Breastmilk is all your baby needs until at least four months of age. Most babies will do fine with exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months of age or longer.
Why start solid foods?
Because there comes a time when breastmilk no longer supplies all your baby’s nutritional needs. (This does not mean, as some uninformed people say, that there is no nutritional value in breastmilk after the baby is six months old.) A full term baby will start requiring iron from other sources by 6 to 9 months of age. The calories supplied by breastmilk may become inadequate by 8 to 9 months of age, although some babies can continue to grow well on breastmilk alone well past a year.
Because some babies not started on solids by a certain age (9-12 months) may have great difficulty accepting solid foods.
Because it is a developmental milestone that your child passes when he starts solid foods. He is growing up. Usually, he will want to eat solids. Why stop him?
When to start solid foods
The best time to start solids is when the baby is showing interest in starting. Some babies will become very interested in the food in their parents’ plates as early as 4 months of age. By 5 or 6 months of age, most babies will be reaching and trying to grab food that parents have on their plates. When the baby is starting to reach for food, this seems a reasonable time to start giving him some. There really is no reason to start on a specific date (4 months, or 6 months). Go by the baby’s cues.
In some cases, it may be better to start food earlier. When a baby seems to be hungry, or when weight gain is not continuing at the desired rate, it may be reasonable to start solids as early as 3 months of age. However, it may be possible, with help, to continue breastfeeding alone and have the baby less hungry and/or growing more rapidly. But if the techniques used in the clinic do not deal with the problem, adding solids can help. There is no advantage to giving artificial baby milk (formula) and there may be some disadvantages. The baby who is not satisfied completely at the breast may start to take more and more from the bottle, and end up refusing to take the breast.
The breastfed baby digests solid foods better and earlier than the artificially fed baby because breastmilk contains enzymes which help digest fats, proteins and starch. As well, breastfed babies have had a wide variety of tastes in their lives, since the flavours of many foods the mother eats will pass into her milk. Breastfed babies thus accept solids more readily than artificially fed babies. Breastmilk is amazing stuff, eh?
