Why Delay Solids Until Your Baby is 6 Months Old?

A lot of women, especially first time mothers, are eager to introduce solid foods to their babies. It's another first, a new experience to remember together. It is so cute when they take those first few bites from the little baby spoon, letting pureed peaches dribble down their chins just a bit. Some people do it because it seems like their babies aren't getting enough out of formula or breastmilk. If they were, they wouldn't be so hungry all of the time, right? It's also convenient to have something other than liquid to offer a crying child, and maybe it will help them develope independance. After all, your mom constantly reminds you that you started eating baby food at a month old and were off formula by six months!

The truth is that babies need nothing but formula or breastmilk for the first six months of life. Frequent freedings are just a part of parenting a newborn. Feeding them solids won't make them less hungry or help them sleep through the night. It can actually make them very sick, because the intestinal tract is not completely developed until a baby is six months old. They simply are not internally ready to digest anything other than formula and breastmilk, even if they manage to swallow. Showing an interest in food doesn't necessarily mean their stomachs are ready. Not every interest is healthy. Would you let your baby have candy for every meal because he was interested, knowing it wasn't the best food for him?

The WHO, Unicef, the US Department of Health & Human Services, the AAP, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Dietetic Association, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and Health Canada all recommend that babies not be given solids until they are six months of age. As Dr. Jim Sears said on the Dr. Phil show, ""The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that no foods are given before 6 months. And that's very, very important. Many of the books out there still say the old recommendations 4 to 6 months. Now it's nothing before 6 months." Those old numbers are outdated; six months is the new guideline.