It can take 10 tries or more before your baby will accept a new food or texture, particularly as they get older. Your baby will still be getting most of their energy and nutrients from breast milk or first infant formula.
Breast milk or infant formula should be their main drink during the first year. Do not give them whole cows' or goats' or sheep's milk as a drink until they're 1 year old. Introduce a cup from around 6 months and offer sips of water with meals.
Using an open cup or a free-flow cup without a valve will help your baby learn to sip and is better for their teeth. Try mashed or soft cooked sticks of parsnip, broccoli, potato, yam, sweet potato, carrot, apple or pear.
This will help your baby get used to a range of flavours rather than just the sweeter ones, like carrots and sweet potato and might help prevent them being fussy eaters as they grow up. Foods containing allergens such as peanuts, hens' eggs, gluten and fish can be introduced from around 6 months of age, 1 at a time and in small amounts so you can spot any reaction. Cows' milk can be used in cooking or mixed with food from around 6 months of age, but should not be given as a drink until your baby is 1 year old.
Full-fat dairy products, such as pasteurised cheese and plain yoghurt or fromage frais, can be given from around 6 months of age. Choose products with no added sugar. As soon as your baby starts solid foods, encourage them to be involved in mealtimes and have fun touching, holding and exploring food. Let them feed themselves with their fingers when they want to. This helps develop fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination. Your baby can show you how much they want to eat, and it gets them familiar with different types and textures of food.
Finger food is food that's cut up into pieces big enough for your baby to hold in their fist with a bit sticking out. Start off with finger foods that break up easily in their mouth and are long enough for them to grip.
Avoid hard food, such as whole nuts or raw carrots and apples, to reduce the risk of choking. There's no right or wrong way. The most important thing is that your baby eats a wide variety of food and gets all the nutrients they need.
There's no more risk of choking when a baby feeds themselves than when they're fed with a spoon. From about 7 months, your baby will gradually move towards eating 3 meals a day breakfast, lunch and tea , in addition to their usual milk feeds, which may be around 4 a day for example, on waking, after lunch, after tea and before bed. As your baby eats more solid foods, they may want less milk at each feed or even drop a milk feed altogether.
If you're breastfeeding, your baby will adapt their feeds according to how much food they're having. Gradually increase the amount and variety of food your baby is offered to ensure they get the energy and nutrients they need. Try to include food that contains iron, such as meat, fish, fortified breakfast cereals, dark green vegetables, beans and lentils, at each meal.
As your baby becomes a more confident eater, remember to offer them more mashed, lumpy and finger foods. Providing finger foods as part of each meal helps encourage infants to feed themselves, develop hand and eye co-ordination, and learn to bite off, chew and swallow pieces of soft food. From about 10 months, your baby should now be having 3 meals a day breakfast, lunch and tea , in addition to their usual milk feeds.
Around this age, your baby may have about 3 milk feeds a day for instance, after breakfast, after lunch and before bed.
Remember that formula-fed babies should take a vitamin D supplement if they're having less than ml of formula a day. They should be able to manage a wider range of finger foods, and be able to pick up small pieces of food and move them to their mouth. They'll use a cup with more confidence. Lunches and teas can include a main course, and a fruit or unsweetened dairy-based dessert, to move eating patterns closer to those of children over 1 year.
From 12 months, your child will be eating 3 meals a day containing a variety of different foods , including:. The World Health Organization recommends that all babies are breastfed for up to 2 years or longer. You can keep breastfeeding for as long as it suits you both, but your child will need less breast milk to make room for more foods. Once your child is 12 months old, infant formula is not needed and toddler milks, growing-up milks and goodnight milks are also unnecessary.
Your baby can now drink whole cows' milk. Choose full-fat dairy products, as children under 2 years old need the vitamins and extra energy found in them. From 2 years old, if they're a good eater and growing well, they can have semi-skimmed milk. You can give your child unsweetened calcium-fortified milk alternatives, such as soya, oat or almond drinks, from the age of 1 as part of a healthy, balanced diet.
