There seems to be a lot of debate about the best time to start solids foods. Older schools of thought start giving there babies rice cereal mixed in bottles of formula or breast milk as early as 4 weeks old, while newer schools of thought believe that babies should start solids by 4 months of age.

If babies are introduced to solid foods earlier than 4 months old, not only will the baby’s digestive system may not be able to handle it, but there is also a danger of an allergy and even obesity as the child gets older. It is safe to introduce rice cereal at 4 months old. Your baby should be eating more solids by the time he or she is 6 months old because breast milk or formula is inadequate for their needs.

Baby’s First Serving of Rice Cereal

1. Your baby’s first serving of rice cereal will probably only be about 1 tablespoon at first. Remember that eating food from a spoon is a new experience for your baby.

2. Make the cereal according to the packaged directions for 1 tablespoon of cereal. The consistency should be like yogurt and maybe a little thinner for some babies.

3. Offer more rice cereal each day until your baby is used to eating it from a spoon. Increase the cereal gradually over a few days to two tablespoons.

4. Once your baby has mastered eating from the spoon and is doing well, introduce other cereals such as oatmeal or barley, but be sure to introduce one at a time, waiting at least 4 days before introducing a new one. Studies have shown that babies need to try a new food up to 10 times before they learn to like it.

5. Once your baby has mastered cereals, then you can introduce fruit and vegetable purees! The fun has just begun.

You can mix cereal with breast milk, formula, or water. Breast milk or formula are adds a nutritional boost to the meal and is highly recommended.

As much time as most women spend trying to keep from getting pregnant throughout their lives, it sometimes seems that for any woman who is sexually active, pregnancy is the default condition.
Pregnancy sneaks up on millions of women every month: pregnancy has been known to occur during one’s period, while still nursing an infant, when a partner has had a vasectomy, and when women are on the Pill. Hormones, sponges, creams, foams and various latex and non-latex products have been pressed into use by women who aren’t at a stage in life where they want children. It’s only when we start wanting to have children that we learn that pregnancy sometimes takes as much planning as childlessness did before.

It may be that the hectic nature of daily life has changed considerably from the time when, eons ago, all you needed was enough to eat and enough shelter to keep alive.

In fact, the nature of nature is to make us as fertile as possible under a wide variety of circumstances. But our bodies are still trying to adapt to the environment we’ve built, where things like jet lag, hot tubs and plain old fatigue can affect whether we can become pregnant. The human body, while amazingly adaptable, is only willing to go so far: getting pregnant is often a matter of helping things along by working in a planful way to bring ovulation, active sperm, and a welcoming environment conducive to implantation together at the same time.