Starting solids at 4.5 months?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see how waiting increases or decreases a baby's interest in food. We started my first at 6 months and he wasn't much interested in food for several months but is a great eater now. We started my second at six months and he couldn't get enough!

Really? I'd bet baby was more interested at 6 months than 2 months- so why would this not be logical?

It's like putting shoes on a newborn. Harmful? Probably not. Annoying and time intensive for no gains? Definitely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually 6 months is the old recommendation. Now it's 4-6 months based on interest and readiness. So I'd say you're fine to start now, if you want. We started at 4.5 months and my DS absolutely loved it.

I must have gotten backwards. Oh well.

Appreciate all the responses. I think we'll go for it in a low-key way, a bit of purees to start when we're having a family meal, letting her taste what we're eating, etc. Maybe we'll save the formal high chair stuff for another month from now.

Actually, the AAP still recommends that you wait until as close to 6 months as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting earlier is meant to lead to higher degrees of food allergies.

That is out of date information, PP. Current recommendation is earlier introduction, not avoidance, to avoid allergies. The change is within the past year though, so lots of folks with older kids haven't heard the new guidance yet.

https://www.aaaai.org/about-aaaai/newsroom/news-releases/early-peanut-introduction

No, PP is right. Starting earlier is still generally linked to allergies, just not for 4-6 month olds with a high risk of peanut allergy. Read your link more carefully. This isn't advice for everyone, isn't advice for all foods and, even for its target audience and its target subject, it's not recommending anything pre-4 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We started solids with my first kid at 5 months and it was awful. He wasn't interested and it was a long struggle and he never got into solid foods until after his first birthday, and is still a picky eater today at 3.5. Even when he eats well he still has texture issues -- he sometimes spits out bits of lettuce or apple skin, for example. (He also turned out to have a speech delay and other oral issues, so it's all of a piece.)

Second baby is almost 4.5 months. We've had her at the table for mealtimes from the beginning, on our laps. She is very interested, in a way the older one never was. She has started reaching out for my plate (although her grip isn't good yet so she can't pick anything up), she tracks the movement of the fork, she watches us intently, she gets angry if we start eating with her in the pack and play beside the table rather than on our laps watching. Today she kept reaching for my salad so I let her mouth a few pieces and she kept opening her mouth to taste it. The cheese, too. Obviously she didn't swallow any, but she seemed to be enjoying it or at least not hating it, which again we never experienced with my son until he was much older.

So. Pediatrician said to start solids by 6 months, and I know the recommendation these days is closer to 6 months (when my son was little, it was 4 months). Should we wait or just start in a casual way now, with a few purees and letting her taste table food that isn't a choking hazard? Will she keep getting more and more into it if we wait and be even more ready in a month? Or will we lose the window? My concern is that if we keep saying no when she's reaching for food, she may get the impression that table food is for us and not her. Help me out here -- I don't know which approach is better with a baby who may be a normal eater!

4.5 months is when both my children started solids. I don't care what the pediatrician says. There isn't anything magic that happens overnight when they turn six months. Remember that all these milestones are just estimates, nothing more.

[Anonymous]

We started at 4.5 months because my oldest has a nut allergy, and the recommendation now is to start babies with high risk for food allergies as early as possible. She is almost 9 months now and loves food. She is also much less interested in purees and more into self-feeding, so she's get a bit of both. I'm hoping she'll turn out to be less picky than her brother.

[Anonymous]

Do whatever you're most comfortable with, but I'd say if your kid is interested, has good head control, and doesn't spit out the spoon (aka you can spoonfeed her and she understands how to eat off of it), you can go ahead and start her on solids.

We did the traditional week or so of baby oatmeal mixed with breastmilk/formula to start. Once our daughter got the hang of that, we started purees. Around 6 months, we started on a mix of finger foods and purees. She's 10 months now and we're working on moving her completely to finger foods (with the exception of yogurt, which we obviously still spoonfeed to her).

[Anonymous]

sounds totally ready. I started my boy (who was just like this) at 4 months and he greedily ate anything I gave him and still does at 2.5. try just putting little mashed bits of banana and avocado etc on his tongue and see what he does!