Thickening Neocate/ Starting Solids

[Anonymous]

Hi All!

I have a couple of feeding questions that I was hoping for input on!

First of all, I was looking for input on thickening the Neocate. I would like to start to cut back on how much rice cereal I put in Dagney’s bottles, right now it’s almost 1 tablespoon per ounce of Neocate. What does everyone else do?

I have several reasons why I’d like to cut back on the cereal. The last 2-3 weeks, she’s really been great and not spitting up much at all. She seems to be feeling a lot better, and I haven’t really needed to give her much mylanta either, which I believe has also made her poops firmer, and she’s seemed to have a little bit of a hard time now & then getting the poop out. I think cutting back on the rice would help that, as I’d rather not just give her mylanta just so it’s easier for her to poop! She’s also started solids, which should help, but I don’t want to completely cut out the rice cereal as I’m afraid she wouldn’t like the way the formula tastes without it! The Pedi said she should be drinking about 32 ounces of formula/day, but she doesn’t, which I believe is because of the rice cereal making it thicker. I want to make sure she gets enough food & nutrients, but don’t want to overfeed her either! Also, now that I’ve read that toxic bottle thread, cutting back on rice cereal would also help there too, soince I’ll probably switch back to the playtex nursers. She couldn’t seem to get much out of even the Playtex cross-cut nipples before with all that cereal, so maybe now with less cereal it would be easier…

Also, we went for Dagney’s 6 month appointment today, and our pedi wants us to start her on meat& veggie dinners in addition to the cereal/oatmeal. He also mentioned holding off on fruits as they’re more allergenic. I bought a ton of veggies thinking we’d start single veggies, though, so he did mention we could do 1 part veggie to 2 parts single meat (or was it the other way around?!?). They gave us a little sheet on starting solids, but not a whole lot of info, as I’m a person who likes to see directions written down, if anyone has any suggestions for me on how/when/what they feed their 6+month old, that’d be great very much appreciated!!

Right now she’s getting a bottle & oatmeal in the morning, then a bottle around 11:30/12, then a bottle & oatmeal around 3:30/4, then a bottle at bedtime. Would I add the beef & veggie along with the oatmeal at dinner time or do I cut out the 2nd oatmeal & replace with the beef/veggie? The sheet just says to have cereal in am, protein in pm, then around 9 months a 3rd meal of fiber around lunchtime, which to me would mean to now cut out the 2nd oatmeal & replace w/ meat/veggie…

Any thoughts would be appreciated by this clueless first-time mom!

[Anonymous]

I posted this info on another thread, so i’ll pass on to you.

I use Hydra aid to thicken kendra’s bottle; I get the nectar consistency and i buy at this website http://www.linksmed.com/beverage_thickener.html by the box of 300 for $77.18 with shipping. It has worked great for us because my dd was on breast milk and baby cereal doesn’t work with it (beacuse of the enzyme lataise (sp) in BM that breaks down carbs). It works for fomula.

Fo a 5 ounce bottle i put 1 teaspon of the thicekner. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated and i think one package yields two teaspons. I used the fast flow platex nipples when using the thickener. You can make it thicker if you want by adding the whole thing.

my ped gave me the ok with this thickener and i haven’t have nay problems with it. It have helped my dd a lot (we use since she was 6 weeks old). I hope it helps Dagney if you decide to use it. Maybe you can take it to your ped and ask if it is ok to put in his bottle. Just an idea.

As far as solids go, unfortunately i have no advice there. with kendra still refusing her bottles, it willl be a while before you can start solid, ven though sh eis overdue

good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I’ll check it out!

[Anonymous]

Denise,

What I did with Claire (and with probably do with Ben) is that I started her on cereal, one time a day, then twice a day for about a month or so. When she seemed like she was doing well with it, and ready for other things… I added some vegetables. I started with the orange ones first (squash, sweet potatoes, carrots – a new one every 3 or 4 days). I gave these to her at the afternoon feeding. I actually gave her some cereal then too, mainly to help her get used to the new food first. I would just mix a little taste of it with the cereal and gradually up the ratio of new food to cereal until she was used to it. I stayed with these for two weeks. Feeding her the veggies at lunch and the cereal at the other two “meals.”

Then I added the green vegetables (peas, green beans) for two weeks, and then the fruits. Actually, I may have added a few fruits first … can’t quite remember. Once she was eating both fruits and veggies.. her meals looked like this:

Morning: BM; cereal with fruit (I would mix the fruit in)

Lunch: BM; veggies; fruit

Dinner: BM; veggies; cereal with fruit

Bedtime: BM

She was on this “menu” for a long time…. once I added meats into her diet (not till after 9 months or so??), I cut out the 2nd cereal feeding at dinner and she would eat veggies, meat, and fruit.

She’s 3 and still gets fruit after every meal! 🙂

Anyway, hope this helps!

[hellbennt]

I’m one for taking it slow…I don’t introduce proteins until 9 months…

as for what foods: avocado, sweet potato, squash, banana, carrots, pears (very basic & are on the Elimination Diet so I see no reason to avoid them?)

