Rice Cereal – Why it’s Not Good For Babies?

If you are browsing the baby aisle in your local supermarket, you'll see an overwhelming range of products to feed your baby, including rice cereal. Supermarket shelves are packed with baby food products which claim to be the best, highly nourishing and healthy. Before you add rice cereal into your shopping bags, here are three reasons to skip the customary baby rice cereal before he or she is turning to six months:

Mother’s Milk and Formula Are More Iron-Rich:
Mother’s milk or formula will give your baby all the important nutrients including iron he or she needs for the first six months. At around the age of six months, a baby will need iron-rich foods, as well as mother’s milk or formula. Parents should take care not to give too much — in doing so, they will replace the baby’s milk intake too quickly. Milk is the main food for a baby until 12 months. So, remember that food before one is just for fun, and what you do give should ideally be from a natural source of iron.

Your Baby Isn’t Ready To Eat Rice Yet:
When babies are given solid foods before they are ready, you need to modify the food according to them. In the first six months, babies have a tongue-thrust reflex that protects them from swallowing anything other than liquids. When you make foods more liquid by pureeing, mashing or adding liquid, you are tricking the body into letting them past. Your baby will swallow these foods, even if they aren’t ready for them. So, better choose rice cereal for your baby only after 6 months but don’t make it the main food for baby.

Rice Cereal Is Not A Healthy Choice 
If you're planning to feed your baby a healthy nutrition right from the start, then leaving the rice cereal will be a great help. There's growing evidence that our diet in the start and early childhood can influence our healthiness in the future. Our immune system is mostly in our gut, so what we put in it has big consequences for our body and well-being. Moreover, most health experts are finally realising the massive impact of sugars and grains in our diet, which causes inflammation and disease.

You can learn more about good nutritional value by joining Shaw Academy’s online Nutrition program. To know more about Shaw Academy Reviews, subscribe to their YouTube channel.