Conference moira::parenting_v3

    I suspect this is something that will vary a lot by individual.  My
    sister-in-law started her daughter at 5 months; I started juice at 5
    1/2 or 6 months.  One friend's pedi told her just breastmilk for six
    months, no solids or juice.
    
    Personally, I believe that the baby's digestive system is still
    developing and may not be able to handle too much too soon.  The
    question is why do they need it?  Same thing with cereal in the bottle
    at night to get them to sleep longer.  I think for the first few months
    they will eat what they need in formula or breastmilk, and other foods,
    including juice, can wait a while.
    
    Just my $.02
    
    Mary
    

    I started my daughter on juice at 5 mpnths also. I diluted it, 1/4
    juice, 3/4 water. Then as she got older I diluted it 1/2 and 1/2.
    
    She had no reaction to it at all. 
    
    Sandy

    
    
    	
    	While my daughter has no allergic reactions to juice, I do
    	find that she can't keep it down as well as regular formula
    	or solids.
    
    	Don't know why, but the only time I give her juice is when
    	it's mixed in with her cereal.
    
    	FWIW, she's six and a half months old.
    	
    /Kim

    My pedi gave me the "official" OK for juice at 5 months.  I say
    official because by then he had had a couple surgeries, or prep for the
    ones that were cancelled at the last minute.  For these it was "clear
    liquids" for 3 days prior to surgery.  For this it was half pedialye
    with half of a clear juice, which was apple, pear or white-grape.
    
    For the official OK I was only warned NO Orange juice until he was a
    year.  Never questioned her on this, but I figured she might have been
    thinking the acid in it might affect him in some way.
    
    I started out with a 3 part "sterilized" water to one part apple juice,
    he did well and changed the ratio gradually.  I'm not sure where of if
    you can buy "sterilized" water.  I was using the little bottles they
    give you in the hospital, or the one litre bottles the hospital keeps
    for irrigation.  I purposely avoided tap water for quite a while.
    
    Lyn  
    
    

    >For the official OK I was only warned NO Orange juice until he was a
    >year.  Never questioned her on this, but I figured she might have been
    >thinking the acid in it might affect him in some way.
    
    My pedi said that young kids are often allergic to the white part
    (pith?) of the orange and that many commercially prepared oj's had
    some in it. He said that if I wanted to squeeze my own oj, after
    carefully removing all the white part, it would be ok. This was at 
    my son's six month checkup. He gave the ok for diluted apple juice at
    two months. 
    
    Sue
    

    I've been giving Jessica well-diluted apple juice for a few weeks now. 
    She is 5 months old today, but only 2 months old per the corrected age. 
    And she's been getting rice cereal in her bottle for her night-time
    feeding for almost a month now, and does sleep through the night.  Her
    pedi says that as long as it agrees with her, it's OK, and that she
    will let us know if she doesn't like something.  We'll be trying her on
    solids (rice cereal by spoon) probably some time this week since her
    appetite has really been increasing.  
    
    I originally started Jessica on juice because she was constipated, and
    the pedi recommended either prune juice (which went over like a lead
    balloon) or sugar water or Karo syrup or other fruit juices.  And I
    user regular tap water to dilute the juice and to make the formula.  My
    pedi asked if I was boiling the water, which I was, but said that I
    really didn't need to do that. 
    

    
    re: boiling water
    
    Our pedi recommended boiling water only if our water supply was
    private well that was not tested on a regular (?how often?, I don't
    recall) basis.  She said that the boiling was necessary years ago
    but that public water supplies are far better regulated these
    days.
    
    Carol

    
    I got the okay for juice (diluted half and half) at 2 months. Anna is
    now 5 months old (Oct. 3). This summer she got lots of juice or water,
    but now since it's cooler I notice I tend not to offer it that often.
    Mostly when I've put her down for a nap cause she's tired, but she
    fights it and works herself up I give her some water or juice, she
    calms right down and doesn't complain when I put her back down.
    
    Patty

    I started Jackie on very diluted apple juice before 2 months old.  The
    doctor didn't mind and said it was a good source of sugar and liquid in
    the very hot summer months (this was July, 1990) and that it would not
    hurt her.
    
    As for her eating habits, I started her on cereal at 8 weeks and
    bananas at 10 weeks.  At that time, she was approaching 35-40oz of
    formula a day and it was not satisfying her appetite.  She was a big
    baby at birth and continues to be in the 95% for her age.  Anyway, the
    doctor also had no objections to this.  It also has worked out well, at
    least I think so.  By starting her on food early, she does not turn her
    nose down on anything and will try everything.  There are, of course,
    foods she does not like (pickles, broccoli, spinach), but for the most
    part she eats what my husband and I eat which makes things easy at
    dinnertime.  
    
