Brief Answer: cerelac is given afteR 6 months of age Detailed Answer: Hi Welcome to Healthcare-Magic Greetings of the day Dear Ms XXXXXXX Ideally a baby is to be exclusively breast feed till 6 months of age. Being a working mother , I do understand your difficulties in doing so. Dexolac is basically mother milk substitute. I would suggest you to try using expressed breast milk which you can store in the refrigerator the previous night and also in the morning before leaving for work. Dexolac 2 is ideally started after 6 months of age. It is different from Dexolac 1 . It contains more of essential amino acids and Lecithin. Cerelac is also better introduced as weaning diet after 6 months of age. I personally do not recommend cerelac to mothers. I prefer suggest in them home made weaning diet. It's more tasty, nutritious and also socially more acceptable. The only advantage of cerelac is easy to prepare. Stage 1 : Cerelac rice or Cerelac rice and milk can be used. Ideally 2 to 3 serving are started per day and may be increased as per need of baby. I would like to suggest you some home made menus in sequential manner suiting the taste of your baby 1.Veg soup: Contents: tomato -2, potato-1small, Onion - 1 small, Carrot-1 small. Preperation: Wash all veggies properly peel potato, onion and carrot. Boil tomato in water for 5 to 6 mins sothat u can see the skin of tomato cracks. Now gently remove skin of tomato. Add tomato and the peeled veggies to a cooker with 1/2 a glass of water. Add pinch of salt and whistle the cooker for 2 to 3 times (veggies shud be cooked well). Now bring it to room temp and blend them in a mixer. Strain the contents to remove any lumps and now boil the soup with cinammon sticks (1or 2piece very small one) added to it. Boil it till it reaches the required consistency and then feed LO. Note:You can add any veggie to make this soup including leafy veggies like spinach, amaranthus, cabbage etc. 2.Pumpkin: Take peeled pumpkin. dice the pumpkin and then presure cook it with little salt. mash well with hands and feed it along with rice or as such. 3.Gourds (any ashgourd, rich gourd etc etc): Make it finger size and then pressure cook it or boil in water till it becomes soft. You can either feed as a finger food or you can mash it and feed it along with rice or as such. 4. Boiled potatos and carrots. Pressure cook well and mash it with hands and add pinch of salt and feed baby as such. 5. Caramalised plums: Peel the plum. Put it on hot tawa and get it caramalised on both sides and then feed it mashed. XXXXXXX also u acn do the same way. 6. Poached pear: peel and pit the pear. Take 1/2 glass of water and add cinammon sticks, grated garlic, cloves etc and bring it to boil. Slip the pears into this boiling fluid and cook until its soft and the fluid is just about to disappear. Now remove all the sticks garlic cloves etc from the fluid and mash the pear in the same fluid and can feed the lo. Its really yumm. And for elders you can add sugar and honey while boiling which makes it a decent desert. 7.Avocado XXXXXXX puree. Take avocado and peeled and diced XXXXXXX in equal qty and grind well in blender. Directly feed the baby. 8.Banana: Ripened banana made to thin long slices. Heat tawa add little butter or olive oil and then saute the banana until its soft. mash and feed. If you wish you can add bit of sugar or honey to this 9.Oats and XXXXXXX breakfast: ground oats and diec XXXXXXX Boil apples until its soft and add ground oats cook until oats is done and a yumm breakfast is raedy. 10.Daal : Cook daal in cooker with salt and curry leaves added to it. Mash it add few drops of ghee and u can feed it either with rice or as such. Do get back to me if you need any further assistance, will be glad to assist you. Take care Best Regards Dr Deepak Kishore MBBS, MS, MCH Consultant Pediatric Surgeon

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