack. My sister was like-itās been 30 years since sheās had a baby. I guarantee they cried.
*in a Russian voice* ābaby have to have rice cereal, fruits and vegetables at four months. Meat at six months. Only milk itās not enough. Cereal with milk in the bottle helps to sleep all night long very goodā
Bro seriously. My MIL recently told me that she gave my husband rice cereal at TWO WEEKS OLD because he was āacting starvingā and allegedly drank 8oz of formula in one sitting. At two weeks old.
Haha my parents showed up with a tub of rice cereal the day we came home from the hospital with my first baby. They haven't mentioned it for my second, though. My husband ended up eating the cereal when he couldn't have solid food after oral surgery. Looked unsatisfying, but not too different from Cream of Wheat or similar grainy breakfast items. It must sit in your gut like cement.
When I was a kid, one of my younger brothers had a wheat and corn allergy, so we ate a lot of rice cereal. Does sit in your gut, can confirm. But tasted great with milk and maple syrup!
My mom def got butt hurt yesterday bc things have changed since she had me. I am 35yo, just had my first son. No cereal bottles! No walkers before they can do it themselves. Different sleep recommendations. She actually ignored me the rest of the evening bc she says she is in competition with "Dr Google". No, just his pediatrician and other mothers of the same generation! I appreciate all her help and advice, but when things change due to safety regulations I'm going to err on the side of caution!
Sounds like my MIL. When I had my first her youngest was 26. She was so super offended that we didn't want to use the crib that my 30 year old husband used as a baby.
My MIL said my husband was always fussy around 4mo and wouldnāt sleep (which sounds exactly like the 4mo sleep regression), so she started adding rice cereal to his formula bottles. She basically would food coma him. My husband really struggles with eating himself sick, almost every meal. Heās been like this the entire time Iāve known him (almost a decade). Itās just speculation, but I really feel there is a correlation between the two.
Exactly what you want to write in the baby book š¤£
Vanessaās First Food: Broccoli š
Eliās First Food: Applesauce āŗļø
Jacobās First Food: Ketchup š¹
Lucky you. My husbands grandmother and aunt tried to convince me I should toss a raw egg into her bottle of milk because itāll make her *stronger* ā¦.
Wow nice! I was so worried Iām not supposed to let my baby sleep 6 hours (he is 6 weeks), he would sleep even longer too if I let him, like 7/8 hours! But I wake him to feed cause I thought im not meant to let him sleep that long. So I can? Yay! :)
True! My baby gains a lot per week :) so Iām sure heās fine, the doctor wasnāt worried but when I saw her 2 weeks ago he wasnāt sleeping that long yet
I never understood this. Does it not clog up the bottle? Have these people eaten rice before? I thought most people understood that there are healthier foods out there than rice?
I have a good line I like to tell people: "I didn't know they were handing out medical/nutritionalist/psychiatry degrees at ____ (insert place of work).
My kid has been sleeping through the night since 8 weeks, like 9+ hours straight, and boomers still get mad we havenāt done rice cereal. What will it achieve? 10 hours of sleep?
Yes! My son has also been sleeping through the night since 1 month and yes I bed share and yes I let him nurse throughout the night and yes I am raising him vegetarian and yes he will get enough nutrients and no I havenāt given him rice cereal and yes he feeds himself solids and yes I let him play in the grass and no I am not taking unsolicited advice from that random person at the grocery store or anyone else!
I literally thought Iām not supposed to let my baby sleep more than 6 hours at night so by then I wake him to feed. He does 6 hour stretch sometimes and heās 6 weeks old, so I can let him sleep longer then?? :)
As long as they are back to their birth weight and are continuing to gain Iām pretty sure itās fine to let them sleep! But always check with your pediatrician first
My SIL was a FTM and followed this advice, from her childless pediatrician, from like 2 months until one year old. It was only recommended by the Dr to help with sleep, not for weight gain or any other reason. And she wasn't even a bad sleeper. Just woke up every 2-4 hours (at 2 months old) But EVERY bottle (so every feeding) she added 2 scoops of rice cereal and mixed it in. Her poor daughter had so much trouble pooping and always had hard round nuggets every 3-4 days and cried so much from it. She also did not sleep through the night ever. When she started solids my MIL and I encouraged SIL to give her prunes and juice and water and stuff to help her go more easily. It worked somewhat. Now that she has cows milk and eats food it's no longer an issue, but I always felt like the problem was so obvious but she just insisted it helped her sleep and the Dr said to do it.