[Anonymous]

I think I’m going to stick with what you are all suggesting. That is also what the GI said to do, and I really hadn’t heard of anyone else introducing proteins until around 9 months anyway, it seemed a little strange to me, but I wanted to get some feedback on it anyway. I guess the sweet potatoes are a go for this afternoon then!

Thanks everyone for the input!!

[Anonymous]

We have done proteins…from 7 months. Only chicken and lamb. Chicken seems OK…lamb I don’t know. I don’t do it very often…only when I have some “on hand” Alana doesn’t seem like she is an over-reacter to any foods though (grains seem fine now). Once Alana got the idea of solids we very quickly transitioned to three meals. This is her day currently (and she probably started this schedule at just under 7 months)

7am bottle

8am b’fast (usually fruit with rice cereal)

11am bottle

1pm lunch- mashed veges

3pm bottle

5.30pm veges

7pm bedtime bottle

I generally only do low allergenic fruits (pears/bananas) and also apple and mango. These seem to be the ones she likes anyway. I do pretty much any veges now. I have also done a little pasta…not very often because if I do it every day for a few days it tends to make her gassy. She only takes about 160mls of her bottles these days.

Goodluck, whatever you decide to do.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Therese. I made up a little “schedule” for Dagney, and it looks like what you have for Alana. I think that is going to work best for her right now, we’ll hold off on the proteins for at least another month or so, I’ll get a bunch of veggies in her first, then move on to there!

Thanks so much to everyone for helping out this clueless first time mom!

[Anonymous]

I didn’t start meats until after 9 months. Excpet for Myles…he loved the Gerber broccoli and chicken so I fed him that from 7 months becasue the broccoli helped him poop!

Other than that one exception with Myles, I started my babies on veggies and fruits and leaned more heavily on veggies. So, typically they’d get oatmeal and a veggie for breakfast (sounds weird to us but babies don’t care), a fruit and a veggie for lunch, and oatmeal and veggie again for supper. And breast milk or formula 3-4 times a day as well. This is probably what they all ate until 9 months when I added meats (very little though because none of my kids liked them), yogurt and cheese. Once they were eating more proteins I did what Naomi did and eliminated the evening oatmeal and fed them veggies and proteins for supper.

Good luck. I hope she loves her new foods and does well on all of them.

[Anonymous]

I actually have one more question…Dagney’s been getting about 1 Tablespoon of rice ceral per ounce of Neocate in her bottles for some time now…how do I “count” that into her diet? I’m trying to cut back a little (like 5T instead of 6 1/2 per 8 ounce bottle) gradually on it, but I’m not sure if she’d drink it without it–I’ve never had her try it. She’s been getting all of these extra calories in her bottle for a whle now, but I don’t want to overfeed her in her bottles, and still expect her to eat all that oatmeal, veggies, fruits, etc. She’s not overweight, but I don’t want to encourage bad eating now by overfeeding her from the get go. Do I just not give her oatmeal by spoon and just stick to 1 veg/day, since there’s already so much cereal in her bottle? I’ve also mentioned this in another thread, but the high rice in her diet, especially now that she doesn’t really get any Mylanta anymore, is making it harder for her to have BM’s, she’s not constipated, but she struggles a little now.

[Anonymous]

Ok…still trying to figure this one out, if anyone has any input, that would be appreciated!

I currently just give Dagney oatmeal in the am and sweet potatoes at lunch, although today I gave her oatmeal & prunes at breakfast and no veggie at lunch since the prunes were new to her system, I figure I should at least wait 3 days to see how they are tollerated. I’m going to move on to green beans next, but I think that will wait until at least Tuesday to be safe. I hold off on a second cereal in the pm since she has so much in her bottles already.

I’ve cut back on rice cereal in the bottles, now about 1 T per 2 ounces, but she’s started spitting up again. As Laura pointed out, it may be fine since she doesn’t seem to be in pain. Has anyone just ditched the whole thickening effort altogether with Neocate, I’m sure if the taste isn’t pleasing to her, she’ll get used to it in a few days anyway. She has been a little cranky, but that may be because she’s getting hungrier at bottle time (which I think is a good thing, she rarely showed hunger before!) and/or she’s still a little “bound up”. The prunes did wonders this morning, though, so that may be taken care of!

If the spitting up gets really bad, I’ve read that some members use Simply Thick–I don’t know anything about it, can someone give me some info on it & how it works etc? I can try to get in touch with my GI tomorrow about it, but they take forever to get back to me!

Thanks again!

[hellbennt]

simply thick: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/search.asp?KW=simply&S M=1&SI=TC&FM=0&OB=2

(to do a search: there’s the ‘search’ button located in the upper right hand corner of the screen

you put the key word/s you’re searching for

then you choose “Topic Subject” from the drop- down menu of “Search In”

then I like to choose “All Forums” from the drop- down menu of “Search Forum”

then I like to choose “Topic Start Date” from the drop- down menu of “Sort Results By” (this way I get all the posts from the past that might help me)

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