When can babies eat solid food?

As long as your baby shows signs of readiness, you can start solids any time between 4 and vi months. Until then, breast milk or formula provides all the calories and nourishment your baby needs – and tin can handle. Infants don't yet have the physical skills to eat solid foods safely, and their digestive system isn't ready for solids until they're at least 4 months onetime.

If you're exclusively breastfeeding, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends waiting until 6 months erstwhile to commencement solids. That's because sectional breastfeeding is so beneficial for your baby.

Even after your infant starts solids, breast milk or formula volition still provide the majority of your baby'southward calories and diet until they're a year old. Both provide important vitamins, iron, and protein in a class that's piece of cake to digest. Meet how much breast milk or formula babies demand after starting solids.

How tin can I tell when my babe's gear up for solid food?

Your infant will give you clear signs when they're gear up. Look for:

  • Head control . Your babe needs to be able to keep their head in a steady, upright position.
  • Sitting well when supported. Your baby needs to be able to sit upright in an infant feeding seat or highchair to swallow well.
  • Losing the "extrusion reflex." Your babe'south mouth and tongue develop in sync with the digestive system. To kickoff solids, they should be able to motility food to the back of their mouth and consume information technology, instead of using their tongue to button food out of their oral cavity.
  • Significant weight gain. Your baby may be gear up to swallow solids if they've doubled their nascency weight, weigh at to the lowest degree 13 pounds, and is at to the lowest degree 4 months old.
  • Curiosity about food. Your baby may begin eyeing or reaching for your food or may open their mouth if you offering them a spoonful.

Keep in mind that just because your baby is 6 months old, information technology doesn't mean that you take to introduce solids. Some babies may be set up for solids by 6 months, while others may need a little chip more fourth dimension.

What are the best first baby foods?

First your baby with any pureed single-ingredient food. Although information technology used to exist standard for parents to give infant cereal as a first food, that'southward non necessary. Expert first baby foods include

  • pureed squash
  • applesauce
  • mashed bananas
  • mashed avocado
  • pureed peaches
  • pureed pears
  • pureed meats
  • whole-grain, fe-enriched baby cereal

If your baby is breastfed, the AAP suggests meat every bit a first food because the iron in beef, craven, and turkey helps to replace atomic number 26 stores, which start to diminish at virtually six months of age.

What to know about food allergies when starting solid food

Experts recommend that you introduce one food at a time to your babe, and wait iii to v days before introducing another food, and so you tin watch for whatsoever allergic reactions. It's also a good idea to write down the foods your baby samples. If they have an adverse reaction, a food log will brand information technology easier to pinpoint the cause.

Yous don't have to put off giving allergenic foods such equally eggs or soy. There's no evidence that waiting to introduce certain foods will help your infant avoid allergies. In fact, there's evidence that the opposite is true.

According to the American University of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI), incorporating commonly allergenic foods into your babe's diet starting at around 4 to half-dozen months (and continuing through babyhood) may actually help prevent the development of food allergies.

Start with traditional first foods, such as atomic number 26-fortified infant cereal, pureed veggies, fruits, and meats. Once yous've tried a few of these foods and your baby seems to exist tolerating them well, y'all can introduce more commonly allergenic foods, such every bit soy, eggs, wheat, fish, and peanut products.

Food manufacturers have products on the marketplace designed to aid you incorporate usually allergenic foods into your kid'south nutrition. These stir-in powders and finger foods may contain one commonly allergenic poly peptide or a alloy of several.

Special precautions need to be taken with certain babies. If your child falls into whatever of the following categories, consult with your baby'south doctor or an allergist to create a customized feeding program before calculation solids to your baby's diet:

  • Your babe has a sibling with a peanut allergy.
  • Your babe has moderate to severe eczema despite post-obit a physician'south treatment plan.
  • Your baby previously had an immediate allergic reaction to a new food or has been diagnosed with a food allergy.
  • Your babe's claret test was positive for an allergy to a specific food.

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If your babe is allergic to a new nutrient, you'll see signs of a reaction inside a few minutes or hours. Nigh children with food allergies have mild reactions. If you lot notice hives, vomiting, or diarrhea, call your baby'due south md for advice.

If you notice wheezing, difficulty breathing, or facial swelling (including the tongue and lips), your baby may be having a life-threatening reaction called anaphylaxis.Call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.

How to introduce solid food to your infant

The traditional style to get-go solids is past spoon-feeding your babe babe cereal or purees, only some parents use a different method called baby-led weaning. Using this method, you put large chunks of soft food on the highchair tray or tabular array and let your baby grab the food and feed themself.

See our commodity on baby-led weaning to find out how it works. To learn how to start spoon-feeding, read on.

For your first few feedings, give your baby simply 1 or two teaspoons of pureed solid nutrient or infant cereal after nursing or canteen-feeding (so your baby doesn't get hungry and frustrated).