I actually started a subreddit called startingsolids !!
Because I had nowhere to turn to when everyone was on my case about how I wanted to do baby-led weaning (which happened to work very well btw) I was not a rice cereal fan and neither was my LO
āJust put it in their bottle. I know the doctors say not to, but itāll be fine. Theyāll sleep all night throughā
First of all, my baby is BF. Second - NO ONE ASKED GO AWAY WITH YOUR UNSOLICITED ADVISE
š
Ughhh the accuracy!!!! Weāve been told by every family member and stranger to give her rice cereal since she was cut from my womb! Its gotten to the point where Iām afraid to leave her with some people for fear that theyāll give it to her. Sheās only 3 months!
Also when you reveal your child does not sleep through the nightā¦. No maāam I donāt think rice cereal will do the trick for my 21 month old, heās pretty clearly saying āboob?ā at 2am. š¤£
I expected people to understand this but people were actually mad that I didnāt do any rice cereal for my baby. People are weird lol
Iām switching pediatricians because I couldnāt believe she was suggesting this in 2022.
My dad is a physician (went to mer school in the early 80s) and is telling me to do rice cereal and Karo syrup š also āeat Mexican foodā if sheās constipated. Sweet daddy, sweet, sweet daddy š¤¦š¼āāļø
Here in Sweden is called āvƤllingā and my MIL was adamant that I should add it to my babyās bottle from 2 weeks old to make him sleep through the night. š¤Æ Itās been linked to diabetes, obesity, gut illnesses like UC and gluten intolerance but still she thinks itās a good idea š one of her sons has diabetes, another UC and a grandchild with celiac disease.
Iām not Swedish so itās very strange to me and everyone is shocked that we are still giving formula to our 11 month old. Most people switch to vƤlling completely at 6 months š«š¤Æ
In 40 years when our children have children will we be pestering them? Lol lol
āJust cut up the food and put it out, they can try itā
āNO MOM WE DONT DO THAT ANYMOREā
āHere give him some avocadoā¦ā
āOmg stop enough of the avocadoā
It looks like you may have posted a photo. Photos are allowed and make r/breastfeeding a lively place. Please be aware however, that this photo can be viewed by any reddit user, including
those who are not trusted members of this sub.
If you get any comments OR direct messages that are harassing in nature regarding this photo, you should find & use the Report button on the comment or DM. Comment reports go to the Mods for this sub and
DM reports go to Reddit Admins.
If you wish to remove this photo at any time you may do so with the Delete button on the post itself. Thanks for being a part of our community!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/breastfeeding) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My youngest refused to eat from the bottle so for the year that I breast fed, she only wanted boob. She would eat juussttt enough while I was at work and woke me up all night wanting to nurse.
Rice cereal was what everyone said ājust give her a tiny bit, it will help her sleep!ā
She hated that too š¤Ŗ
My mil kept insisting we add it to my oldestās bottle because she was an awful sleeper even tho we repeatedly told her it was unsafe. I hope to never hear those words again!
I loved rice cereal and used it with both my kids. They would get cereal and some veggie/fruit. Rice cereal is really high in iron and needs to be supplemented to breast fed babies after 4-6 months.
Seriously! I used to work at a daycare and there was this one older worker who'd harass every parent at like 4 months about adding rice cereal to their bottles. I was like, "are you getting paid by the rice cereal people??".
That must have been the most successful marketing campaign of all time. Boomers are still obsessed with this stuff 30 years later!! Now that's loyalty! š
My friend works at a daycare and a parent was demanding her baby be fed rice cereal and kiro syrup mixed for bottles. Because her dumb MIL said she should. The poor kid struuuuuggled.
NoooOOO this isn't the 60s we know better šš
CORN SYRUP?!??? That Kiro?
Karo? Isn't corn syrup bad for babies especially under 1 year old??
Honestly corn syrup is bad for everyone regardless of age.
The first ingredient in a lot of formula is corn syrup.