Children under 5 years old should not be given rice drinks because of the levels of arsenic in these products. For information and advice you can trust, sign up for weekly Start4Life pregnancy and baby emails. Page last reviewed: 1 March Next review due: 1 March Your baby's first solid foods. When to start introducing solid foods Introducing your baby to solid foods, sometimes called complementary feeding or weaning, should start when your baby is around 6 months old.
Why wait until around 6 months to introduce solids? They'll be able to: stay in a sitting position and hold their head steady co-ordinate their eyes, hands and mouth so they can look at the food, pick it up and put it in their mouth by themselves swallow food rather than spit it back out The following behaviours can be mistaken by parents as signs that their baby is ready for solid foods: chewing their fists waking up in the night more than usual wanting extra milk feeds These are all normal behaviours for babies and not necessarily a sign that they're hungry or ready to start solid food.
This is all normal as your baby begins to grow more independent , but for now, they still need their normal day's worth of breast milk or formula. There are no hard and fast rules for a baby's first foods. It's more important to offer a variety of fruits, vegetables, and meats in any order to get your baby used to different tastes. Here are some suggestions. The level of iron that's stored in utero drops after birth, and a baby reaches an all-time low at around 9 months.
That's why cereals fortified with iron are an ideal early food. Combine one teaspoon of single-grain cereal with four to five teaspoons of breast milk or formula. At first, most of the cereal will end up on your baby's chin.
Allan Walker, M. Don't force your baby to continue eating if they shake their head no, turn away, or refuse to open up after only one mouthful. And if they seem completely uninterested in trying cereal, wait a week or so and try again. Once your baby is used to swallowing runny cereal, thicken it by using less water or breast milk and more cereal.
You may have heard that eating fruits before vegetables can cause a lifelong preference for sweet foods, but there's no research to back that up. So it's up to you to determine whether you begin with bananas or carrots—or pureed chicken for that matter. The AAP also believes that introducing allergenic foods early can reduce the risk of developing a food allergy, especially if your child is at risk.
Common allergenic foods include peanuts, eggs, and dairy. Check out this article for more information. Whether you've begun with purees or are starting solids with finger foods, many babies enjoy experimenting with self-feeding from an early age. Don't offer any hard, raw foods such as apple slices or carrot sticks at this point.
Make sure fruits and veggies are soft enough to mash with gentle pressure between your thumb and forefinger. The shape matters too. Younger babies will be picking foods up with their whole palms, so a mound of mashed potatoes or a wedge of avocado will be easier to handle than smaller foods. Don't put salt or sugar in their food—it's best if your baby learns to like it without the added seasonings.
As soon as your child is able, transition them away from smooth purees. Incorporate more finger foods with texture like yogurt, cottage cheese, mashed bananas, and mashed sweet potatoes. They can also use more iron, so try pureed meats like beef, chicken, and turkey. Honey: It can cause botulism , a serious illness, if introduced too early. Cow's milk : Stick with breast milk and formula as a primary beverage until your baby is one year old.
It's fine to use cow's milk in cooking or baking, though. Choking hazards. Hesitant about improvising your first foods for baby? Much of the confusion around when to start baby food stems from questions concerning allergenic foods. These are foods that babies are most often allergic to. The major culprits include dairy, eggs, fish, peanuts and tree nuts. In the past, parents were advised to hold off on exposing baby to these foods, but now doctors recommend introducing them early, often and in age-appropriate format, which means starting off with purees and soft textures.
You can also try scrambled eggs in small amounts, although baby may not be too pleased with the texture at first. Giving these babies peanut products before the age of one actually decreases their risk of developing a peanut allergy before age 5 by 81 percent, compared to kids who are introduced to peanuts later in life.
Allergic reactions to food are never just a fluke; they will happen with every exposure. Symptoms can range from mild such as a rash or vomiting to severe such as trouble breathing.
If the symptoms are severe, call right away. She earned her medical degree from New York Medical College in He earned his medical degree from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such.
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