First foods: What to offer and how
Sometime around 6 months when your baby is showing the developmental signs of readiness, they can start on the exciting journey of learning how to eat. This section gives practical baby feeding information on introducing complementary foods and what to start with and how to start!
Starting out: Choose a time to start solid foods when both you and baby are relaxed. Mid-morning can be a good time. Start by offering around ½ to 2 teaspoons of food after a usual milk feed. Breastmilk (or formula) is still the most important nutrient source for the first year of life.
How many meals per day: Begin with one small meal a day as a top up after a milk feed, and slowly increase the amount of food you offer as baby’s appetite increases.
Feeding time: Place baby in a supportive high chair or hold them in your lap and offer pureed food on a small soft spoon. Put a small amount to baby’s lips and onto the middle of their tongue and let them taste and suck the food. Even if your baby just tastes the food on the first days it is a step in the right direction. The most important thing as you start solids is not quantity, but more so getting your baby used to taking food from a spoon and adjusting to new tastes and textures.
Smooth pureed texture: Start with smooth puréed foods. Once baby can swallow smooth foods you can progress quickly to thicker purées and mashed foods.
First foods: Start with small amounts of iron-rich foods, vegetables and fruit. You can try:
- Iron fortified Farex® baby rice cereal
- Cooked puréed meat, chicken, fish, tofu or legumes
- Cooked and puréed vegetables: Pumpkin, potato, sweet potato or carrot
- Cooked and puréed fruit: Apple, pear, peach or apricot
- Smoothly mashed ripe avocado or banana
- Heinz® 4+ months beginner baby foods
As a very first food, it's common to use baby rice cereal mixed with breastmilk or formula to give a familiar taste and with a smooth runny texture. Iron rich foods are important at this stage, because your baby's iron stores start to run low around 6 months.
Heinz® 4+ months baby foods in the blue colour coded pouches and jars are puréed first foods and can give you a good idea of the correct consistency to aim for.
Introduce foods at a rate that suits baby: Introduce a variety of new foods to introduce new flavours and help establish healthy taste preferences. Once a new food is introduced you can mix it with other foods your baby has already tried. Unless a common allergy-causing food, there is no need to introduce foods individually or slowly, just go at a rate that suits your baby.
Look for signs that baby is full and has had enough, such as turning their head away and closing their mouth and respond to these cues. This is called responsive feeding and helps baby learn to form healthy eating habits from an early age.
Over the next few weeks, gradually increase the amount of food you offer your baby, still keeping solid meals to after a milk feed. When your baby is comfortably eating between 2 tablespoons to half a cup of food at one meal, you could add in a second meal, say after the mid-afternoon milk feed.
Taste: Your baby has a lot more taste buds than you do, so even something that seems bland in the adult world can be a flavour sensation to them! Remember, up until now your little one has just been used to the taste and liquidness of milk, so getting used to the texture and taste of solid foods will be quite an adjustment for them. As your baby is learning to eat, some of the facial expressions can be very entertaining indeed! You don’t need to add sugar, honey, salt, butter or any other condiments to baby food. Be patient, expect a few messy mishaps, and be calm and persistent. It can take babies 10 or more tastes of a new food to get used to it and accept it.
References:
National Health and Medical Research Council (2012). Infant Feeding Guidelines. Canberra: National Medical Research Council.
The materials published on this website are of a general nature and have been provided for informational purposes only. Always consult your medical practitioner or a qualified health provider for any further advice in relation to the topics discussed.