Use a soft-tipped plastic spoon to feed your babe to avoid injuring their gums. Put a pocket-size amount of food on the tip of the spoon and offering it to them. If your baby doesn't seem very interested, only permit them smell the food for at present and attempt again another fourth dimension.

If you're feeding your babe ready-to-eat jars or pouches of baby food, put some into a small dish and feed them from that. (If you lot dip the feeding spoon into the jar, information technology'due south not a proficient thought to salvage the leftovers because bacteria from your babe'southward mouth will at present exist in the jar.) Throw away any open baby nutrient jars inside a twenty-four hour period or two of opening them.

If you decide to start with cereal, give your baby one to two teaspoons of diluted infant cereal. Add breast milk or formula to a tiny pinch of cereal. It will exist very runny at first, but as your baby starts to eat more solid foods, you lot tin gradually thicken the consistency by using less liquid.

Brainstorm with one daily feeding whenever your babe isn't too tired, hungry, or cranky. Your babe may non eat much at outset, simply give them time to get used to the experience. Don't be surprised if your baby is confused or rejects solid food at first. Some babies need practice keeping nutrient in their mouths and swallowing.

Eventually yous tin start giving your babe more than solid food until they're having a few tablespoons a mean solar day, over two feedings. In full general, your babe could start with pureed or semi-liquid food, then move on to strained or mashed nutrient, and finally graduate to small pieces of finger foods.

Run into our historic period-by-historic period baby feeding guide to notice out what you can look next.

How can I tell when my infant is full?

Your babe's ambition volition vary from ane feeding to the side by side, so a strict accounting of how much they've eaten isn't a reliable way to tell when they've had plenty. Look for these signs that your baby is probably done:

  • Leans dorsum in the chair
  • Turns head abroad from food
  • Starts playing with the spoon
  • Refuses to open upwardly for the next bite (Sometimes a baby will continue their rima oris closed because they haven't finished the first mouthful, so give them time to swallow.)

Baby food feeding tips

  • Offer fruits or vegetables in any guild. Some parents may tell you to showtime with vegetables instead of fruits so your infant won't develop a taste for sweets. But babies are born with a preference for sweets, so you don't have to worry near introducing sweet or savory foods in any particular gild.
  • Feed cereal with a spoon only. Unless your baby's doctor asks you lot to, don't add cereal to a bottle – your baby could choke or end up gaining too much weight.
  • Encourage adventurous eating. You don't have to stick with bland and boring. Run across how to use spices and seasonings to brand your baby's food delicious.
  • Give new foods time. If your baby turns abroad from a particular food, don't push. Try again in a few days.
  • Bank check for added sugars and too much common salt. Check the Diet Facts label on canned, frozen, or packaged foods for "Added Sugars." If there'southward one gram or more than listed, consider giving your baby something else, since these sugars and syrups added during the processing of the food aren't recommended for children nether 24 months. Also look at sodium amounts. Babies should have no more than one,200 mg of sodium per twenty-four hour period.
  • Know the choking hazards. Don't give your infant foods that might brand them choke.
  • Scout for constipation. A babe's stool sometimes changes when their diet does. Although it's usually temporary, your baby may accept constipation after introducing solids. If you observe that your babe is having less frequent bowel movements, or that their stools have become hard or dry and seem hard to laissez passer, let their doc know. Some doctors recommend calculation high-fiber fruits such every bit pears, prunes, and peaches to a babe's diet, or giving a few ounces of clip, apple, or pear juice each twenty-four hour period until bowel movements are back to normal.

Also, don't be surprised if your baby'due south stools change color and aroma when y'all add together solids to their diet. If your baby has been exclusively breastfed up to this point, you'll probably notice a strong odor to their formerly balmy-smelling stools as before long as they offset eating fifty-fifty tiny amounts of solids. This is normal.

How many times a day should my infant eat solid food?

At kickoff your baby will eat solid food just once a day. By effectually half-dozen to vii months, 2 meals a mean solar day is the norm. Starting around eight to nine months, they may be eating solid food three times a day. A typical day's diet at 8 months might include a combination of:

  • Breast milk or iron-fortified formula
  • Iron-fortified cereal
  • Vegetables
  • Fruit
  • Small amounts of protein, such equally eggs, cheese, yogurt, poultry, lentils, tofu, and meat

At that place are some unsafe foods  for babies to picket out for. Honey, for example, tin can cause botulism in babies less than a year old. And babies should look until after their showtime altogether to try moo-cow's milk or soy milk.

What equipment practice I need to feed solids to my babe?

It'southward helpful to accept:

  • A highchair
  • Babe bowls and plates
  • Infant spoons
  • Bibs
  • A splat mat on the floor

You may as well desire to introduce your baby to a sippy cup soon after you start solids.

If you're making your own baby food, you'll need:

  • A tool to puree the food, like a blender, food processor, or infant food maker
  • Storage containers for refrigerating and freezing extra portions (Some parents utilize ice cube trays – or like devices made just for baby food – to store and freeze individual portions.)