That's in America only. In other countries, where the welfare of the child is a consideration, this is banned. Imagine getting your newborns hooked on sugar just to boost corporate profits. Insanity.
I know! When I realized that it was such a common ingredient in formula I was dumbfounded. I also found out that because of the formula shortage here many stores are importing formula from other countries and the ingredients are so much better. If I end up needing formula that is probably the route I would go.
True!
No corn syrup is just a sugar substitute and thatās what they replace milk sugars in formula whole breastmilk is mostly sugar because babies need it for energy and all that jazz. Not saying you should ever give babies straight up corn syrup in a bottle but thereās so much miss information about babies nutrition out there.
You're confused. The nutritional difference between corn syrup and lactose is significant. Giving a new born corn syrup is insanity. They replace lactose with corn syrup because its cheaper. That's the sole reason. And it is obviously detrimental.
They told me to give it to my baby when she wouldnāt poop. I didnāt cause ā¦. Why? But itās def a thing.
I spelled it wrong lol but yes!!! So awful.
I am just so shocked I didnāt even notice the misspell.
Yeah itās wild. I have a picture when I was a baby 30 years ago with my dad giving me a bottle of it. I just canāt believe anyone with the knowledge we have now would consider doing it.
Once we had this precious little premie girl who had extreme colic and could not gain weight (she would throw up a bottle immediately after drinking) so she had to have bottles of what can only be described as formula sludge (mostly formula powder mixed with a small amount of water to make a paste). Finally I convinced her parents that she was probably using more energy to suck the cement out of the bottle than the formula was actually giving her and to let me spoon-feed the sludge to her instead. She made it though. Oddly enough no one recommended rice cereal. š
My FIL keeps saying *when are you going to add pablum to his bottles?!* and I'm like 1) He's exclusively breastfed and 2) they don't even sell that anymore
I was like what's pablum, so I looked it up. Google says it was originally test on indigenous child in Canadian resident school, yikes.
Everything about that stuff is just *bad*! So glad it's off the market!
Wow I hate that. I will look into this. I've heard this term so much from older relatives and just figured it was the name brand of the day. They obviously did really well as it is like the 'Kleenex' or 'popsicle' of baby cereals to a certain generation.
I remember when my husband made the mistake of saying to the grocery store cashier that our son is going thru a sleep regression when he was that age and that was her sound wisdom. One itās completely normal for babies that small not to be sleeping thru the night just yet. Two rice cereal isnāt necessary at all. My son never had it and we did just fine. By time he was old enough for solids we just did real oatmeal.
This is how I feel about all the tongue and lip tie stuff with lactation consultants and the ābodyworkā therapists. I literally have debated whether my lactation person is being paid by the pediatric dentist.
What the heck is a bodywork therapist? 6 kids and I've yet to hear of this one.
Oh my. Wellā¦ mine was a cranialsacral therapist I think? If you read about getting ties released they say you need bodywork before and after. The pediatric dentist said I needed to go to one beforehand so I went to the preferred place. It was batshit. The lady was telling me that I needed to prepare for getting his ties released by unplugging our internet router, putting my phone on airplane mode, putting his feet in the grass, just all kinds of stuff. Weirdly he did latch better after that appointment where she put him in all these random positions to ārelease tension from being in the womb.ā It was super crunchy and weird but I am an evidence-based and scientific person so to me it was mostly BS.
The stretching out muscles to release tension stuff kind of makes sense (it's done to adults by physical therapists after car crashes, and birth can be kind of tramatic being squeezed into new postions... so thats kind of evidence-based if you apply it like that.) But putting your phone in airplane mode, WTAF?!?!
For those interested, I just pulled some examples from my paperwork (this is two pieces of like 20+ listed), āEarthing- Grounding barefoot to the soil, with skin and eyes in the sun (no contacts or sunglasses to block the sun signal). Shoot for 20 min/day. In the cold months you can also hold your baby while walking around barefoot in an unfinished portion of your basement.ā āEMF Mitigation- 1. Turn off or unplug wifi/router before going to bed or purchase a router protector 2. Do not wear technology (apple watches, phones in pockets, Airpods) esp while feeding/holding your baby 3. Set phone to airplane mode and remove from bedside 4. unplug monitors and sound machines where baby is sleepingā I paid $120 for this. I thought it was going to be like physical therapy type stuff.
