Nestle Cerelac Infant Rice Cereal Review

Mum’s breastmilk, while a vital source of nutrients for newborns, can’t sustain them forever.

As babies grow they require more nutrients to encourage their healthy development, both physically and mentally, and this requires a broader range of foods.

The transition from breastmilk to solid foods can be rough on both baby and mom as they each adapt to the change.

For mum it typically means trying to get a fussy baby to eat their food and cleaning up the resulting mess when they don’t want to, and for baby the introduction to the varied textures and flavours of solid food can be overwhelming.

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Infant cereal is here to help make the transition a little easier on both mum and bub.

With a consistency similar to porridge or oatmeal, yet pureed even smoother to be easy for infants to consume and digest, baby cereal has been used to start babies off on solid foods for generations.

Single-grain cereals are among the most common, such as rice, wheat, and oats, and among these, ‘rice’ is one the best selection to start your infant on.

At around four months is when your baby should begin to get accustomed to eating solid foods such as Rice Infant Cereal. Why rice?

Well, rice cereal has a bland flavour and texture, making it an ideal first food for a baby’s developing taste buds when compared to other single-grain cereals.

Like with all foods you’ll see in the supermarket or grocery store, many different brands will compete for your purchase, each producing their own Rice Infant Cereal they’ll claim is the best.

And as with all baby products, it’s up to mum to do her best to choose only the best for her baby, but this is even more important when selecting what foods you want your baby to consume.

Comparing ingredients and looking into the companies making each product can be a tedious task, which is why this mum is here to offer up her expertise and experience to save you the trouble.

There is no one baby cereal that rules over them all, however there are certainly a few brands with products that shine when compared to the rest.

And among them is Nestle’s Cerelac Rice Infant Cereal.

Nestle Cerelac Rice Infant Cereal – Nutrition Overview:

• Iron-Rich – Fortified with iron to encourage healthy infant development.

• Contains Bifidus BL – Probiotics including Bifidus BL are good for baby’s digestive tract and immune system.

• Smooth texture – Smooth infant cereal is easy for babies to swallow.

• No Added Sugar – All sugar present is from the natural grains in the cereal.

Made with CHE – The Cereals Hydrolysed Enzymically process breaks carbohydrates into smaller components to be easier on babies’ tummies.

Cerelac Rice Cereal – Preparation Guide

The first step to preparing Cerelac Rice Cereal is one every mum should do even before making the purchase, whether they do it online – like reading about it here! – or from the packaging directly in your preferred store.

And that is read about the ingredients!

Whether it’s to check to make sure there are no ingredients that go against any dietary restrictions your baby has, or just to ensure the brand is using natural, baby-friendly ingredients, mums need to know what they are putting into their babies.

The ingredients for Nestle Cerelac Rice are as follows:

• Rice Flour
• Maize Maltodextrin
• Vitamin C
• Mineral (Iron)
• Culture (Bifidus)
• May contain traces of Milk and Soy.

In inspecting the ingredients, mum can see that this particular rice cereal contains two key components you should be looking for – Iron and Bifidus.

At about this stage in your baby’s development, the iron in mom’s breastmilk isn’t enough and babies may start to show signs of iron deficiency if their diet does not contain iron from other sources.

Iron Fortified cereals, like Cerelac Rice, help fix this problem.

As for the Culture (Bifidus) ingredient, this is referring to the probiotic containing Bifidus BL, a naturally occurring substance in mum’s own breastmilk that will help keep your baby’s digestive tract and immune system healthy.

Now, on to actually preparing the cereal to feed to your baby.

The preparation is incredibly simple!

Make sure to wash your hands and all utensils thoroughly before starting to ensure everything is clean.

Next, boil clean drinking water for five minutes and allow the water to cool a little before mixing 90 mL of lukewarm water into your baby’s bowl.

This is when you add 15 g of Cerelac Rice (approximate tablespoons: AU 2.5) to the bowl, stirring it into the water until the cereal becomes a smooth, even consistency.

Lastly, feed it to your baby!

Whether you play airplane or train, or have some other method of getting baby to eat, your Nestle Cerelac Rice Infant Cereal is ready to be eaten.

A tip this mom recommends is adding a little of your own pumped breastmilk into the cereal.

This will add a bit of a familiar flavour for your baby, helping them to adjust more easily to the food, and give them the many health benefits breastmilk provides.

Nestle’s Infant Cereal – Product Pricing and Competitors

Where can you buy Nestle Cerelac Rice?

Nestle helps to make locating their product easier on mums by providing a convenient list on their webpage featuring local Australian locations carrying Cerelac Rice.

Chemist Warehouse, Coles, Pharmacy Online, Priceline Pharmacy, and Woolworths are all listed, giving mom plenty of options to choose from when selecting where to buy the cereal. And when it comes to the price, all of these stores have 200 g of Cerelac Rice listed for under $5!

With how great Cerelac Rice may sound, it’s not the only great rice infant cereal on the market, and so to be fair here are a few competitor brands to consider if your baby isn’t fond of Nestle’s cereal.

• Rafferty’s Garden Organic Baby Rice Cereal – Rich in iron and with no added sugar, Rafferty’s Garden makes a quality organic baby cereal made from Wholegrain Brown Rice with Sunflower Oil.

• Farex Baby Rice Cereal – Another great alternative, Farex’s Rice Cereal is made from Ground Rice, Sunflower Oil, Antioxidant (Herb Extract), and Mineral (Iron), making it a healthy source of the nutrients and vitamins your baby needs with no added flavours, colours, preservatives, sugar, or salt.

• Gerber Rice Cereal – Gerber, a well-known producer of baby food,produces a few variations of rice cereal, including a regular and organic version, so moms can pick which recipe works best for their baby’s needs.

Nestle – The Creator of Cerelac

Before becoming a mum, Nesquick and Butterfingers were what would come to mind when thinking of Nestle, but motherhood has changed that into baby food.

But there is more history to the brand than just these things!

In 1867, in order to combat the high infant mortality rate of the time, Henri Nestle worked to develop a milk-based food for babies who couldn’t be breastfed from their mums.

The company developed quite rapidly after this, expanding into other areas such as condensed milk and chocolate.

Nestle became big in Australia early on, with Australia becoming the second largest export market of Nestle by 1906.

Due to its popularity in the region, a branch of the business set up in Australia in 1908, and it was here that Nestle technology and Australian ingenuity combined to develop MILO.

As a mom, hearing about how Nestle got its start through its efforts to support babies is a heartwarming tale and it’s great to be able to support the company through the purchase of their products like Cerelac Rice.

Final Thoughts on Nestle Cerelac Rice

The ingredients and their health benefits, the availability and affordability, and the brand and its good intentions all come together to make Cerelac Rice a product that truly stands out.

It’s an incredible starter food for getting baby accustomed to solids while promoting their development with added nutrients and vitamins, and mum’s everywhere can rest assured that this is a quality, healthy product for their babies to consume.

Our Rating

How much does it cost?

RRP $4.69

Where to buy?

Amazon Australia