Why my Baby is Starting Solids at 4 months

My daughter has reflux and esophagitis which has been a challenge and a long journey. That still includes some bad days of crying what seems like hours. You can read about what started us on this journey here Our Journey with MSPI and GERD. At our 4 month check up it was recommended by her pediatrician to start her on baby food.

Just as thickening her milk with rice cereal helps it to “stay” in her stomach. She encouraged me to start early because it would potentially help with her reflux even more. I was kind of surprised by this because I was assuming I would need to wait until she was 6 months. I had to do that with my first daughter.

So I was frantic I was not prepared to start making my baby food. I had everything in a box readily waiting. Or so I thought, when I opened it up I saw that I had somehow misplaced or lost my steamer. I also was going to need to wash everything again despite washing it before being packed. I also didn’t have any vegetables that were good to start with.

I like to make my own baby food, for a couple of reasons: one it’s cheaper, two it doesn’t have any preservatives, and three I don’t have to worry about it having soy or dairy in it which she can’t have. So I ran to the store and got green beans, carrots, and sweet potatoes. They didn’t have bananas at the time but I picked them up a little bit later.

I obviously already had rice cereal to start out with. So we started with that hoping she would be able to keep it down better than the bottle.

Ohhh! I am not thrilled.

Unfortunately, she was not a big fan of it, like my first daughter and probably every other baby when they first get food. Her face was priceless, like “what are you doing to me, mom?!” She didn’t warm up to it, at all the first time I fed her. She spits it all out. Some of it was swallowed, but it didn’t seem to stay down any better than anything else. I am assuming that it needed to be thicker.

I will be writing a follow-up post with the recipes I am using to make the baby food with my baby bullet. I have not as of yet started the vegetables because of not having a steamer. As soon as I get that all sorted out it will be linked up.

When did your baby start solids? How did you introduce them? Questions, concerns, or comments? Write them below!