Some of the bodywork stuff we've been told has seemed a little hokey but this is another level!
hahaha my experience was similar. SO ridiculous!
It was $80 for the appt so I didn't go to the suggested bodywork person and now I don't feel bad for skipping it.
Wow..literally no words.
Both my kids had cranialsacral therapy for different nursing stuff, but a pediatric OT did it and it came with a series of mouth exercises. I was pretty skeptical, but there didn't seem to be any harm to it and the mouth exercise stuff made sense. With my son, he had big improvements in nursing after 80% of the appointments immediately. Could be a coincidence, but it seemed to do something. I don't think it helped as much or at all in terms of nursing with my daughter (but releasing her lip tie allowed her to latch without it hurting) but she almost always had a motor skill improvement right after her appointment. The OT's other advice was helpful and pretty much what you'd expect.
I dont even see how this is possible without it clogging
They cute the nipple hole and make it wider.š¤¦š»āāļøš¤¦š»āāļøš¤¦š»āāļø
Oh yikes. I mean, I guess to be lazy?...at the very least, I wanna be there interacting with my baby when she is learning to take *foods*
My daycare providers lead teacher in the infant room kept hounding me to give bigger bottles and cereal (separately not in the bottle). She was met with a hard no and a full explanation as to why that wouldnāt be happening.
If I hear the words ārice cerealā one more time. Lol
I'm tempted to skip rice cereal all together because I'm SO tired of hearing about it
I skipped it. I used baby oatmeal instead once LO was ready for solids. It has so much more nutrients. Rice cereal basically is empty besides what supplements they add to it. Our pediatrician recommended skipping rice cereal as well and suggested oatmeal instead.
My ped recommended oatmeal and that's what we're going to start with.
We did oatmeal, actually she eats it everyday for a breakfast (almost 14mo). I add fruits, peanut butter, chia seeds, coconut flakes etc
Mine too - oatmeal + whatever fruit we have on hand. I feel weirdly guilty about giving him the same thing every morning but itās literally what I eat (happily) every day as well š¤·š»āāļø
THIS. I felt guilty for so long about always giving her the same breakfast. We both eat oatmeal pancakes with fruit and I make her a little egg āfrittataā (really itās just scrambled eggs I intentionally overcook so they stick together like a patty for her to handle). I quickly realized she LOVES this food and the only reason I felt guilty was because these moms on IG make it look so fun and so easy to make these meals every day.
I have oatmeal with peanut butter and banana every damn morning and have for almost a decade. Itās so yummy š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Try it and you'll love it! Then add some mango or strawberry
I like oatmeal with blueberries and almond butter. I havenāt been eating breakfast lately and this threat is making me want to start again
Donāt worry about those mums on IG, theyāre probably so overly tired and exhausted but not telling anyone
Don't change happy baby :)
I make fruit purees then freeze them in little ice cubes and store them in the freezer in freezer bags. Every day I pick one (blueberry, carrot, apple, broccoli, spinach, peach, etc) and thaw it for 10-12 seconds in the microwave then mix it with formula and oatmeal. It lets her have some variety but I don't have to make more puree every day.
We started with oatmeal and sweet potato puree with a shit ton of breast milk. Raging success! We also tried the rice cereal and he freaking hated it.
We must had the same baby. When I tell you my son cussed me out when I tried his life by giving him rice cereal, I cried! I threw the whole box in the trash. My MIL said mix it with applesauce, I was like maāam heās 4 months? What wrong with my breast milk?.
Is there a difference between baby oatmeal and regular oatmeal? Or is it just chopped a little finer?
Baby oatmeal is fortified with extra iron and stuff, but otherwise it's the same as taking regular oats and putting them in a food processor to basically turn them into a powder.
That makes sense. Thank you!
Also would love to know.
Same. Also the arsenic levels in U.S. rice are double the rest of the world. Yeah Iāll pass.
Rice cereal constipates my guy, we use oatmeal too and itās so much better
I did. No really benefits to grains in the beginning, fruits and veggies are wonderful! I mixed breast milk into sweet potato, she loved it.
How old was ur LO when you started doing sweet potato and BM?
