The 4 month milestone???

Statistics claim that at 4 months a baby is safe to experiment with rice cereal.

I on the other hand believe that the child can tell you when they're ready.

Take my daughter for example. She had hit her 3 month mark and during the night time feedings NOTHING seemed to fill her up for long, when previously I was able to feed her and have her sleep for at least 4-5 hours. She won't take a bottle, since I exclusively breast feed, so supplementing with formula was near impossible. I took the initiative to start her on the rice cereal at 3 1/2 months just to see if it helped.

I tried and ...

1. She didn't know what was going on, since the only form of food she's had was my breast.
2. She thought it had an odd taste and gave me a look like I was insane if I thought she was going to eat this for much longer.
3. Her tongue thrusting was making it impossible to get her food to go back in her throat.

Yes, I do know that the first time anyone tries anything, they'll always be hesitant and not always the best at it. So I decided that giving it a few days to at least a week should help. Well the sleeping didn't change for the first week, but she started to learn to swallow things little by little. She still didn't like the rice cereal though, so with a week shy away from her turning 4 months, I bit the bullet and mixed in some sweet carrots in with the rice cereal.

She was immediately IN LOVE with the baby food. She was opening her mouth every time I had another spoonful and she was making the "num num" sound when I would put more into her mouth. As well as, that night she went to bed at 9pm, woke up at 1am for a quick filler, then was out until 9:30am.

Regardless of what other mothers seem to think, a child definitely can tell you when they're ready, you just have to learn to listen.
If you'd like to go by doctors standards: Great, they are there for a reason.
But I know that motherly instincts can speak louder then a PHD, at times. I'm just learning day by day to dissect those instincts, among my own impatience.