Quick Guide To Your Baby’s First Foods
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Has your little one been eyeing your meals with more interest and even reaching for some of your food? That’s one of the signs that it’s time to introduce a baby’s first foods.
Transitioning from all breast milk or formula to solids is an exciting developmental milestone. And it's fun for parents too. You get to witness your little one experiencing joy, curiosity, and, yes, sometimes aversions when they taste flavors for the first time.
But what exactly should you feed your baby?
You may have been inundated with advice from well-meaning family and friends about when and what to feed your child. There are plenty of nutrition-related opinions out there and as a pediatric dietitian, I help parents wade through conflicting information.
In this article, learn about baby’s first solid foods and find out which complementary foods are ideal starter foods for 6 to 12 months old (and why).
When to Start Solid Foods
A 6-month old girl eating solids! Big thanks to her parents for sharing.
Babies are developmentally ready to start solid foods between 4 and 6 months old. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics, WHO, AND, and CDC all recommend waiting until about 6 months old.
Although every baby is different, most babies show signs they’re ready for solid food at about 6 months. Before transitioning to solids, a baby should be able to sit up independently, grasp objects in their palms, show interest in food, move their head side to side, and bring objects to their mouth.
From a nutritional standpoint, babies don't need complementary foods until 6 months old when they start to need food sources of iron and zinc. This is because newborns have enough iron stored for the first six months of life. While infant formula in the U.S. contains iron, breast milk is comparatively low in iron.
According to the AAP, exclusively breastfed babies can start solids at about 6 months old and may need a vitamin D and iron supplement. As a pediatric dietitian, I recommend parents discuss with their pediatrician when their baby should start solids and always consult their doctor before providing any supplements.
Benefits of Complementary Foods for Babies
Complementary foods aren't just for fun. Babies get many benefits from starting solid food at 6 months old.
Baby Needs Iron
At around 6 months old, a baby’s iron stores start to deplete, and they need to begin getting iron from solid foods in order to prevent anemia.
Formula-fed babies can develop iron-deficiency anemia if they're not on iron-fortified formula. Although breast milk can be a good, easily absorbed source of iron (depending on the mother's diet), it's not enough for babies older than 6 months.
And babies get less nutrition from formula or breast milk once solid foods replace a few bottle feeds.
That's where complementary foods come in.
Iron is essential for red blood cell production but also plays a crucial role in brain development. The brain triples in size in a baby's first year. So, to keep up with growth and brain development, a 7 to 12-month-old's iron requirements increase to 11 mg daily.
Zinc and calcium are other critical nutrients that babies need. These nutrients are found in complementary foods like fortified cereals and pureed meats.
Reduce the Risk of Food Allergies
Complementary foods are an opportunity to introduce allergens and help prevent food allergies.
According to recent studies, exposing babies to food allergens early and often may reduce the risk of food allergies, particularly peanut and egg allergies.
The AAP recommends introducing allergenic foods once babies begin complementary feeding. However, always consult your baby's pediatrician before starting the process of introducing top allergens.
The top food allergens are:
If your baby has a diagnosed food allergy, be careful to avoid the allergen. Look for food allergen substitutes that provide the same nutrients, so your little one doesn't develop a vitamin deficiency.
Learn Feeding Skills
Eating solid food encourages learning through exploration and helps babies develop feeding skills.
Chewing and swallowing require strong jaw muscles and coordination learned and developed with practice. This important developmental milestone affects speech and helps babies learn to speak clearly.
Baby Food Purees vs. BLW
Every family is different, and there's no one right way to feed your baby.
If you’re one of my baby-led weaning families, you know that I’m a huge proponent of transitioning from liquid nutrition right to finger foods.
Does that mean you should skip the stage 1 purees if you want to use a baby-led weaning approach?
Not necessarily, if that’s not right for your family.
There are three feeding methods for introducing solids to babies.
Baby-led weaning - During BLW, caregivers offer soft, squishable, age-appropriate finger foods for self-feeding.