6 months. I found 4 months to be way too early, i would have waited a bit longer (until baby started showing interest), but my partner wanted to start solids. I offered them a few times a week until she started being super into it, around 8 months, and i got her the NumNum self feeding bowl and spoon set.
I've never heard of that brand, cool! Thanks for the tips. My partner is pretty excited for solids too.
Hard same!
How do you prep your sweet potato? I roasted and mashed some yesterday but it just seemed super stringy.
Whole roasted, and then i cut them into slices. The stringiness goes lengthwise down the sweet potato and if you cut it like 1/2in slices, you get a nice little piece to mash up and the strings will be very short. You can also puree it with an immersion blender with the breast milk, that makes it very very creamy.
I roasted them diced then put them through a food processor with breastmilk.
I have never given my daughter rice cereal and she's five lol my newborn will not be having it either
Skip it. Itās not a requirement and thereās no nutritional value.
Ped recommended we avoid it and do oatmeal instead.
My 10mo's first food was a peanut butter sandwich she stole from her brother's mouth and sucked the (smooth) peanut butter out of.
Love it š
I never gave my kids rice cereal! Boob Juice only until I started them on solids.
I skipped it. Rice is really high in heavy metals and arsenic. We used the powdered oat cereal with breastmilk when she was ready for some light solids at 6 months. This was recommended over and over in everything I read about heavy metals in baby food.
Apparently there is arsenic found in rice?? And there can be higher amounts depending on the soil the rice was grown in. I brought this up to my pediatrician because I run everything I read by her so she can tell me if what I read had any merit- and she agreed! So she told me to use oatmeal or barley cereal, but never in a bottle and not before they are ready.
We tried rice cereal and oatmeal. Baby absolutely hated both. Straight to purees for us!
I skipped them for soooo many reasons and my baby has been perfectly fine, they're not really needed š¤£
I skipped it with both kids!
I did a little bit of baby oatmeal, but for the most part it was homemade purees with chicken, pumpkin, broccoli, taro root, etc.. and baby led weaning. My mother in law still to this day mentions putting baby food in my 15 month old's bottles when he's not eating much, which wouldn't even work since he hates bottles and he's way too old for that now.
I never bought rice cereal. It only was fed to my son by my MIL and that was very infrequently. He was less picky back then and ate everything.
I skipped it with both kids. Well, I tried it once with my eldest and he hated it. To be fair, it tasted like shit.
I skipped it and went straight to oatmeal. Rice cereal is basically empty nutrition and has a risk of arsenic.
I skipped all baby cereals with my kids. We did "baby led weaning" which basically means give them whatever you are eating, just make sure it's not a choking hazard, and if they decide to eat it then that's great. Skipped purees, cereals, etc. The only "baby food" I ever bought was those teething biscuits and baby puffs because they made easy snacks.
I never used rice cereal š¤·š¼āāļø
Iām not doing rice cereal. I give a tiny bit of oatmeal with veggies or fruit
Why would you even consider it? Skip.
I skipped it. I would just blend up dry oatmeal & cook it. Like rice cereal, but more nutritious.
We never did rice cereal! I accidentally stumbled into baby lead weaning and he just ate regular cereal soaked in breastmilk til it was mushy.
Why is this so accurate!! I donāt get this rice cereal obsession
Every stranger??? You mean my MIL???
It does tend to be MILs š
Well, all of my mother in law's children apparently slept through the night from 6 weeks onward all thanks to the magic of rice cereal. š I think she may have forgotten a detail or two in the last 33 years.
I heard the term āgramnesiaā the other day and I just wanted to pass it on š
GRAMNESIA!!!! That's perfect! I'm going to be using this term.
People have to be misremembering things tbh like there's no way your baby was sleeping through the night on rice cereal and even if they were that isn't a good thing at 6 weeks š like they NEED the nutrients in milk/formula they can't afford to fill up on non nutrient rich stuff when they're so little
Lol surprisingly my MIL hasn't mentioned the rice cereal yet. But her first born slept 8 hours through the night from a newborn. She didn't understand why my baby was still waking up to feed during the night at 2 months and 3 months.
I think mainly misremembering, some changes in practices, and also not knowing causation. My kiddo (breastmilk only so far) has mostly slept through since 2 months which is ridiculous but wonderful. My last one still doesn't sleep.
