Tyrese Loyd, a father from Chicago, had no idea that a photo of his baby's bottle would start a heated, ongoing debate on Facebook [1]. So what set off the internet? A picture Loyd uploaded of adult cereal inside a baby bottle with the caption: "So I asked my lil brother to make the baby a bottle last night and put 2 scoops of cereal in it. This the thanks I get for not doing it myself."

Although the post — which has amassed 18,000 reactions and 8,000 comments since it was posted on Nov. 5 — was intended to be a joke, users went in on the father for admitting to adding infant rice cereal to his baby's bottle [2] at bedtime. While some people are defending the father's right to choose what's best for his kid, others are taking a far more critical route. One commenter said: "It's not recommended anymore to put baby cereal in the baby bottle — it is just empty calories, there is no nutritional value. It will cause the baby to gain unnecessary weight. Babies can't even handle food until 6 months or older." Another woman chimed in with a warning: "Putting baby cereal in a bottle is a CHOKING HAZARD."

Even though some people swear by this outdated parenting hack for getting babies to sleep through the night, children under 6 months old shouldn't be ingesting solids yet [3], according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). "A baby's digestive system is not thought to be well prepared to process cereal until about 6 months of age," says an article from HealthyChildren.org, the official AAP parenting website. "When he is old enough to digest cereal, he should also be ready to eat it from a spoon."

The same article also highlights the potential dangers of giving your baby infant cereal earlier than suggested: "Offering cereal in a bottle (or even on a spoon) before babies are developmentally ready can increase the likelihood of gagging and/or inhaling the thickened mixture into their lungs. Unless there's a medical reason for giving it early, it's not worth jumping the gun."