Somewhere effectually 6 months, your baby may exist showing signs of readiness for solids. Just, is the pediatrician recommendation of baby cereal every bit first nutrient really the all-time idea?

Let'southward delve into the science behind babe'due south digestion, when to introduce solids, and the best starting time foods for infant. You'll run into that rice infant cereal is not the best selection for infant!

What'due south Actually in Baby Cereal?

Permit'south kickoff accept a look at what baby cereal really is… considering it's not but plain rice. Since it'south usually made from white rice, there actually isn't any nutrition in information technology. As a effect, information technology'southward fortified with synthetically produced vitamins, like ferrous sulfate (iron), folic acid (vitamin B9) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Some manufacturers are offering organic rice baby cereal, just it'south not much amend. The baby cereal may be from brownish rice but it's processed into a flake and then that it's quick to prepare (which spikes claret sugar levels) and smooth for infant'due south palate.

About pediatricians recommend starting rice babe cereal at about 4-vi months old for baby's first food. Some doctors will recommend it even earlier as a way to help newborns sleep. Mom's are urged to add together a niggling rice baby-cereal and formula to baby's canteen as a way to keep him full and sleep through the dark. There are a few problems with this recommendation though. Even Gerber, the pop infant food manufacturer recommends confronting putting rice cereal in your infant'southward bottle!

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Supplementing With Infant Bottles

If your baby is colicky and fussy at dark, this could be related to digestion or latent food allergies (source). Lulling them to sleep with rice infant cereal is simply putting a band aid on the consequence. And if you lot're breastfeeding and safely co-sleeping with your baby, dark feedings don't crave you to get upwardly and lose a lot of sleep soothing a soothe a crying infant. I remember our nighttime feedings while co-sleeping were restful, peaceful, and no harder than nuzzling my infant a little closer.

Newborns stomachs are just the size of a hazelnut at first, and don't hold much milk at once. Their bodies aren't designed to stay total for 8 hours at night (Source). In fact, in this written report babies who were fed rice babe cereal earlier four months slept less than the babies who weren't fed solids!  Nutrient is supposed to energize us. When your baby is excessively sleepy subsequently eating solids, information technology may mean that his torso is diverting energy resource to digestion considering he is overfed. (Kinda how you feel afterwards overindulging at Thanksgiving dinner!) (Source).

Why Rice Baby Cereal Is Not Good

High in the toxin arsenic

Arsenic is naturally found in soil and water, nonetheless information technology can become concentrated due to conventional farming practices. When pesticides and herbicides are used on fields, the runoff contaminates the soil and local water with arsenic. This irrigation h2o is then flooded over the rice fields for long periods of fourth dimension.

Arsenic accumulates in the soil and h2o, and rice absorbs more arsenic compared to other crops. Even organically grown rice is susceptible to high levels of arsenic contamination because of the necessary growing environs, and the high levels of pesticide runoff in our modern environment. Both white and brown rice were found to contain arsenic…

Concentrations of arsenic were twice as high in the urine of infants who ate white or brown rice than those who ate no rice, co-ordinate to research published in JAMA Pediatrics. Arsenic levels were highest in babies who ate rice cereal, frequently given several times a solar day to innovate babies to solids.

High levels of arsenic damages the nervous arrangement. It can cause poor concentration and memory, and reduced intelligence. Furthermore, moms who eat a high arsenic diet while pregnant take babies with much higher rates of respiratory complications.

Your Baby'southward Digestive System May Not Exist Ready for Grains Withal

Amylase is the enzyme that's necessary to digest starches and grains, similar rice baby cereal.  Babies are born producing small amounts of salivary amylase and equally they age go on to produce more and more. By effectually three months former, their salivary amylase levels are at 2/3 the amount unremarkably constitute in adult saliva. However, their pancreatic amylase, the powerhouse of starch digestion, does non accomplish developed levels until eight months of age. (Source, Source, Source).

Rice Cereal Is…

1. Highly Refined

Infant rice cereal isn't whole rice for obvious reasons, but it's not even just ground. Rice cereal is usually highly processed until information technology'southward converted into lite flakes, which are "instantly" gear up for consumption. This is done to make a true convenience food that's piece of cake to merely stir into milk or formula, but information technology besides strips the rice of the little nutrition information technology does accept.

2. Low in Diet

Rice baby cereal is naturally devoid of diet, and so manufacturers add synthetic vitamins back in to fortify it. It's loftier in inflammatory and disease causing Omega-6s (source), and even the organic rice cereal can contain soy lecithin. Soy lecithin isn't as scary every bit information technology sounds, yet introducing soy to an infant can cause allergies and gut damage later in life (source).

three. Full of Folic Acid

I've mentioned that rice baby cereal is high in constructed vitamins that are hard to digest and non bioavailable, but folic acrid can be even more damaging. Folate is a necessary nutrient, while folic acrid is information technology'due south synthetic, manufactured replacement. It can cause thyroid damage and health issues for the estimated 50% of the population with MTHFR mutations (Source, Source).

4. Fortified With Iron

Rice cereal is fortified with iron, and pediatricians and dietitians argue that a infant's diet is too low in atomic number 26. It's true that breastmilk is low in fe, but some believe that information technology'south for a reason. If all babies had delayed cord clamping at nascency, they would get an crawly iron stores until they were fix to eat pureed red meats, an excellent source of fe.

In Europe, formula contains half  the amount of iron found in US formula (Source). If you lot indulge in high iron foods, similar pastured beef and liver, so this nutrition is and so passed through the breastmilk to baby in the right amount. (Source). Atomic number 26 is a necessary nutrient, loftier levels of synthetic ferrous sulfate, which is hard to assimilate, is not. In fact, in one written report, babies who were given high doses of fe fortification, the same amount found in US infant formula, scored significantly lower on IQ tests 10 years later.

v. Bland

Another reason why rice baby cereal is recommended, is because it'due south a bland, tasteless food. All the same babies can gustatory modality different flavors in chest milk when you vary your nutrition, so they're used to some flavor. It'south also helpful to introduce different flavors to your baby so they grow upward liking all sorts of salubrious foods, non just bland sweet carbs, which can lead to poor diet choices later in life. (Source).

Best Offset Foods for Infant

Then now that we've covered why rice baby cereal isn't the all-time kickoff food for babe, what is? Nutrient dense foods– animal foods, in particular– are perfect for your little ane. Grains and seeds shouldn't be given until after age 1 (even improve 2) and simply if properly prepared. Here are some foods to kickoff with that volition nourish your baby'southward brain and development. Be sure to opt for pastured and toxin-free animal products. (source)

  • Gently cooked egg yolk (tin be a picayune runny), cooked in butter and served chopped or mixed with other food. Add a little unrefined ocean salt for taste and minerals. Don't do egg white until after 1 yr.
  • Organic beef liver grated or pureed
  • Pureed pastured/organic meats
  • Mashed ripe fruit similar avocado and assistant. Fruits loftier in pectin like apples, pears, peaches and plums should be cooked, cooled and and so fed to baby.

The Surprising Best Beginning Foods for Baby by Mama Natural

Here's more info on best choices for infant'south starting time foods.

Effectually 9 months, Include:

  • Mashed veggies like carrots, peas, winter squash and green beans. All-time served with a little organic butter, coconut oil or cream.
  • Some organic whole yogurt can be introduced as well equally foods like sweet potatoes served with coconut oil or butter.

How About You?

What foods did your baby showtime try, and did it include rice cereal? Let united states know in the comments beneath!

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