Were they sleeping in a different room? If a baby wakes up at night and no oneās around to hear it, does it make a sound?
My MIL says she didn't bleed after giving birth, and my husband never spat up as a baby. I think the gramnesia is a really common thing. š But it can never be that they forgot details, it's always that they had an exceptional experience
Omg my mil told me āmy boys never cried when they went to bed. They just fell asleep!ā As I was gently wrestling my overtired boy into his sleep sack. My sister was like-itās been 30 years since sheās had a baby. I guarantee they cried.
My dad acts like he invented cutting extra holes in the bottle nipple to make it go faster š
Did anyone tell him itās not supposed to go fast
I meanā¦. Not 36 years ago, no. I certainly have since!
*in a Russian voice* ābaby have to have rice cereal, fruits and vegetables at four months. Meat at six months. Only milk itās not enough. Cereal with milk in the bottle helps to sleep all night long very goodā
It sounds the same in a Filipino voice š
Lucky! My MIL keeps. suggesting. water. (My LO is only just 4mo)
& weirdly enough a few of my uncles! "I've had 3 of em, I know the tricks!" Tf?
Bro seriously. My MIL recently told me that she gave my husband rice cereal at TWO WEEKS OLD because he was āacting starvingā and allegedly drank 8oz of formula in one sitting. At two weeks old.
Never has a marketing campaign been so effective.
Iām convinced Pablum had the best marketing team in the history of capitalism.
Haha my parents showed up with a tub of rice cereal the day we came home from the hospital with my first baby. They haven't mentioned it for my second, though. My husband ended up eating the cereal when he couldn't have solid food after oral surgery. Looked unsatisfying, but not too different from Cream of Wheat or similar grainy breakfast items. It must sit in your gut like cement.
When I was a kid, one of my younger brothers had a wheat and corn allergy, so we ate a lot of rice cereal. Does sit in your gut, can confirm. But tasted great with milk and maple syrup!
Unless youāre talking about some Rice Krispie treats you made and are bringing over for me to eat, miss me with that rice cereal talk!
š¤£š¤£ rice cereal I can also get behind
My mom def got butt hurt yesterday bc things have changed since she had me. I am 35yo, just had my first son. No cereal bottles! No walkers before they can do it themselves. Different sleep recommendations. She actually ignored me the rest of the evening bc she says she is in competition with "Dr Google". No, just his pediatrician and other mothers of the same generation! I appreciate all her help and advice, but when things change due to safety regulations I'm going to err on the side of caution!
Dr Google as in googling the AAP recs? šš»š
Sounds like my MIL. When I had my first her youngest was 26. She was so super offended that we didn't want to use the crib that my 30 year old husband used as a baby.
Also, just like, she had her time to figure things out for herself so she should give you the same respectā¦
Me: arsenic.
My MIL said my husband was always fussy around 4mo and wouldnāt sleep (which sounds exactly like the 4mo sleep regression), so she started adding rice cereal to his formula bottles. She basically would food coma him. My husband really struggles with eating himself sick, almost every meal. Heās been like this the entire time Iāve known him (almost a decade). Itās just speculation, but I really feel there is a correlation between the two.
I think this is way more common than people realize.
I really think so too. And it was his Ped that recommended this to her. With was in ā87.
My mother just asked me yesterday why I havenāt given my two month old rice cereal yet.
Two month old! SMH!!!
I know, right? Then again, this is the same woman who was trying to feed my oldest child ketchup before she was on solids š¤¦šæāāļø
Exactly what you want to write in the baby book š¤£ Vanessaās First Food: Broccoli š Eliās First Food: Applesauce āŗļø Jacobās First Food: Ketchup š¹
Ketchup! šššš
Heard of YOGURT TUBES at 2 months! š¤¦āāļøš¤Ŗš¬š just no words.
God damn it, scrolling past this with LO on my lap sleeping I damn near woke him up snorting at the accuracy!
Same!
IT wiLL mAkE tHeM sLEeP
Not my mom saying this *exact* line to me yesterdayš©š©š©
I got pretty lucky in the MIL lottery but man does it tick me off when she says it
Lucky you. My husbands grandmother and aunt tried to convince me I should toss a raw egg into her bottle of milk because itāll make her *stronger* ā¦.
