In the six-month review, pediatricians and nurses (or pediatricians and nurses) should explain to mothers recommendations for them to start giving their babies other foods, in addition to milk, among which we find the cereals, which are usually recommended with artificial milk in a bowl or by pouring one or two small cups into the bottle.
This is what was always said because, as most people drank artificial milk, it was a valid recommendation for all mothers. However, now many babies arrive at six months without having sucked a nipple and without trying artificial milk. Before a baby who only breastfeeds, How to give cereals?
Cereals at six? But they are not at four?
It is possible that right now you are thinking that six months is too late, because they told you that it started at four months. Well, no, it can't be too late because if what is recommended is to give exclusive breast milk until six months, it makes no sense to give cereals to all four, because then breast milk will no longer be exclusive.
If we talk about a baby who drinks artificial milk, then the same: from six months. Babies are young, small animals that need milk, so for six months that should be their food.
But there are mothers who start working ...
True. The recommendation is perfect for the baby: six months drinking only milk. The problem is that maternal leave is only three and a half months and at that time a breastfeeding mother must make the decision of what food to leave for another person to give it to the baby.
The most recommended is breast milk extracted, whoever is with the baby should warm and offer. If it is not possible or if the mother has decided not to express milk, the next thing would be to give fruit and cereals and the third option would be artificial milk, which is a worse option due to the risk of allergy or intolerance to any of its components (it is the first cause of child allergy).
Prepare them with water, for example
Let's say we decided to give the baby cereal and talk about a 4 month old baby. We can prepare cereals with water. It may sound weird and there will be some who say it can't be done that way. The reality is that obviously, it can be done with water (why shouldn't it be pruned?). Cereals at 4 months are those that have no gluten, which contain rice and corn.
How do you cook rice normally? Well that, with water. With milk too, but to make dessert. So we put water, heat it a little and add gluten-free cereals. We stir with the rods (those of assembling the cream) and once prepared the porridge we give it with a spoon.
Mother taking milk to prepare cereals
Another option is for the mother milk is taken to prepare cereals. The mother takes out milk, keeps it in the fridge and on the same day, or the next day, the person who is going to prepare the cereals puts the milk in a bowl, mixes the cereals and gives them to the baby.
The only "but" is that children are not always hungry, or they will not always take the porridge, and what you need to throw it away. In addition, the mixture does not always come out perfect, and if one day we spend with cereals and there is an inedible paste, inedible remains ...
Come on, that I personally, to prepare a cereal porridge having the option of water, would not do the milk extraction.
What if the baby is already six months old?
Ok, let's get in the ideal situation. The mother breastfeeds the baby during six months of exclusive breastfeeding (because she is with him or because milk has been extracted and in her absence they have been given) and now, at six months, she is recommended to start with the cereals.
There are those who say that "two little bottles in the bottle", which does not make much sense. The complementary feeding is offered so that the children begin to eat food and leave the milk, little by little, as another food. If the mother breastfeeds and the baby does not take a bottle, see how she does it to give a bottle with two cereal cups. What do you mix them with water? With artificial milk? No, we have already said that the mother breastfeeds. Is illogical to tell a breastfeeding mother to buy artificial milk to give cereals. You have to give a worse, more allergenic milk and get used to a bottle that you will then have to leave.
For that it is much easier to tell him to make a porridge and spoon it. And if the baby drinks artificial milk the same. A child does not learn too much by taking two cereal cups in his usual bottle, and at the nutritional level, it does not change much either. The logical thing is to make a porridge and that start eating with a spoon, so that from the year I will leave the bottle if you have not already left it.
So, as we say that the baby is six months old, cereals can be made with water, like at four months, but they can also be made with the vegetable stock that we prepare for the baby or even with oat milk.
The oat milk It contains oatmeal, which is a cereal with gluten. From six months onwards babies have to start testing gluten, a little every day for a month or so, and then increase the amount. This is because it seems that doing so in a controlled manner the risk of celiac disease is much lower. So if we decided to do it that way (I did it that way because they didn't like them with water too much), I would no longer add gluten to the porridge (I would do it with gluten-free cereals), or at most I would put a spoonful of gluten-free cereals during the first month.
What if we don't give cereal?
After six months, children can eat practically everything. They can eat bread, cookies, Italian pasta, rice, etc. The first three things I've said carry gluten, so it would be to give very little the first weeks, but rice for example does not carry, and children can eat without problems. After three or four weeks you can increase the amount of gluten and then children can eat those foods without problems.
A child who eats rice, pasta, bread, cookies ... do you need to eat baby cereals? Well, no. You don't need it because you are already eating cereals when eating those foods, just as we adults do. It all depends on how our child accepts the foods that the elderly eat.
If you accept them well, we can skip the use of cereals in porridge, but we can also avoid crushing, mashing and potitos. If instead he does not handle them well, he chokes a lot and spits them one day yes and another too (it happened to me with two of my three children), there is no other than to throw away semi-solid food, and then yes, make use of the cereals.
Summarizing
I realize that to give four ideas I have written a lot, so as a summary, say that when a baby takes Breast cereals can be made with water, with extracted milk (for one take a day would not) and from six months with broth or with oat milk.
Add that the logical thing is to make them in porridge, be as old as you are, and eat them with spoon, because if mom does not take a bottle, and it is absurd to get used to something she has never tried just to give a food, and that if the baby is able to eat food without crushing, cereals are optional.
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