Bananas and Cereal

[L&M's Mom]

I have started trying to feed my baby with a spoon - bananas mixed in with her cereal. Bless her heart, she hates the consistency. I have to give it to her at the end of her bottle and just let her nibble on it.

My real question is whether anyone has had problems with the bananas. When I fed her yesterday, just a small portion, about 30 minutes after eating she had a bout of reflux. It was terrible - she screamed at an ear-splitting level for an hour and a half. She really hasn't been having problems with the reflux since we added Carafate along with her Zantac.

I was just wondering if anyone elses baby has had a reaction to the bananas. I'm not sure what to try next - pears or maybe carrots. We go back to the pedi GI this week and I'm asking for the dose of Zantac to be increased. She is 14 lbs and is on .6ml 3x per day.

Thanks for any suggestions.

L&M's Mom

[Loriella]

Hi,

I haven't started bananas yet, working on the veggies first(carrots, peas, squash, wax beans so far with no problem). I was planning on starting bananas soon. Let me know how it continues to go. I wouldn't think that bananas would be a problem as they are really not that acidic I don't think?

[Crystal B]

my son actually had problems with the rice cereal his new ped. told me to put bannana's in it and it has helped alot. he started on squash 2 days ago and the first 2 times he screamed about a hour or so after but now he is fine with it? i think maybe his little tummy has to get use to it.
crystal B

[Blessed]

Bananas are the only fruit Thomas can tolerate. All the others are too acidic. They weren't by any chance organic bananas were they? I gave Thomas an organic brand one day and they seemed to aggravate his reflux. I looked at the label, and sure enough, one of the ingredients was <i>citric acid</i>. :rolleyes: Now I don't give him <b>anything</b> without reading the label first. There not does great on all vegetables, so I was buying a couple of combination jars the other day, like peas and carrots? And on one of the combos, I forget what it was, but it listed like 2 vegetables on the front (like green beans and squash or whatever) but then when you looked at the ingredients, it had like 4 other ingredients in it including <i>apple sauce</i>! Aargh! :mad: Seems like they put apple sauce in everything!

Anyway, sorry to get sidetracked on you, but that's my suggestion. Check the label just to make sure there isn't any other ingredient that might be to blame. I don't think bananas alone would aggravate her reflux. Also, what kind of cereal is it? Rice can sometimes make them gassy and if it was making her feel like she had to burp, that might have made her pretty irritable. :confused:

Oh, and Thomas hated the consistency of cereal at first. I had to make it really runny for him and even then it took him a while to get used to it.

[Loriella]

Hi Blessed,

I have a daughter (refluxer on Zantac and thickened feedings) who will be 7 months on the 11th andI haven't started the fruits yet, I thought I would go through all the veggies first and we are almost done, only have green beens left to do. So in a week or two we will be starting on the fruits and of course I am a little worried about how it is going to affect her reflux. She did fine so far with all the veggies. I am going to start off with bannanas.

I was thinking that things like pears would not be too bad??? Sound silly as well, but when I feed her her solids, I always do the veggies first then the ceral then the bottle. Thinking that if the veggies are at the bottom of her stomach they are less likely to irritate her throat when she spits up (which is all the time!). Wondering what order you feed your little guy and if that might make a difference with the fruit. Did your paed. give you any advise regarding fruits to avoid???? I know I will be avoiding any of the 'berry' desserts when she is able to eat them.

My paed. also told me that the reflux should be gone between 9 months and 12 months, but she is feeling confident that we should be ok by nine months, but I am not convinced!

Also wondering if you are doing any the cereals with fruit in them and if so how did you find them affecting Thomas??

Sorry for all the questions! :)

Lori

[Blessed]

Hi Loriella,

I feed Thomas cereal (oat) with bananas mixed in (either fresh mashed up or out of the jar) for breakfast and for lunch and dinner I give him 2 veggies (1 yellow, 1 green). The only time he gets cereal is in the a.m. I don't think the order is going to make any difference. I think it's the acid in the fruits that bother them, and it doesn't matter if it goes in first, last, or mixed with something else.

Like your daughter, Thomas has done great with all of the veggies. But banana is the only fruit he can eat. When our pediatrician gave us the go ahead to start solids, she told us we should avoid fruits altogether until he grew out of the reflux just because fruits are too acidic. I tried pears, thinking they wouldn't be too bad, but they were. And so were peaches. I'd already heard that apples were bad. So I'm just giving up on fruits altogether until he gets past this stage. We're getting ready to try meats soon and see how he does on those. There are quite a few combination foods out there for variety -- different mixed veggies, or veggies with rice, veggies with meat, etc. I've just learned to look really carefully at the labels as I mentioned before.

I haven't tried any of the dry cereal with fruit already in it. And with the cereal in the jars, I can't find any that don't have apples in them. :(

[needsleep]

HI
I HAVE HAD 2 BABIES WITH REFLUX..AND THE ACCORDING TO MY PEDIATRIC GI, THE SOLIDS ARE SUPPOSE TO STAY DOWN FOR THE BABIES..I HAD MY SON ON BABY FOOD AT 6WEEKS ..I HAVE TO ADMIT..HE STILL SPIT UP TILL HE WAS 18MONTHS OLD..BUT AS FOR THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FRUIT..I DONT THINK THAT WOULD MAKE MUCH DIFFERENCE..MAYBE YOUR BABY JUST HAD A BAD DAY...MY SON HAD SEVERE REFLUX..HE SPIT 10X A FEEDING AND TURNED BLUE...CHOKED..YOU NAME IT..I FINALLY GOT AN APNEA MONITOR SO I COULD LET HIM BELLY SLEEP[WHEN HE DID SLEEP] AND I WOULD KNOW IF HE WAS CHOKING OR SPITTING...THAT WAS A LIFE SAVER..REFLUX IS A VERY DIFFICULT THING TO GO THROUGH...MOST BABIES OUTGROW IT BY 18MONTHS OR SO..BOTH MY KIDS DID...SO HANG IN THERE...AS THEY GET A LITTLE OLDER..THEY WILL TOLERATE MORE...AND THEIR SYSTEMS WILL TOO...IF YOUR BABY IS LIKE ME...I WOULD CRY ABOUT NANAS TOO..I DONT LIKE BANANAS..ALSO, SEE IF YOUR DR. WILL LET YOU TRY PRILOSEC..IT WAS A MIRACLE FOR MY LIZZIE BEE...THEY DID NOT HAVE IT APPRVD FOR MY MATTHEW BUT IT IS REALLY A GOOD MED FOR THEM ,,,TAKE CARE..MARLANA

[Loriella]

Hello,

Thought I would try banannas the other day thinking that my daughter would love them, she has liked all of her solid food so far with the exception of peas, but she still ate them.

She was making a 'sour' face afterwards, which I couldn't understand, because banannas are usually loved by babies. I tasted them myself and they tasted SOUR! I looked on the label, ingredients are banannas, LEMON JUICE! No wonder. I guess they put the lemon juice in to prevent from going brown, but it is not too tasty, and I cannot imagine that lemon juice would be good for a refluxer, so back to the store I went and all the different brands of banannas have lemon juice in them!

So I guess we won't be doing banannas unless they are the real ones!

[Blessed]

That's what I found with all the organic brands. Well, the labels said citric acid. But the regular Gerber and Beechnut brands are just banana and water. If you can't get those brands where you live, just use fresh bananas. They're so easy to do. Just take a ripe banana (ripe to the point that it has black speckles on the skin) and mash it up with a fork. Whenever I have fresh bananas on hand that's what I do, and save the jars for the babysitter or for when I'm out.