    Mary
    

    I started William on 1/2 water 1/2 apple juice at 2 months old.  The
    doctor said apple sauce and rice cereal at 5 months.  William will be
    3 months old next week.  I tried applesauce in the morning and cereal
    in the evening for three days.  I stopped because I notice a rash on his
    face.  I also notice that he was getting up during the night when he
    had the cereal. He is going from 8 or 9 till about 5 or 6 in the 
    morning.  I will try again in 2 weeks.  He is drinking about 28 oz
    formula and 8 oz of diluted apple juice.    
     
    
    
    

    It's been a while since my son is 3.5, but from what I can 
    remember, my pedi discouraged juice till one year!  I'm also
    not sure on the reasoning, but I thought it had something to
    do with having them fill up with juice rather than milk or
    formula ...

    Well, I know that most pedis don't want you to start orange juice
    before age 1, because it is very acid and it's pretty hard to
    stomach.  Some kids get terribly diarrahea from it; others get
    rashes from it.  I was just wondering if anyone had heard "the
    word" about starting juice in general.
    
    Interesting note in here about pear juice -- the one juice that
    *always* gave James a bellyache.  He could eat strained pears just
    fine, but the juice was a totally different story.

    I started Kat on orange juice at 2 months or less and never had a
    problem.  I don't remember about Steven, though I assume it was
    the little bottled Gerber kinds and fairly early since he was an
    infant in the summer.  David being a fall baby didn't get juice
    until he was 6-7 months old.  
    
    Grape juice was the early favorite with all my kids.  The white grape
    juice went over better than the purple kind.
    
    David's also quite fond of cranberry juice.  A friend with an
    ulcer told me that cranberry juice, unlike most other juices, is
    alkiline rather than acid, so it doesn't irritate the stomach.
    
    A recent favorite is (are) the all-natural juices that you buy in
    the dairy section in cardboard half-gallon cartons.  Steven likes
    the guava or other tropical mixes, and David likes the kind called
    Cherry Orchard.  I diluted it about 5 oz. water to 3 oz. juice
    when was little.  
    
    --bonnie

    
    	My baby is 5 months (Oct 4th) and has been drinking juice 
    since 3 1/3 months. I usually dilute it 1/2 and 1/2. We started 
    giving him juice about the same time we started feeding him formula
    because he was getting constipated. The juice really did the trick.
    he now has an 8oz bottle in the morning with a little cereal, another
    8oz bottle, cereal and a jar of baby fruit for lunch, 8oz bottle for
    dinner with a jar of a vegetable, then another 8oz bottle before bed.
    it is amazing how fast they adapt to food, and then the quantity
    seems to increase so rapidly, along with his size.
    

We started offering Michael juices at around 3 months I think, but he
wanted no part of it.  I think he was probably closer to 4 months when he
decided juice wasn't so bad after all.  When we switched him from formula
to milk, he never really liked milk and still doesn't.  So now he drinks
lots and lots of juice.  We were worried about his calcium intake (it takes
a lotta cheese to provide the calcium of 16 oz milk), but then Pat found
this Parents Choice juice in the grocery store -- apple, apple/berry, and 
apple/mixed fruit or something like that.  It's fortified with the
same amount of calcium as milk, and Michael loves it.  Our pedi said as
long as he's drinking that stuff, don't worry about the milk at all.  We
also use the calcium-fortified orange juice. 

Steve

    re: .17
    
    It is my understanding that it is not only the calcium, but also
    the fat, that children under 2 years of age require.  Adequate
    intake of fats in young babies is required for brain cell development.
    I believe this is why many pediatricians and the AAP recommend whole
    milk for children under the age of 2.    However, I suppose the fat
    requirement could be easily made up with cheeses and the like.
    
    Carol

    RE:  A couple back.... just be careful if you're giving cranberry
    juice.  Yes it is in fact alkaline, that's why it's so good for UTI's,
    but almost all the commericial cran-anything are just loaded with corn
    syrup, sugar and generally contain only 10 to 30% actual juice.  I'm
    not completely sure but I think the Adam and Eve brand may be more if
    not all cranberry juice.
    
    RE:  .17, there was a study done a few years ago, shortly after all the
    OJ companies started advertising that they had calcium in them.  The
    end result of the study was that when calcium is added to juice, the
    body infact absorbs little or NONE of the calcium, FYI Trivia stuff!
    
    Lyn

    
    My pedi told me I could start Michael on juice at his 2 month visit.
    He said once he starts eating more than 32 oz of formula a day that I
    could supplement one bottle a day with juice instead of formula, and I
    could start some cereal too. He's been on fruit since one month old
    because of constipation problems (what h*ll that is!!). But so far he's
    only drinking about 30 oz of formula a day, and 1 jar of fruit, so I
    haven't pushed the cereal (becuase of the constipation). I give him
    some juice (1/2 and 1/2) occassionally between meals to tide him over
    till his next bottle. 
    
    Chris