What are the benefits of starting a baby on solid food early?
As near as I can tell from talking with my pediatrician and what I have read in various places on the web, there are few, if any, benefits to starting solid foods at 4 months. It seems, occasionally, you run into a really hungry baby who is not satisfied with 32 ounces of breastmilk or formula and needs some solid food to fill them up, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Babies can receive all the nutrition they need from breastmilk/formula until they are about 6 months old. After that, they do need to start eating some iron-fortified cereal because they have about used up the iron they stored up in utero and can’t absorb all they need from nursing alone. The old wives tale about feeding cereal will make a child sleep through the night has not been scientifically proven. The exception would be if you child previously slept through the night and is now starting to wake up and ask to be fed, this is one possible indicator that s/he is ready to start solid foods. Othe
As near as I can tell from talking with my pediatrician and what I have read in various places on the web, there are few, if any, benefits to starting solid foods at 4 months. It seems, occasionally, you run into a really hungry baby who is not satisfied with 32 ounces of breastmilk or formula and needs some solid food to fill them up, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Babies can receive all the nutrition they need from breastmilk/formula until they are about 6 months old. After that, they do need to start eating some iron-fortified cereal because they have about used up the iron they stored up in utero and can’t absorb all they need from nursing alone. The old wives tale about feeding cereal will make a child sleep through the night has not been scientifically proven. The exception would be if you child previously slept through the night and is now starting to wake up and ask to be fed, this is one possible indicator that s/he is ready to start solid foods. Othe
