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6 months is the longest you can wait before introducing food. at 6 months you can start giving rice cearls like pablum.

You can b___stfeed exclusively for a year.

One year. I did this because of allergies with my 2nd. We'll see with this one. It did work though.

one year. we bf exclusively for 11 months - dd wasn't interested in any food till then and i didn't force her. when she did start, she went straight for adult food and skipped the cereal and baby mush altogether.

I though it was around a year as well.

Do you ladies think it it better to wait a year or introduce the cereal at four months and then baby food at six?? I've heard they require a lot more after six months than just milk.

It is okay to BF exclusively until 1 year. however after 6 months they need additional iron. Which can be given in the form of supplements.

give a baby supplements??? thats sounds a little wacko to me. Thousands of years women have b___stfed & went straight to food they prepared themselves for the baby. This concept that babies NEED cereal and imitation baby food is another false pretense for a company to sell their product and make money. Everything a baby needs is provided in mom's milk. if they needed more iron...than there would be more iron in it. It's just like the dairy industry telling us we need more calcium and milk is the only way to get it. Well thats a big fat lie. Babies dont NEED cereal and fake baby food...but..... it doesn't harm your baby either. Whatever the mom wants to do...go for it.

It is okay to b___stfeed only for the first year. I am going to try for a year with my second. We are going to keep a close eye on his weight to make sure he is still doing great. I read that the iron in cereals is hard to digest on it's own. You should mix it with fruit containing vit C for the best results. Also brestmilk is loaded with iron and it should be enough for baby's first year. If you are concered you can have it checked.

to the mom's asking about cereal. I am going to give my guy brown rice first. It has lots of iron and vitamin's. You can mush it up or let them eat it themselves and it doesn't have all the extra c___p that's in baby cereal. My SIL' second wouldn't eat pureed foods. She started eating regular foods (whatever they were having) at one year.

Babies do need additional iron that your b___stmilk cannot supply at about six months. This doesn't mean that you have to start solids. But they need to get that iron somehow. I chose to start making Blake's food. Others who decide to hold off on solids still need to find a way to get their baby the iron he/she needs.

My dad just asked me when I can I start cereal. I said around six months. Of course, he is in shock as they started my sister and I on the stuff when we were 6 or 7 weeks old. He still does not believe that b___stmilk will be enough for the baby until then. I could tell he was a little hurt by my attempts to educate him on current practice and research. I think that he and my mom think that I am somehow knocking what they did. I'm not, as I know that they did what was considered best at that time. I am doing what is considered best at this time. I will admit that there is something very appealing about going straight from bf to solids and no cereal or baby food in between. I just wonder if I will be wanting to bf that long. I guess we'll see.

Jenn - EXCLUSIVELY b___st fed babies - that is, babies getting absolutely nothing else than b___stmilk, do not need additional iron supplements until they begin eating real food or turn a year old. Even then, if mom is preparing foods with iron in them, it isn't necessary.

If your baby is more than 6 months old and exclusively b___stfed and you have decided not to give an iron supplement; I would recommend asking your pediatrician to do a simple iron test. Iron deficiency is very common and while it is possible to exclusively nurse without supplementation it is not always best to do so.

I think giving a baby an iron supplement is unnatural. If a baby can survive a year on b___stmilk alone....than that's how it was intended, meaning it is perfectly natural, normal, and safe. Jenn...was your baby's iron low and this is why you think this? Were you not getting enough iron yourself and therefor your baby wasn't getting any? I could understand that...but to say in general that if your not introducing food at 6 months to give them an iron supplement is not a wise thing to say unless your a health professional.

I go to a weekly b___stfeeding support group. The lady who runs it is a Lactation Consultant and she has an a__sistant who is also a lactation consultant for WIC. They are both amazing! Ony many occasions I have heard her tell nursing mothers that the reason it is recommended for solids to be started at around 6 months is because this is the age that babies begin to need additional iron. She aslo says that it is not necessary to start solids then but that you can wait up to a year but your baby still needs additional iron. Neither Blake nor I have ever had a problem with our iron levels personally.