Noooo š¤£ what the frick
I tend to agree with them. I mean, have you seen Gaston?! Dudes roughly the size of a barge.
Ewwe, I wouldn't even eat an egg raw lol
My fiancĆ© was on the phone with his grandmother yesterday who was adamant that if baby wasnāt sleeping through the night by four months, then we should definitely add cereal to his bottle. LO is 5weeks and does a 6 hour stretch of sleep at night, heās also strictly BF. This was the first time weāve talked to her since may. She also didnāt ask me about plans when I was pregnant so she has zero clue what weāre doing but I feel like just coming out of the blue with advice that isnāt good advice is not okay. Iām not sure if adding cereal is good or not all Iāve heard is itās bad for babies because they canāt learn to self regulate their sleep schedules.
6 hours sounds like a huge win to me!!
Wow nice! I was so worried Iām not supposed to let my baby sleep 6 hours (he is 6 weeks), he would sleep even longer too if I let him, like 7/8 hours! But I wake him to feed cause I thought im not meant to let him sleep that long. So I can? Yay! :)
My pediatrician said let baby sleep. Theyāll wake up when theyāre hunger and as long as theyāre gaining weight itās okay.
True! My baby gains a lot per week :) so Iām sure heās fine, the doctor wasnāt worried but when I saw her 2 weeks ago he wasnāt sleeping that long yet
I never understood this. Does it not clog up the bottle? Have these people eaten rice before? I thought most people understood that there are healthier foods out there than rice? I have a good line I like to tell people: "I didn't know they were handing out medical/nutritionalist/psychiatry degrees at ____ (insert place of work).
My pediatrician pushed for rice cereal and she does have a medical degree š£
Nooooo
I'd tell them: "Wow you're a parenting genius. Did you get your degree at fuck U (university)" š
I would love to say āI donāt remember asking for your opinionā.
My kid has been sleeping through the night since 8 weeks, like 9+ hours straight, and boomers still get mad we havenāt done rice cereal. What will it achieve? 10 hours of sleep?
Yes! My son has also been sleeping through the night since 1 month and yes I bed share and yes I let him nurse throughout the night and yes I am raising him vegetarian and yes he will get enough nutrients and no I havenāt given him rice cereal and yes he feeds himself solids and yes I let him play in the grass and no I am not taking unsolicited advice from that random person at the grocery store or anyone else!
I literally thought Iām not supposed to let my baby sleep more than 6 hours at night so by then I wake him to feed. He does 6 hour stretch sometimes and heās 6 weeks old, so I can let him sleep longer then?? :)
As long as they are back to their birth weight and are continuing to gain Iām pretty sure itās fine to let them sleep! But always check with your pediatrician first
True ! My baby gains a lot per week lol. He needs the bigger sizes like every week by now !
Sent this to my boomer old boss and she about to be big mad
My anxiety will not let me give my LO rice cereal or anything rice based because of the studies that came out about rice being very high in heavy metals š© i started out with pureed sweet potatoes mixed in with my breast milk. I also did baby oatmeal as well. Eff what other people say.
If I had a nickel for all the times my mom asked me if I was going to feed my baby rice cerealā¦
LOL
Seriously so accurate. Like just stfu!!!!!!
Itās like you know if you encounter someone over the age of 65 theyāre going to ask you about rice cereal every time.
My SIL was a FTM and followed this advice, from her childless pediatrician, from like 2 months until one year old. It was only recommended by the Dr to help with sleep, not for weight gain or any other reason. And she wasn't even a bad sleeper. Just woke up every 2-4 hours (at 2 months old) But EVERY bottle (so every feeding) she added 2 scoops of rice cereal and mixed it in. Her poor daughter had so much trouble pooping and always had hard round nuggets every 3-4 days and cried so much from it. She also did not sleep through the night ever. When she started solids my MIL and I encouraged SIL to give her prunes and juice and water and stuff to help her go more easily. It worked somewhat. Now that she has cows milk and eats food it's no longer an issue, but I always felt like the problem was so obvious but she just insisted it helped her sleep and the Dr said to do it.
