from cereal to solids

In order to keep up with Miss Natalie's growing demands, Brandon and I have been occasionally supplementing her bottles with rice cereal at night.  And I am honestly surprised that my mom has not been supplementing her bottles during the day! Now that she has moved into that "supported sitter" stage, we are slowly starting to give her the rice cereal on a spoon.  That has been so much fun and at times so frustrating.  She tries so hard and it is absolutely adorable.

I am so excited about when she will start solids and what her first food will be, so I have been doing quite a bit of research on this.  I find if I have lots of information for Brandon, he is much more likely to get on board with baby decisions!  I found so many sites with so much information, so I have taken the time to put it into one chart for easy access.  Also, it's easier to show Brandon a chart than hand him print offs from 10 different websites.

	Liquids	Solids
3 Weeks - 4 Months	●4-6 oz every 3-4 hours, ~6x/day ●24-32oz/day
4-6 Months	●5-7 oz every 4-5 hours, ~5x/day ●24-36oz/day	●Rice Cereal – start mixing 1 tsp of cereal with 4-5 tsp of breastmilk/formula, little by little increasing to 1 tbsp cereal with breastmilk/formula: 2x/day ●Pureed single ingredient baby food – starting with 2-3tsp of both fruits and veggies (Stage 1): 1-2x/day ●No meats/proteins
6-8.5 Months	●7-8oz every 6 hours, ~4x/day ●24-32oz/day	●1/4 – 1/2 cup cereal: once a day ●1/4 – 1/2 cup fruit (Stage 2): 1-2x/day ●1/4 – 1/2 cup veggies (Stage 2): 1-2x/day ●1 tbsp meats/protein (Stage 2): 1-2x/day
8.5-12 Months	●7-8oz every 6 hours, ~4x/day ●24-32oz/day ●3-4oz non-citrus juice/day	●1/2 cup cereal: once a day ●1/2 cup fruit (Stage 3): 2x/day ●1/2 cup veggies (Stage 3): 2x/day ●1/4 cup meats/protein (Stage 3): 1-2x/day ●1/4 – 1/3 cup dairy (cheese & yogurt)
12-18 Months	●Approx 4oz/milk, 4x/day ●3-4oz non-citrus juice/day	●Dairy: 4 daily servings - 1/2 Cup, 3/4oz Cheese ●Grains: 6 daily servings - 1/2 slice, 1/4 Cup ●Fruit: 3 daily servings – 1/4 cup cooked, 1/2 cup raw ●Veggies: 2 daily servings – 1/4 cup cooked, 1/2 cup raw ●Protein: 2 daily servings - 1/2 cup: beans, eggs, meats

 

Since the little miss started occasionally eating cereal at around 1 month, I think we are going to start her on solids at around four, maybe four and a half, months.  The excitement is killing me... especially since my little peanut will be four months by the end of the week!  Now the next decision becomes - what is her first food and do we try to make it ourselves?

I want her first food to be squash.  Brandon loves squash.  It's bright in color so it is probably appealing.  Survey says the typical first food is carrots or sweet potatoes, so of course I don't want to do that.  I want her to have something a little bit different; however, I don't want to be too adventurous.  I am all about the root vegetable, so even though I want to go a different route I plan to stay along the same food family.  As far as buying it or making it ourselves, Brandon loves the idea of making it ourselves.  I think it will make for a fun experience with my husband and our babe :) I think it adds to that whole first food moment.