Rob, I always fondly remember an incident in our La Leche League group a couple of years ago. A mother was very anxious about her 5 month old twins. How would she know when they were ready to start solids? Her doctor told her to begin with a certain type of baby cereal and add something else at such and such a time. But she would see other mothers letting their babies pick up and eat Cheerios. Those were not on her doctor's list. What should she do? At 6 months her babies were still not too enthusiastic about the prescribed foods. We talked about this a lot in our group, and also had the mother read a very nice little LLL pamphlet, "Your Baby's First Solid Food," (#105a, 1993), which helped somewhat, but she still agonized over the conflicting messages she felt she was getting. Then, after the next meeting (June) we had a potluck picnic lunch outside, with all of us sitting on blankets on the grass. This mother's 7 month old daughter crawled across the blanket with great determination, grabbed an entire French bread, and began to chew on it. She was not about to give it up, either! And as we all laughed along with her, this mom at last understood that her babies were now ready for exploring all kinds of wonderful new foods! (However, we had to stop this baby from sampling the mushrooms growing in the grass). Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL leader in Madison, Wisconsin mailto:[log in to unmask]