My baby's first food was bananas, then avocado and sweet potatoes. There's no need to feed a baby rice cereal; it's just sort of the status quo, like jarred baby food, which is completely unnecessary. My baby never had any jarred baby food -- I just mashed up real food.

You might want to look into baby-led weaning (http://www.babyledweaning.com/) - some people don't even feed their babies mushed-up food at all.

I started my son on egg yolks when he got his first teeth and seemed very interested in food. Here is an article by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig on feeding babies. http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/feeding-babies

How about puree from vegetables? I'm not an expert but thats what we feed our baby's here (Holland).

I never fed any of my kids rice cereal or any other kind of packaged baby food either. They all went straight to table food while continuing to breastfeed. I wasn't paleo at the time, just cheap. It made no sense to me to pay all that money for little jars of pureed nastiness when we had plenty of delicious healthy food on our table already.

I never fed mine cereals.They started out with breast milk, and when they were ready for solid foods, they got purees of things like winter squash, mashed egg yolks, sweet potatoes, or whatever we were having for dinner, run through a mini grinder. Mine started eating food late, though -- none of them started solid foods till after 6 months, and my daughter didn't want to start eating solid food till closer to 9 months. Most of my colleages when I was a midwife taught that you'd know when a baby was ready for solid foods.. 'cause they'd snatch it off your plate and eat it before you could stop 'em. chuckles That's how it went with mine... they grabbed stuff off my plate, and that's what we ground up or mashed up for them to eat. Even after they started solid food, there were a lot of days that all they wanted was the breast, and we were good with that. They've all grown up strong, and are healthier than most of their peers, so I don't think missing rice cereal hurt them any.

My little guy hated the rice cereal - so that was easy. He LOVED yams, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, avocado, turnips etc. With all I steamed them and then mashed them up with butter. And then after a couple of months when he seemed like he wanted to feed himself I would steam broccoli or make sweet potato 'fries' and let him try to eat them.

Don't listen to conventional wisdom - you'r doc may try to force that stuff down your throat, but if you repeatedly bring in a healthy baby he or she will change their tune!

We went from breast feed to whole foods. There are lots of books on feeding whole foods to babies...

Babies don't create the enzyme amylase, which breaks down starch till they're over a year old. Bananas contain that enzyme so they are an acceptable first starch for the under 1 set. Rice is totally inappropriate for infants. IMHO fruit and veggies are much better sources of carbs for little ones... And obviously breast milk.

I wonder if the main reason rice cereal is recommended is just because its a milder version of the junk older kids and adults will most likely eat, so why not get them used to it. Other than that, I don't see a reason for rice cereal.

for our 9 month old the mainstays have been pastured egg yolks (this was the first solid food basically), beef liver, avocado, broccoli and other veggies, tubers, ghee, coconut milk kefir, coconut oil, cod liver oil, chicken breast, sardines (starting around 8 months), bone broth, papaya, banana (nanners!), and little tastes of whatever meats we might be eating. she enjoys most all of what we offer, or if not its just getting the right mix mashed.

it's pretty cheap and easy to mash up real nutrient dense foods from your own food supply, and especially mobile if you get these:

Fresh N Freeze 2 oz. Baby Food Containers

Here's what I did with my last baby.

Not speaking for paleo in general, but with my latest child, now 17 months, I started sharing broth with him, or juices from my meat, when he started asking for it (about 4 months old iirc). Over a couple of months this morphed to sharing my meat with him by chewing for him, or mincing finely, then added yogurt and eggs, and gave him jerky to chew. He now eats mostly meat, with occasional vegetables or fruit.

It wasn't really the plan, but I was too tired to make separate meals for our baby when he started on solids, so I just let him gnaw on (mushed it up with a fork or pre-chewed if needed) whatever we were having. It was a hoot watching him gum chicken bones with a little cartilage and meat left on them (make sure to remove the "pin bone").

I didn't bother making any sort of exceptions for spicing or worry about introducing individual foods either, and we now have a 2-year-old who asks for hot sauce and wasabi. I think most parents are good enough detectives to figure what might be an irritant in their child's diet without having to add one food at a time.

We bought the box of rice cereal, but didn't prepare more than a few servings out of it. I say save your money, and just help your kid eat whatever they grab off of your plate.

Hey Guys, I was hoping someone can assist me.

I recently started Paleo and have a 10 month year old son. Unfortunately, my son is on formula because my wife was diagnosed with Cancer when he was delivered, so she was not able to breast feed. Over the course of his little adventure of life, I have heavy given him fruits, veggies, formula, and my rice/grain cereal. Since I do not have the option of breast milk, aka mother natures perfect food, can anyone shed some tips on how I can feed my baby better while holding his hunger down. My feel bad that I had to feed him grains for the first 10 months because I didn't know any better, but circumstances and lack of knowledge prevented me from doing so.

My concern is giving him something that is going to hold him over night. I have started mashing regular foods. I have noticed some foods he doesn't digest well but that's because he hasn't developed enzymes to certain foods yet, aka, winter squash (orange poop) lol. Again, just looking for tips or suggestions. This is my first child and just trying to do better by him.

We weren't paleo when the little one was truly little, but in "attachment parenting"/"crunchy-granola moms" circles, it is not uncommon to skip rice cereal. She had nothing but breast milk until around 4 months when she started to be veeeerrrryyyy interested in the solid foods we were eating. The first solid she ever ate was squished-up banana, followed by squished-up avocado, and later squished-up sweet potatoes. Until she was 1 1/2 or so, most of her calories came from breast milk, though -- and she breastfed daily until she was nearly 4. When she was a toddler and her serum iron level was low, we did try rice cereal ('cause it's loaded with added iron), but it was not much of a success.

Thank you so much for this information, my husband and I are discussing having children, and I wad really looking for an alternative to the rice cereal route to comply with our lives. My logic was that if we were going to raise a kid without grains, I did not want to get him or her addicted to them so young then attempt to remove it from the diet later. Thanks again

I feed my daughter (9.5months) a lot of sweet potatoes. I also buy frozen mixed veggies, but when you puree the veggies they are liquid so I mash avocado into them. I recently started the paleo diet so I stopped feeding my daughter oats and rice treats. Since you do not have a breast milk try mixing in a little formula with the baby food as well. You could also buy ground turkey and after you cook it; stick in a blender to puree and mix any good veggies with it. I find the turkey and sweet potatoes to be very filling. I stay away from high acid fruits and juice. To make things easy, i prepare a bunch of food and stick them in ice cube trays and freeze them, then heat them up when i need them. Its a lot of work, but my daughter gets healthy food and is satisfied at every meal; not mention she sleeps 12 hours straight through the night. I also keep her active outside with me while i do yard work or take her on runs, hikes ect.. Good luck!