Adding rice cereal to a baby’s bottle is a traditional practice, an advice from our grandmothers to help us lull our babies to sleep for long periods. While the advice was given with good intentions, it’s not ideal due to some dire health consequences that can result from incorporating cereal into your baby’s diet. Not to mention that such an idea is a myth. It lacks evidence to prove its viability in sustaining a baby’s sleep for hours.
Let’s face it, being sleep-deprived for months on end is an exasperating experience at best– it’s like going through the wringer. I could recall how sleep-deprived my friend was after the birth of her son, being pulled from sleep time and again, spending restless hours tending to her little one with hardly any sleep.
At one point, she felt tempted to add cereal to her baby’s bottle, thinking it was some antidote that would make her baby sleep for an extended stretch — ”Oh, just for one uninterrupted night,” she grumbled. My friend, nevertheless, dropped the idea as she pondered about the negative ramifications it could cause on her baby’s fragile, undeveloped gut.
Is it Safe to Add Rice Cereal to a Baby Bottle?
A baby’s body organs are not yet fully developed like those of adults. His digestive system, for example, is still incapable of breaking down solid food’s carbohydrates, proteins, and fats into nutrients. Thus, adding rice cereal to a baby’s bottle isn’t recommended until he reaches 6 months old.
Introducing solid food prematurely to a baby can have adverse consequences on his health, leaving him vulnerable to a myriad of diseases. For this reason, the APP or the American Academy of Pediatrics advocates to parents the importance of considering breastfeeding as the only source of nourishment for babies up until 6 months of age. Even when a baby is at a stage where he can consume solid foods, he must be breastfed until 12 months or more to ensure he’s nourished with the right balance of nutrients, allowing him to grow and thrive in this critical stage of life.
Adverse Effects of Prematurely Adding Cereal to a Baby’s Diet
Harmful Effects on Sleep
Adding cereal to a baby bottle will not lull your little ones into a deep, restful sleep. It’s counterproductive as cereal can lead to overeating, causing indigestion in babies, which can jolt them from sleep. Truth be told, when it comes to giving our little ones a flawless night of rest, nothing still beats implementing healthy bedtime routines endorsed by health practitioners or sleep experts.
Rice Cereal on Acid Reflux and Weight Gain
While rice cereal can ease acid reflux symptoms in babies due to its thickening agent content, it nonetheless, leads to considerable weight gain. Being overweight not only delays a baby’s developmental milestones, such as walking and crawling but also makes them susceptible to developing chronic illnesses.
If your baby suffers from acid reflux, please rely on the recommendations of your child doctor. However, if adding rice cereal to your baby’s bottle is crucial to mitigate reflux symptoms, it must be done under your doctor’s supervision. Please keep in mind that sometimes even a smallamount of cereal can have detrimental effects on your baby’s well-being. AAP actually endorses oatmeal over rice cereal as a thickening agent due to the latter’s arsenic content.
Nevertheless, Gina Posner, a pediatrician at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center, California, recommends that instead of DYing thickening agents using cereal that can cause considerable weight gain, you can feed your baby with formulas specially made for babies afflicted with GERD.
One of our favorites for reflux is EleCare®, an amino-acid-based powder formula suitable for infants prone to allergic reactions and digestive issues, such as gastroesophageal reflux.
Development of Allergic Diseases
As someone who has allergic rhinitis, I know firsthand that premature exposure to solid food can trigger allergic reactions in adulthood. I was fed with rice cereals as an infant, and as a consequence, I developed severe allergic reactions to almost anything except for some of my favorite food–thank goodness for that!
To prevent the development of allergies, solid food must only be a part of a baby’s diet at around 6 months old and above.
How to Introduce Rice Cereal to Babies
Once your baby is 6 months of age, able to hold his head up and balance himself on a high chair, you can ask your doctor if it’s safe to feed your baby with solid food such as cereals and pureed vegetables, among others. And why should you seek your doctor’s approval first despite your baby reaching 6 months old? Well, at times, a 6-month-old baby is still not revved up to digest solid food owing to some medical conditions. As such, it’s only sensible to seek advice from a health practitioner before exposing your child to solid food to keep his health in top form.
When introducing solid food to babies, it is customary for parents to feed their babies with grains, such as rice cereals. Doctors, however, suggest feeding babies with pureed, cooked, and thoroughly grounded food for easy digestion. Cereals can cause defecation difficulty in infants with GERD, so pureed veggies and non-acidic fruits such as pears would be ideal. Avoid bananas, oranges, and apples, as they are some of the most common acid reflux triggers in children.
When it comes to our little ones, as a mother we should always play it safe and err on the side of caution when introducing new foods. Did you know that sometimes putting cereal in a baby bottle isn’t only ineffective in lulling our littles babies to sleep but also can affect their health and delay their developmental milestones.
Creating healthy sleep bedtime routines is always the preferred approach. Experts suggest you sleep train your baby from around 4-6 months old. Nonetheless, always apply gentle sleep training techniques in weaning your little sweetheart from requiring assistance to falling asleep on his own.
And when the going gets tough, dear momma, remember this is just a temporary phase your little one eventually outgrows in due time.