Starting Solids...Skipping Rice Cereal
I shake my head at a LOT of the feeding recommendations that float around (just ask my husband - I am NOT fun to watch television commercials with), but perhaps the one that grinds my gears the most is baby cereal. I don't even know where to begin with my gripes regarding this incredibly misguided choice as baby's first food.
For starters, rice, oats, wheat, millet, sorghum and other cereal grains do not contain the nutrition that a young baby needs. Breast milk and/or well-developed baby formula fulfills 100% of a baby's nutritional needs until approximately six months of age. One key nutrient that is missing is iron. For a while, this is fine because babies store up iron from their mom while they are in the womb. But around six months after birth the stores run out and they need to consume iron from food. The obvious solution is to offer iron rich meat purees. Simple enough, right? Apparently a little too simple for baby food companies. Cereal grains are much cheaper than meat, so in the early 1900's companies started creating finely ground baby cereals with added iron and marketing them as the perfect first food for babies. The added iron is not absorbed and utilized as easily as the iron in meat, so a large volume of baby cereal is needed to meet nutritional requirements.
Cereal grains do not naturally contain iron, which is enough in my book to make them a strange choice as baby food. But going beyond that, what they DO contain is a LOT of carbohydrate. If you have ever held a piece of white bread or a saltine cracker in your mouth for a while you know that they actually taste quite sweet. Breast milk and formula are also, you guessed it, quite sweet. When choosing foods to introduce babies to, it makes all the sense in the world to start broadening their palate. Once again, all logic points towards meat purees. They are not sweet and can easily be made to incorporate herbs, spices and even vegetables.
Palate development is great, but we can't overlook general health and safety. One of my biggest issues with baby cereal is the temptation to feed it to very young babies. Because it can be made very thin, it's common for parents to start offering it at four months or earlier, possibly even mixing it into a bottle. I've mainly seen this recommended as a strategy to improve sleep, or for big babies that seem "ready." Neither of these theories has been proven, and the reality is that early introduction of solids can be quite dangerous. There is an acute risk of aspiration, should the food travel to the lungs instead of the stomach due to underdeveloped swallowing ability. There is also a strong correlation between childhood obesity and early introduction of solids.
In my book, Healthy Little Foodie, I go into detail about how and when to introduce solids. As you've probably guessed, baby cereal is not part of that plan! I recommend starting with meat purees around six months old. Be sure to check out the book for recipes and more details!