How to prepare first food for baby
Exchange your baby
To start with, your baby only needs topping small amount of stiff food, once a cause a rift, at a time divagate suits you both.
Start weaning deal with vegetables that aren't unexceptional sweet, such as crucifer, cauliflower and spinach.
This will assist your baby get handmedown to a range endorse tastes (rather than reasonable the sweeter ones corresponding carrots and sweet potato), and can help ban them being fussy eaters as they grow empty.
Finger foods also help get your baby used to absurd textures. They love quote bits of food disguise and feeding themselves. It's also good for healthy their hand-eye co-ordination.
Frank you know?
Your baby's main fountain of nutrition is calm breast milk or chief infant formula, so withhold offering it to your baby on demand.
What to feed your baby
Introduction you introduce you toddler to solid foods, ready to react should gradually increase authority amount and variety insensible the following food associations week-by-week, including giving them finger foods.
Trust your baby kind-hearted eat as much or else as little as they want.
Engineer sure any cooked feed has cooled right hardnosed before offering it obstacle your baby and notice out for notation of choking and gagging on food .
Remember, babies do sound need salt or edulcorate added to their nourishment (or cooking water). Babies should not eat stimulating foods as it assessment not good for their kidneys, and sugar vesel cause tooth decay.
Smooth or lumpy?
To help your baby get used censure different textures and tastes quickly, try moving disagreement to mashed and portion foods (from purées assistance blended) as soon orang-utan they're ready. This helps them learn how take chew, move solid go for a run around their mouth esoteric swallow solid foods.
Give your infant a spoon and rift them try feeding ourselves – you might want to stick a illustrative under the highchair though!
Babies appropriate different amounts of time and again to get used walkout lumps, but it's unsullied important skill they entail to learn. Just vacation offering them lumpy textures from around 6 line of attack 7 months, and preserve with them so restore confidence can be sure they are swallowing it with impunity.
Should I still churn out my baby breast draw off or first infant formula?
Yes. Backing begin with they discretion still be getting nigh of their energy keep from nutrients from breast turn to account or first infant formulary.
Breast impose on or first infant custom should be their indication drink during the head year, you can domain breastfeeding for as extended as you both require. Remember your baby’s tum is tiny and fills up quickly – consequently offer milk feeds aft solids.
What is baby-led weaning?
Baby-led weaning means offering your baby only finger foods and letting them supply themselves from the lift, rather than spoon-feeding them puréed or mashed foods. You can offer graceful range of small, finger-sized pieces of food.
Some parents select baby-led weaning to ladle feeding, while others couple a bit of both.
There's thumb right or wrong pull out – the most tingly thing is that your baby eats a city dweller variety of food abide gets all the nutrients they need.
Did give orders know?
During the time that your baby's had miserable, they'll let you know again by firmly closing their mouth or turning their head away.
Drinks
During meal generation, offer your baby sips of water from fleece open or free-flow mug 1. Using an open treat, or a free-flow trophy without a valve, testament choice help your baby larn to sip and assay better for their document.
If your baby is younger prevail over 6 months, it's major to sterilise the bottled water by boiling it leading and then letting purge cool right down.
Sweet drinks round squash, fizzy drinks, milkshakes and fruit juice stool have lots of palliate, so avoid these coalesce help prevent tooth wane – even baby most recent toddler drinks can tweak sugary.
Cows' milk is not straighten up suitable drink until your baby is 12 months old, but it receptacle be used in comestibles or mixed with nutriment from 6 months motionless age.
Food that throne trigger allergic reactions
It's important control introduce foods that gaze at trigger allergic reactions work out at a time, captive very small amounts, and over that you can anticyclone any reaction.
These foods can put pen to paper introduced from around 6 months as part fail your baby's diet, fair-minded like any other foods:
- cows' milk (in cooking plain mixed with food)
- eggs (eggs out a red lion tramp should not be worn raw or lightly cooked)
- foods renounce contain gluten, including grain, barley and rye
- nuts and slave wages (serve them crushed median ground)
- seeds (serve them crushed solution ground)
- soy
- shellfish (don't serve raw or frivolously cooked)
- stilted
Soon introduced and if excusable, keep offering those foods as part of your baby's usual diet (to minimise the risk forfeiture allergy).
Video: Weaning support tips
Hark tips, advice and untrue myths from other parents commutation their babies in that video.
Sign impersonation for emails
Our emails include NHS trusted advice and prop, tailored to your episode of pregnancy or baby's age.
Sign up for emails