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What is the best food to start on when a baby starts solids? Is rice cereal still the best food to start them with, or should I try something else?


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  • I started my daughter on solids when she started to stare at me eat. She was about 5 months and I started her or mashed veges


  • We just started our bub who is 4.5 months on a rice cereal plus banana and pear purée from just a packet one from Coles. He loves it. They have the organic ones as well that we have tried and he is slowly warming up to those. The savoury ones are not as popular as the sweet for us at the moment. So we are sticking with the rice cereal with fruit for now.


  • My daughter loves stewed fruit like apple or pear so as well as rice cereal perhaps you could try some fruit or add some mashed banana to the cereal.


  • i have always tried creeal with breastmilk and the kids have been fine. they will progress off this very quickly though


  • I tried mine on rice cereal he hated it! And its no wonder why, it tastes horrid! I have read a bit about it too and the general info I got was that bubs don’t digest cereals properly for the first year, so its better to put them on whole foods. We did pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, brocolli, potato, carrot, zucchini, apples, pear, banana, avocado etc. Basically I purreed everything for him to try, the more variety the better. Supplementing with formula or breastmilk of course if they are just starting out.


  • I started her on rice cereal but she didn\’t like it so I gave her a quarter of a weet Bix mixed with formula. Then started the puréed fruit.


  • We started bub on rice cereal mixed with breastmilk. Bub loved it. We then tried apples, carrot and then pears. The apples by themselves were pretty sweet and bub didn’t really like it but I mixed it with rice cereal and it was a lot better. Depending on bubs age will determine what you can try but pretty much anything that you can mash/purée is good to try.


  • I started my bub on avocado. She loved it and it’s an awesome food – has excellent fats and nutrients for growth and development. Rice cereal is normally recommended as it is fortified with iron and it’s easy to digest, but it’s not essential. It tastes pretty awful and I wouldn’t eat it so can’t blame bub if she doesn’t want to eat or either! I bought one packet and would mix a little into other foods (ie avocado, yoghurt, fork mashed veggies), and that was it. If you introduce other iron rich foods early then you don’t need to worry about the rice. Spinach, meat etc are good sources of iron. Depending on how your bub handles solids, you can give them little pieces of meat. My daughter has only just got first teeth at 12 months but she was handling small chunks of meat from 6 months. She eats a wide range of food and is not at all fussy (unlike my first for whom I followed a more traditional ‘baby’ diet). Good luck!


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