Spoon-feeding - Typically, babies are passively spoon-fed starting with smooth stage 1 purees and move on to thicker and lumpier mashes as they progress, although after about 6 months of age, there is no need to follow any sort of prescribed step-by-step texture progression unless you want to. The “stages” of baby food described below are a concept mainly used to make it easier to categorize and shelve products in store:
Stage 1 (4 to 6 months): puree (pureed fruits and vegetables)
Stage 2 (6 to 8 months): thicker consistency (infant cereal, yogurt, thicker fruit, vegetable, and meat purees)
Stage 3 (9 to 12 months): soft, bite-sized pieces
Combo of BLW and purees - Caregivers offer age-appropriate, soft finger foods for self-feeding in addition to purees fed either passively or on a preloaded spoon for self-feeding.
Are There Toxic Metals in Commercial Baby Food?
Recently, Consumer Reports reported that commercial baby foods contain toxic metals. This is not an issue unique to baby food. Heavy metals - including lead - are present in our food supply. They exist in tiny amounts in the soil and also can be found in water.
Many of the common ingredients used to make commercial baby foods (i.e., rice, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc.) tend to have comparatively higher levels of heavy metals, which doesn’t make these foods “bad,” but rather highlights the importance of offering them within the context of a variety of foods, rather than serving them every day or multiple times throughout the day. That being said, rice cereal contains the most arsenic compared to other infant cereals, due to how rice is grown and farmed. Some of my favorite alternatives to rice cereal include iron-fortified oat, millet, quinoa, wheat, buckwheat, and amaranth infant cereals*.
One of the most effective ways we can limit a baby’s exposure to toxic metals is to offer babies a varied, balanced diet. Different foods offer different nutrients -- as well as different levels of contaminants. Offering a variety helps ensure that babies and children are getting the range of nutrients they need to thrive and grow while helping to ensure that they aren’t taking in too much of any one specific contaminant.
How to Introduce Solid Foods
When your baby is ready for solids, start small, and go slow! Here are a few tips to help things go smoothly so you can relax and enjoy the journey.
Use a highchair
Before each feeding, secure the baby in a high chair to limit movement and so that they can focus on chewing and swallowing. This lowers the risk of choking and frees a baby’s attention and hands to explore the flavor and feel of new foods.
Using a high chair and utensils when your baby is ready also makes mealtime easier for you and your baby. Look for age-appropriate baby items like silicone spoons with short, wide handles and bowls with suction cups on the bottom, which will mean less of a mess to clean up off the floor and less frustration for babies!
Start small
Tiny tummies only need a little food at a time. So start with about 1 tablespoon of each food at meals and increase as your baby develops or shows signs of hunger.
If you’re unsure how much a baby should eat, you can learn to identify your little one's hunger and fullness signals. Responsive feeding is the feeding model recommended by the WHO, UNICEF and AAP because it supports and strengthens a baby’s ability to self-regulate intake and helps prevent over- and under-feeding. Most healthy babies can regulate their appetite and communicate when they are full. For example, they may lose interest in food, turn away, or shake their heads when done.
But don't stress about the amount of food they eat. At 6 to 12 months old, babies still get most of their nourishment from formula or breast milk. So try to have fun with complementary feeding and allow them to go at their own pace. It's okay if they refuse certain foods!
Feed responsively, but work toward a feeding schedule
Some parents find baby feeding schedules and routines helpful.
A typical feeding schedule for a 6 to 8-month-old looks like this:
6:00 am Upon waking: bottle or breast
8:00 am Morning meal: solid food
9:00 am Nap
10:30 am Breast or bottle
1:00 pm Breast or bottle
1:30 pm Nap
3:30 pm Breast or bottle
5:30 pm Breast or bottle
6:00 pm Evening meal: solid food
7:00 pm Evening breast or bottle
Optional overnight breast or bottle
Use this example for guidance to make a schedule perfect for your family. Don't worry if your baby's sleep and hunger don't fit this schedule or if your little one doesn't show interest in food at every meal. Every baby is different. And keep in mind the feedings change as you drop a milk feed here and there as your baby grows.
