This is my vote in support of the diversity of human experience.  I learned
in my maternal-infant nutrition course of 1980 that some researchers
postulated a window of opportunity around the age of 6 to 9 months, and
these people felt that solids might be poorly accepted later if not
introduced then.  Some researchers postulate other things, and children are
very different, and most of them haven't read the research so they do
whatever suits them.

On the off chance there is someone out there who wasn't raised according to
The Complete Book of Absolutely Perfect Baby and Child Care by Eleanor
Goulding Smith, copyright 1957, Harcourt, Brace and Co., let me share the
following.  I inherited this invaluable reference book from my own mother
but I suspect it never got the distribution it merited.  If this looks too
long, skip straight to the final paragraph, in which the Golden Rule of
raising babies is described.  From chapter two:

"In the beginning, all you have to cram into the baby is milk and vitamins,
but one day the pediatrician will say, 'Now you may start the baby on mashed
banana.' Or baby cereals.  Or something mushy.  Here again, it is easy
enough for the pediatrician to say it.  He doesn't have to come and get it
into the baby.  That's your department.  Should you feed him the mashed
banana BEFORE he drinks his milk, when he's very hungry and therefore much
more likely to try something new?  Or, if he's very hungry will something
other than milk make him very angry, and make him unable to take solid food
as long as he lives?  Or, if you give it to him after the milk, when he's
feeling full, will he reject it because he's not hungry, and never in his
entire life eat solid food?  In fact, is it even possible to feed a baby
anything but milk?  This is a crucial moment.  The baby cannot go through
life living on milk.  THE DOCTOR HAS SPOKEN.  You have got to get that food
into him.  Get on the phone again.  Consult all of your relatives who have
ever had babies.  Go out again and consult all the other mothers in your
neighborhood.  Ask the elevator man on the way.

You will soon find that you are the ONLY ONE who has any difficulty in the
matter at all.  The first mother you meet didn't give her baby MASHED
BANANA.  SHE gave hers Pablum.  What kind of a pediatrician do you have,
anyway?  And there is no problem about when to give it.  She gave hers the
Pablum before the milk, and the baby didn't like it, but she got it into him
anyway. 'After all,' she says, 'the baby doesn't know what's good for him.'
The second mother didn't give hers solid food till he was six months old.
What kind of a pediatrician do you have, anyway?  And she gave it AFTER the
milk, and he loved it the very first time.  The third mother gave hers
strained liver when he was only four weeks old, and what kind of a
pediatrician do you have, anyway?  She gave it in the MIDDLE of a feeding.
It made him throw up, but after all, it's the experience that counts.

So you go home again, and you try it before the milk, during the milk, and
after the milk.  But yours doesn't like it any time.  So you try cereal.  He
doesn't like that either.

Now a PROBLEM has developed.  Here is this baby and he refuses to eat his
solid food.  ('Solid' in this case is a euphemism for 'squushy.')  Are you a
failure as a parent?  Is he a failure as a baby?  Is the pediatrician a
failure as a pediatrician?  WOULD the baby rather have a hot pastrami
sandwich?

This brings us to the primary rule of baby raising, which is the solution to
this and all subsequent problems.  This rule must be followed faithfully,
and practiced regularly, and you should make it a habit to repeat it to
yourself ten times a day.  It is the Golden Rule of raising babies.  LIE.
Lie to your mother, lie to your sisters and aunts, and above all, lie to all
the other mothers you meet on the street.  When a newer mother than you asks
for your help, tell her you never had the least trouble.  YOUR baby just
LOVED his mashed banana on the first try."

cheers
Rachel Myr
Raising children perfectly in Kristiansand, Norway

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