Seriously??

So I was standing in the Walmart checkout line just now, and the lady ringing up my groceries decides to strike up a conversation....

"How old was your baby when they told you to put them on solids?" She asks.

To which I reply: "My doctor told us about 4 months, but we waited closer to 6 months." "Oh, so do you think 5 weeks is too young to give a baby cereal?" (she asks)

Um, 5 WEEKS? I was momentarily speechless.

So the lady behind me butts in and tells her, "no, that's when I started giving mine cereal." Checkout lady looks relieved. " Because he just cries all the time, so we started putting cereal in his bottle." (I still have not come up with a nice way to phrase my opinion)

Nosey Lady Behind Me: "Yep, he's hungry, starving to death, feed that baby and let him sleep all night!" "A hot bath and a full belly, that's what they need and they won't wake up all night long." "But you gotta make it really thin..." she advises. SERIOUSLY??

(She is obviously not aware that 5 week olds do not usually sleep "all night long." I don't think it's even developmentally appropriate for them to! Plus, if cereal was made to be sipped from a bottle...well, it wouldn't be cereal!)

I am still stuttering for an answer and come up with something along the lines of "well, I guess it's a personal decision."

~Even when we started giving Lauren cereal about 5 1/2 months, she did not sleep all night long. My opinion (which may not be popular) is that full tummy does not always equal many hours of sleep. Lauren did not sleep more than 4-5 hours at a time until she was 8 MONTHS OLD, PEOPLE!! I really believe that regardless of what you do or what you feed babies, they will sleep when they are ready to pretty much.

Now Lauren is probably the exception and not the rule, but I really can't believe this many people are "sneaking" cereal into their baby's bottles at this young age. Yikes!