Try menu inflater, it should add menu items based on the specified xml, but call super.onCreateOptionsMenu to populate the parent menu items first. Something like this:
@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.new_menu, menu);
return true;
}
You may refer to http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/MenuInflater.html.