terrible time starting solids?

[Anonymous]

Anyone's child have a terrible time starting solids? What did you do?
We started our 5.5 mo old on rice, but she ended up with hives. Then, sweet potatoes, which gave her painful bouts of gas that left her screaming for hours thereafter (and unable to sleep because everytime she rolled to tummy, she would wake up with a scream - nearly hourly!). Finally, bananas, which also led to the same gas problems.
In some ways, I feel like her tummy needs to get used to them? But on the other hand, I really don't want the child to be in such pain. My ped is really pushing for us to continue w/different foods (oatmeal, etc)....but we're considering taking a month or two hiatus and restarting at 7-8 months.
Will it damage my dd if she doesnt start solids until a bit later? I hate stressing over food like this! thanks in advance.

[cuzimawesome]

I can't say that I had the same problem, but I can sympathize! It absolutely won't damage your baby if you wait to start solids. There are many people who wait... plus maybe her tummy just isn't ready yet. So there's no harm in waiting.

You could wait a few months or you could just put it off for a week, and then reintroduce solids again... something like baby oatmeal by beech nut (which is what I used). And just see how she reacts. If she does well with that, just give her a table spoon of that daily for a week, and then maybe mix in a little bit of banana to see how she handles that.

I know it's hard, but try not to stress. Every baby goes at their own pace, and she just may not be ready yet... or maybe she just needs to go very slowly. Best of luck to you!

[Anonymous]

Rice and bananas constipate some babies so I am not surprised that yours had the reaction she did. At first I also thought that my LO's tummy might not be ready for solids yet but in actuality, the problem were just the foods themselves. We skipped rice cereal all together for this reason. Our main offenders were: bananas, sweet potato and apples. Have you ever heard of the BRAT diet? No wonder our LO's had problems with these solids!

Foods that were successful for us at that age were: Prunes (especially after the bout of constipation/gas), squash, peas, carrots.

GL!

[Anonymous]

What rice cereal did you use? Some have soy in it!! Soy is more of an allergen than rice. The next time you give it to her (and yes, wait a month or two!) make some brown rice and just blend it with water or breastmilk or whatever formula she's on.

[Anonymous]

9:42 again. Also, I took a 2wk break to give my LO's tummy time to recover from the offending solids. If I could do it again, I would have offered a little prune juice (one ounce juice, one ounce distilled water) once a day to help get her system moving again.

[Anonymous]

We tried to start solids at 6 months to no avail, DD wanted nothing to do with it, and would clamp her mouth shut. We finally figured out (at 8 months) that she just wanted to do it herself, and have therefore been doing a version of "baby-led weaning". We have had some gas issues, but generally with gas producing foods like beans (and last night, brussel sprouts, which she loved). Our doctor said there's absolutely no harm in her remaining solely breast-fed until 8/9 months - she's healthy and at a good weight

[Anonymous]

We had a similar issue (without the hives) at 5.5 months and we stopped until 7 months. In the in-between time we still let DD have tastes of food but no formal solid food sessions. Then we started back up at 7 months old and you would have thought we had been starving her for months - by the third day on round two, there wasn't any food to even clean up. If she could have licked the bowl clean, she would have. I think, at least for our DD, she was not ready at 5.5. The difference was quite remarkable.

[Anonymous]

I don't know why your ped is pushing this, especially at your baby's age. The recommendation these days is to wait until 6 months, anyway. Go ahead and take a break... my DD was slow to take to solids, and didn't eat much until about 8 months. It really makes no difference in the long run.