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How to feed
Since breast milk or formula milk is still your baby's most important food, offer her the cereal only after you have nursed or bottle-fed her. A baby under six months of age is still too young for a high-chair, so cradle her in your arms as you would for breast- or bottle-feedings, but hold her slightly more upright or use an infant seat.
Put a bit of cereal, diluted to almost liquid consistency, on the end of a baby spoon. Put the spoon to her lips and let her suck the cereal from it. Don't put the spoon in her mouth or she won't be able to use her highly honed sucking skills. The introduction of spoon-tip feeding helps your baby learn how to guide food to the back of her mouth for swallowing.
Babies are instinctively afraid of new foods and prefer familiar foods. Some babies need to try cereal eight or 10 times before they happily accept a spoonful. Food rejection is completely normal and may well be an adaptive mechanism to prevent babies from eating harmful substances. You can help your baby accept cereal by mixing it with a familiar taste. If you're nursing, mix the cereal with breastmilk; if you're bottle-feeding, mix it with formula.
How much to feed
The tiny amount of Pablum your baby needs will make you feel like you're feeding a baby bird. Manitoba Health offers the guideline that four- to six-month-old babies receive 15 to 30 mL (I to 2 tbsp.) of cereal morning and evening. But that's only one guideline -- follow your baby's feeding cues. If he's not hungry, he'll close his mouth, turn his head away, or even fall asleep. If he's hungry, he'll appear excited by the prospects of Pablum. He might wave his chubby hands in the air and kick off his socks. Or he might lean forward and flash you his heart-melting toothless grin.
Excerpted from Growing with Your Child: pre-birth to age 5 by Christine Langlois. Copyright 1998 by Telemedia Communications Inc. Excerpted, with permission by Ballantine Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