Best First Foods for Baby
Before jarred baby food was available, parents gave their little ones soft foods from the family table. Some foods are already a puree or soft consistency, and others need to be cooked to tender, peeled, and/or cut into age-appropriate sizes.
Early meals should be nutrient-packed and include iron-rich foods. The best iron foods for babies include meat, poultry, fish, beans, lentils, tofu, eggs, fortified infant cereals, and dark leafy greens.
Here’s some guidance to help you determine the size and texture of foods to give in the first year.
6 to 8 Months
Foods with puree consistency. Yogurt, applesauce, pureed fruits, vegetables and meats, and whole grain infant cereals.
Soft “squishable” foods for BLW. Bananas, avocados, eggs, toast strips topped with nutritious spreads, and tofu are naturally soft foods babies can break down with their gums before they have teeth. Cut to 2.5 - 5 inches (the size of 1-2 adult pinky fingers) so that babies can palm them up to the mouth using a palmar grasp.
9 to 12 months
Finger foods. Chicken, peas, Cheerios, beans, chopped and peeled cooked vegetables and fruits, (like pear or strawberries) and tender-cooked pasta are great options.
Bite-size small pieces. Cut soft foods to about the size of a chickpea so babies can use their pincer grasp to self-feed. Foods to Avoid the First Year
The goal is to offer a variety of foods so babies learn to accept a range of flavors and textures and grow up to be adventurous eaters. But, there are a few foods to avoid during the first year and even through early childhood.
100% fruit juice - The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend avoiding juice the first year. Juice isn't necessary after a baby turns one and many pediatricians recommend skipping it altogether even beyond age 1.
Honey and unpasteurized dairy foods - Honey and unpasteurized dairy foods can carry bacteria that are dangerous for a baby's undeveloped immune system. Wait until after age 1 for honey and after age 2 for unpasteurized dairy foods to give your baby’s digestive and immune systems enough time to develop and provide protection from serious illness if they ingest bacteria found in these foods.
Added sugars - According to the AAP and Dietary Guidelines, babies under two should avoid added sugars. Added sugars increase the risk of some diseases, can establish a taste preference for sweet foods, and may displace nutritious foods in a baby’s diet.
Cow’s milk - Iron-fortified formula or breast milk should be the only source of nutrition during the first 6 months of life. Complementary feeding at 6 months includes dairy foods, but a baby's digestive system isn't ready for cow's milk as a beverage. Although babies can have small amounts of cow’s milk and plant-based milks in recipes, these drinks shouldn’t be offered in a bottle or as a beverage.
Choking hazards - Until a baby learns to chew and swallow and has all their teeth, avoid any hard foods that are the size of a baby's airway. A few examples of the top choking hazards include hard candies, popcorn, grape tomatoes, grapes, hot dogs, marshmallows, raw carrots, whole nuts, and globs of peanut butter. Although older children have the feeding skills to better handle these foods, there's still a higher risk of choking with these types of foods.
High sodium foods - Sodium is an electrolyte that regulates fluid in the body. Babies can dehydrate and ingest too much water for their little bodies. That's part of the recommendation for avoiding water until 6 months old. Some of the most high-sodium foods to avoid during infancy are pickles, soy sauce, chips and crackers, fast food, and ultra-processed frozen and packed foods.
If you’re getting ready to start your baby on solids, download my FREE Baby-Led Feeding Essential Checklist to make sure you have everything you need to get started. You might also want to check out my online course for parents, based on my best-selling book which will walk you through the whole process of starting solids using a baby-led approach.
Alternatively, if your baby is almost ready to start solids and you’re looking for someone you trust to map out the entire first 12 weeks of your baby’s solid food feeding journey, check out my Safe & Simple 12 Week Meal Plan. Over 30 recipes, weekly shopping lists, tons of balanced baby meals, a complete plan for top allergen introduction, & lots of guidance (with photos) on how to safely serve each food.
And if you're looking for personalized nutrition support for your babies or kids, I am currently accepting new clients in my virtual private practice. Looking forward to meeting you online
