The first recommended food for your baby is rice cereal, with mixed cereals the staple in your baby's diet for at least the first year. There are lots of brands and flavors to choose from in the grocery store, but did you know you can make your own baby cereal?
Yes, you can make your own cereal. The best source of information I have found on the daunting task of making baby cereal (hey, even I'm intimidated by this prospect) is "Super Baby Food". To make rice cereal, the book recommends you buy whole-grain rice and put about 1/4 cup of it in your blender and blend for 2 minutes (a full 2 minutes) so that it is a full powder, with no big chunks. Then, boil 1 cup of water and slowly add the powdered rice while stirring and turn down the stove to the low. Cover the pot and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid scorching. It should look like cereal when it is done. This makes three to four servings, depending on the appetite of your baby! And it will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to three days. You can also adjust the thickness by adding more water (or breastmilk before serving) or using a bit more powdered rice. After your baby has grown accustomed to the homemade rice cereal, you can also try oat, barley and millet, and then combine grains she has already tried.
But before you reach for your blender, I do want to give a word of warning: the store-bought cereals, although not the most tasty, are iron-fortified. The homemade variety is not. If this is a concern to you, please talk it over with your pediatrician before taking your baby completely off the store-bought cereals.
With my baby, the new-mom-don't-quite-know-what-I'm-doing syndrome won out and I actually bought his cereal. My main concern here was the iron. When babies hit 6 months, they have in general, exhausted the reserve iron they were born with and rely more on getting iron from their food.
Now, I am not saying don't make your baby's cereal. I want you to be informed, though. A good compromise would be to make your baby's cereal, but be sure to talk with your pediatrician about an iron supplement (by the way, too much iron can lead to toxicity in infants, so be careful not to supplement too much!).
I have found a natural cereal that my baby loves -- "Kashi - Baby and Me." It's made by the Kashi Company (PO Box 8557, La Jolla, CA 92038-8557), and it contains ground kashi seven whole grains and sesame (whole oats, long grain brown rice, whole rye, whole hard red winter wheat, whole triticale, whole buckwheat, whole barley, sesame seeds) and iron. It smells terrible, but contains some great stuff!
Yes, you can make your own cereal. The best source of information I have found on the daunting task of making baby cereal (hey, even I'm intimidated by this prospect) is "Super Baby Food". To make rice cereal, the book recommends you buy whole-grain rice and put about 1/4 cup of it in your blender and blend for 2 minutes (a full 2 minutes) so that it is a full powder, with no big chunks. Then, boil 1 cup of water and slowly add the powdered rice while stirring and turn down the stove to the low. Cover the pot and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid scorching. It should look like cereal when it is done. This makes three to four servings, depending on the appetite of your baby! And it will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to three days. You can also adjust the thickness by adding more water (or breastmilk before serving) or using a bit more powdered rice. After your baby has grown accustomed to the homemade rice cereal, you can also try oat, barley and millet, and then combine grains she has already tried.
But before you reach for your blender, I do want to give a word of warning: the store-bought cereals, although not the most tasty, are iron-fortified. The homemade variety is not. If this is a concern to you, please talk it over with your pediatrician before taking your baby completely off the store-bought cereals.
With my baby, the new-mom-don't-quite-know-what-I'm-doing syndrome won out and I actually bought his cereal. My main concern here was the iron. When babies hit 6 months, they have in general, exhausted the reserve iron they were born with and rely more on getting iron from their food.
Now, I am not saying don't make your baby's cereal. I want you to be informed, though. A good compromise would be to make your baby's cereal, but be sure to talk with your pediatrician about an iron supplement (by the way, too much iron can lead to toxicity in infants, so be careful not to supplement too much!).
I have found a natural cereal that my baby loves -- "Kashi - Baby and Me." It's made by the Kashi Company (PO Box 8557, La Jolla, CA 92038-8557), and it contains ground kashi seven whole grains and sesame (whole oats, long grain brown rice, whole rye, whole hard red winter wheat, whole triticale, whole buckwheat, whole barley, sesame seeds) and iron. It smells terrible, but contains some great stuff!
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