When to start stage 3 baby food?
Personally, I never bothered with stage 3 at all. Once baby could eat lumpy and finger foods, I just moved on to table foods. If your baby can pick up cheerios, she can pick up pieces of cooked carrots and apples. Cheaper, fresher, and tastes better. (Some babies too don’t do well with stage 3. The mixture of lumps and purees confuses them and makes them gag.) But if you want to offer them — whenever baby seems ready. “Stages” are pretty much just gimmicks to sell more babyfood… (BTW, your doctor’s advice on meats may be a bit dated. The trend is to offer meats earlier than used to be the case. They aren’t hard to digest, and are a good source iron, protein and zinc. (Better than the ‘fake’ iron in ceral.) So, don’t feel that you HAVE to follow your doctor’s recommendation on this. It IS just his personal preference, not anything medical. (Just as his advice to start solids at 4 months was.
