Cereal....the magic potion

As a new mother many people suggest you give your baby cereal as if it was a magic potion. When you are having sleepless nights; well meaning, educated, loving individuals will tell you "Give them cereal."

I read an article when Jack was brand new that said that cereal too early did nothing, that it was linked to childhood obesity, and juvenile diabetes. Now as a person who always struggles/d with weight I did not want to do ANYTHING that would make my children fat so I waited. Jack was never overweight, in fact he was in the 25 percentile for weight. At about 4 months when a friend had asked why I hadn't started cereal I shared my reasoning. To which she responded "Shanny have you seen your son, he's starving! Give that kid some damn cereal." Needless to say we started solids shortly there after and he did just fine.

Fast forward to baby #2, being a good mother I try to keep up with research etc. I read several articles that suggest waiting until the baby is 4-6 months before starting solids and they recommend 6 months. So I was kind of riding the fence about it. My mom had stayed with us and she said "You need to give that baby cereal, he'll sleep better." I quickly told her what I had read and shared that I was going to talk to my pediatrician about it. When we went to the pediatrician she told me you could go ahead and start solids, give it a try, if he likes it fine. If not wait a little while and try again later. I decided that my mom and the fact that the pediatrician brought it up I should try the whole cereal thing. I bought the rice cereal and mixed the cardboard concoction and fed it to Ryan. Surprisingly he ate it, granted he likes food and it shows but most babies spit more of it out than eat it, most of it. Then he promptly passed out. I figured it was what he needed and again I must have been starving my baby. Then he spent the entire night screaming. I thought maybe it was a fluke so I did the cereal again the second night. Again he was up every 2 hours screaming, I was pissed. All these people talk about cereal being God's gift to babies and this is worse than I had it at week 1. Needless to say I made a call to the pediatrician and they said to not give him the cereal for a night and see how he does. HE WAS FINE!!! Thank you people but I am going to wait and for your information cereal is not a magic potion.