It’s still quite a battle for us during Darius’ feeding times, especially when he’s awake in the day. Despite us only giving him 120ml of milk per 3-hour feed, he would often drink just about 80ml before starting to battle himself away from the bottle. We would often have to soothe him with songs or comforting words, or simply persist on till he finishes his feed.

Worried that he might not be getting sufficient nutrients and also that he might be bored of the same-old-sweet-tasting milk, we decided to gradually introduce cereals into his diet.

Yesterday, we went down to Kiddy Palace and purchased a box of Heinz’s First Baby Cereals and a feeding set from Pigeon, in preparation of his diet’s transition.

For Darius’s 7.30pm milk feed, we mixed 4 to 5 teaspoons of milk with one teaspoon of rice cereal in a feeding bowl, to feed him before the milk feed or after the milk feed (depending on whether he can accept it). As an introduction to cereal, the box and also the babycentre book wrote, ‘start with one teaspoon mixed thinly and gradually increase to tablespoons’. The mixture turned out quite watery.

We propped him up in the bumbo and tried feeding him with the newly bought feeding spoon which will prevent spillage. The first spoonful of cereal just dribbled out of his mouth because he doesn’t know how to swallow. So we laid him down and fed him. He gave a ‘yucks!’ expression at each mouthful. We knew it would not be an easy task so we carried on to try a few more scoops on him, but he started to get cranky, with the uneaten rice cereals flowing out of his mouth.

We decided to give him his routine milk feed via the bottle first, so he will grow more patient after his stomach is relatively filled, than to attempt feeding him the cereals while his stomach was still empty. Anyway lately, he only wants to drink milk totally lying down so we just fed him on the playmat.

After the milk feed, we fed him the cereals again using the spoon, with him still lying down. This time round, he was more receptive and started to swallow the food.

"Hmm... Tastes better than I thought..."

As we fed on, he started to get interested in the food and even lurched his mouth towards the spoon to exhibit his eagerness to consume them. In fact, when all the prepared cereals had been fed, he even started complaining with his wailing asking for more. Not too bad for our first attempt.

Hopefully with this introduction of cereals to supplement his milk diet, he will be fuller and get his nutrients despite not drinking enough. We will gradually introduce more amounts of cereals into his diet.

Related posts:

1. Feeding & Teething Updates Darius finally stopped waking up almost every hour last night...
2. Feeding changes We upgraded Darius’ feeding bottle teat to the ‘variable flow...

Written by WaveSurfer

Comments

1. jaime says...

   hey guys

   Try to feed darius sitting up to prevent choking n at this stage cereal shouldn’t replace milk feed. It should be additional. Have u heard of this book called “super baby food”? That helped me a lot when I first introduced semi solids to talia. Let me welcome darius to the land of glorius food! Hehe!

   Posted on 1 Dec 2008 at 22:59
2. WaveSurfer says...

   Hi Jaime,
   Thanks for introducing about the book. We will check out on it.
   About sitting him up for the feed, we has tried so intially but he seemed to have much difficulty swallowing the cereals this way. That’s why we switched to feeding him lying down instead. Hopefully he will gradually get used to the swallowing so we can feed him sitting up. Will be looking forward to that. ^^

   Posted on 1 Dec 2008 at 23:19
3. Dreamycat says...

   Hi Jaime,
   Yup, have heard of it and intending to get the book. I’m not planning to introduce purees or other semi-solids yet though. Maybe that can wait til he’s six months…?
   Introducing cereals before 6 months isn’t too good as it might trigger allergy but no choice for us since he rejects milk a lot.

   Posted on 2 Dec 2008 at 00:43
4. jaime says...

   yup! i am in no hurry to intro semi solids too. will wait till thaddeus is 6 mths old. talia had her first rice cereals at 6 mths too!

   Posted on 2 Dec 2008 at 11:13
5. Holly says...

   Hi Cat,

   Just came across your blog and read up on some of your post. How’s Darius taking his cereal? My little boy is coming to 5 months now and he is actually premature for 2 months. Corrected age should be 3 months only. He reject milk alot until i start feeding him rice cereal. He dun seems to like it alot but will still finish his bowl of “rice” with milk as a drink. Just wondering if is me who introduce the cereal too my boy too early or is it just the starting that he will whine and push his food out of his mouth.

   Posted on 2 Dec 2008 at 23:51
6. Dreamycat says...

   Hi Holly,
   He will reject a bit initially but after a few mouthfuls, he’s alright and will even open his mouth for me to feed him.
   Maybe the feeding spoon is also a factor? I use Pigeon’s brand which is just right for his small mouth and there’s a stopper that prevent him pushing it out.
   Hmm, the box did say, ‘not recommended for below 4 months old’.
   If your boy rejects milk, he might be teething too and sucking is actually painful for him.

   Posted on 3 Dec 2008 at 01:56
7. Holly says...

   he loves sucking his finger though.. he wun open his mouth for the feeding but he is ok with swallowing. he will start to scream after a few mouthful. so i suspect he is lazy to eat n want to find an easy way out to cure his hunger.

   i’m using combi’s tableware set. should be fine i guess. the spoon is just his mouth size.

   Posted on 3 Dec 2008 at 11:22