what to introduce after rice cereal and how?

[almostmom]

My 5-month old son started eating rice cereal last week. He loves it and is doing well with the whole eating thing. My question is should I start introducing other foods? If so, should I JUST give him avocado or sweet potato and no cereal? Or should I combine them? He's a big boy - almost 20 lbs., so I'm not concerned about his eating. He drinks about 7 oz. 5 times a day (BM only at this point).

Basically, I'm looking for advice on how to take this next feeding step!

Thanks,
Liz
mom to Heath, 11/7/03

[squimp]

I'm not sure what you should do, but I'll tell you what we're doing, based on our ped's advice.

Our baby girl just turned six months, and she's big, too. We gave her rice cereal for about a week, then we tried new veggies and fruits for at least 3 days each. We tried in order sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, peas and today carrots. She hated the apples, and they made her spit up, so we learned something there. The bananas helped, because she loved them, and it got her more interested in eating in general. I generally BF her on one side, then give her soilds, then feed on the other side. This week I'm giving her rice cereal for lunch, and using dinner to try out new foods. I suppose once we try out a variety of foods by themselves, we can try them out in combinations. It's really fun to have her sit at the table with us, and to turn feeding over to daddy for a while!

Have fun!

[murpheyblue]

After introducing rice cereal we have added: apples, pears, bananas, sweet potatoes, squash, peas and green beans. I have heard you should try vegatables first because otherwise they get hooked on the sweet taste of fruit and won't eat vegtables. We started with sweet potatoes. Although, I must say we have found DD likes veggies a lot more than fruit at this point. When I started, I would warm up about an ounce of food and some cereal. I started introducing new foods but putting a little bit on the spoon with the cereal and then moved up to alternating a spoonful of food with a spoonful of cereal. It took DD a while to get used to each new food so don't be discouraged if it seems like he doesn't like them.

I don't know it that's the "right" way but it's what we did.

Ali
Mom to Megan 9-28-03