Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

Just curious when you start baby on cereal and solids if they go by the age of the baby or the weight of the baby...

Thanks!

Re: Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

I want to say age, but you have to take in other factors too. Ped recommended at 4 months. DS wasn't ready so we were told to wait. I know other pple who started earlier b/c of reflux.

The average is is about 4 months

Re: Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

peds usually give the go ahead between 4-6 months BUT my personal indicators are

baby can hold his head up well (like if you were to put him in a high chair)

shows interest in your food]

we started KJ at 4 1/2 months and even now at 6 months, he only eats baby food 2x per day. I plan to bump this up to 3 in a few weeks

Re: Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

For us it was both. I didn't want to start before 4 months and would have waited until 6 months if I could have.

We started at 4 1/2 months because my DS was drinking the max amt. of formula that the ped wanted him on. She told me if he was up to 40 oz per day and still hungry to start on cereal, so that's what we did.

Re: Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

I think that its based on age (4-6 months), and if closer to the younger end of the spectrum, whether they are drinking max amt of formula and have doubled their weight. And they need to be able to sit up and have lost the tongue-thrusting reflex.

Re: Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

Definitely age over weight.

As babies, weight shouldn't be taken into consideration at all when it comes to whether or not to feed solids (this is coming from the mom of a LARGE baby and people were pushing me to feed her solids because she was big, way before she was ready.)

There are other indications to be taken into account as was mentioned above by several posters. I think they are probaby even more important than age.

Re: Does giving baby cereal and solids coincide with weight or age?

Definitely age, not weight/length. I have a ginormous 32" 8 month old, but we were told to start at 4 months like most others. That said, he took to it like a fish to water, and downs anything and everything now.