(About 2-4 Months of Age)

 

 

YOU  MAY NOW ADD:

     Baby Cereal- Boxed Baby cereal or jar cereal is highly fortified with iron.  Begin with Baby rice cereal.  When one box of cereal is emptied, you can try barley, then oat, then wheat, and finally mixed cereal.  If Baby gets constipated with rice cereal, go to oatmeal cereal.

 

GIVE BABY THIS MUCH:

     by bottle: add 1 Tablespoon cereal to bottle(one time a night) if baby is not sleeping at least one four hour period at night.

     by spoon: Mix 1 Tablespoon of dry Baby cereal with Baby's formula in a clean dish.  If you are breast-feeding, mix cereal with expressed breast milk, formula or water.  Offer at 1 feeding a day before the bottle or breast.  Gradually increase the amount of dry cereal to 2-4 Tablespoons.  By 4 months of age, the Baby can have 2 feedings of cereal a day.

 

TRY THESE IDEAS:

    It will take up to 5-7 days until your Baby learns to swallow food from a spoon.  (S)he will spit the food out at first.  Be Patient; you may have to try several times with the same spoonful.  Start out with cereal thinned with liquid, then advance to thicker (less liquid) as Baby swallows better.

 

REMEMBER:

     Use plain cereal.

 

Feed plain cereal from a spoon.  DO NOT put cereal in a bottle after 4 months.  Formula, water or breast milk can be added to cereal.  DO NOT add salt, butter, or margarine to the cereal.

 

     Check with your doctor or nurse about vitamins and iron.