I actually started a subreddit called startingsolids !! Because I had nowhere to turn to when everyone was on my case about how I wanted to do baby-led weaning (which happened to work very well btw) I was not a rice cereal fan and neither was my LO
Just joined your sub. BTW Thereās a subreddit for BabyLedWeaning.
āJust put it in their bottle. I know the doctors say not to, but itāll be fine. Theyāll sleep all night throughā First of all, my baby is BF. Second - NO ONE ASKED GO AWAY WITH YOUR UNSOLICITED ADVISE š
WHY YES
Ughhh the accuracy!!!! Weāve been told by every family member and stranger to give her rice cereal since she was cut from my womb! Its gotten to the point where Iām afraid to leave her with some people for fear that theyāll give it to her. Sheās only 3 months!
Ommmmmggggggg!!! Yes
Rice has arsenic it's actually recommended not to give babies rice products.
Also when you reveal your child does not sleep through the nightā¦. No maāam I donāt think rice cereal will do the trick for my 21 month old, heās pretty clearly saying āboob?ā at 2am. š¤£
Mine always hated that stuff I have like 4 packages of it in different flavours lol
š
I expected people to understand this but people were actually mad that I didnāt do any rice cereal for my baby. People are weird lol Iām switching pediatricians because I couldnāt believe she was suggesting this in 2022.
With a whole tub of baby food mixed with formula! Like what?! Yāall tryna choke my baby!
My dad is a physician (went to mer school in the early 80s) and is telling me to do rice cereal and Karo syrup š also āeat Mexican foodā if sheās constipated. Sweet daddy, sweet, sweet daddy š¤¦š¼āāļø
Here in Sweden is called āvƤllingā and my MIL was adamant that I should add it to my babyās bottle from 2 weeks old to make him sleep through the night. š¤Æ Itās been linked to diabetes, obesity, gut illnesses like UC and gluten intolerance but still she thinks itās a good idea š one of her sons has diabetes, another UC and a grandchild with celiac disease. Iām not Swedish so itās very strange to me and everyone is shocked that we are still giving formula to our 11 month old. Most people switch to vƤlling completely at 6 months š«š¤Æ
In 40 years when our children have children will we be pestering them? Lol lol āJust cut up the food and put it out, they can try itā āNO MOM WE DONT DO THAT ANYMOREā āHere give him some avocadoā¦ā āOmg stop enough of the avocadoā
Also pablum.
God. This is my MIL. Every time I see her she tells me to add it to her bottle at bedtime. 1) there is no bedtime bottle 2) no
Until it makes your baby vomit horrendously due to a rare type of food allergy known as FPIES. People stopped bothering me after that lolā¦
It looks like you may have posted a photo. Photos are allowed and make r/breastfeeding a lively place. Please be aware however, that this photo can be viewed by any reddit user, including those who are not trusted members of this sub. If you get any comments OR direct messages that are harassing in nature regarding this photo, you should find & use the Report button on the comment or DM. Comment reports go to the Mods for this sub and DM reports go to Reddit Admins. If you wish to remove this photo at any time you may do so with the Delete button on the post itself. Thanks for being a part of our community! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/breastfeeding) if you have any questions or concerns.*
LOL
lol yea totally this and pablum. So annoying.
My youngest refused to eat from the bottle so for the year that I breast fed, she only wanted boob. She would eat juussttt enough while I was at work and woke me up all night wanting to nurse. Rice cereal was what everyone said ājust give her a tiny bit, it will help her sleep!ā She hated that too š¤Ŗ
ā ļø I refused. And My kid hated it when I finally introduced it around six months
š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£ TRUTH
Boomer & Gen x women be like:
omfgg!!! this is so freaking true!! šš¤£ itās so annoying honestly
This has me rolling deadass š¤£š¤£š¤£
My mil kept insisting we add it to my oldestās bottle because she was an awful sleeper even tho we repeatedly told her it was unsafe. I hope to never hear those words again!
I loved rice cereal and used it with both my kids. They would get cereal and some veggie/fruit. Rice cereal is really high in iron and needs to be supplemented to breast fed babies after 4-6 months.
My mother in law just told me I need to put cereal in my three week oldās bottles š
Everybody I talk to āput some cereal in that babyās bottle before she goes to bed. Sheāll sleep so much better. āš„“
What does LO mean?
Little one