Age to start baby food
When, What, and How to Introduce Solid Foods | Nutrition
For more information about how to know if your baby is ready to starting eating foods, what first foods to offer, and what to expect, watch these videos from 1,000 Days.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend children be introduced to foods other than breast milk or infant formula when they are about 6 months old. Introducing foods before 4 months old is not recommended. Every child is different. How do you know if your child is ready for foods other than breast milk or infant formula? You can look for these signs that your child is developmentally ready.
Your child:
- Sits up alone or with support.
- Is able to control head and neck.
- Opens the mouth when food is offered.
- Swallows food rather than pushes it back out onto the chin.
- Brings objects to the mouth.
- Tries to grasp small objects, such as toys or food.
- Transfers food from the front to the back of the tongue to swallow.
What Foods Should I Introduce to My Child First?
The American Academy of Pediatrics says that for most children, you do not need to give foods in a certain order. Your child can begin eating solid foods at about 6 months old. By the time he or she is 7 or 8 months old, your child can eat a variety of foods from different food groups. These foods include infant cereals, meat or other proteins, fruits, vegetables, grains, yogurts and cheeses, and more.
If your child is eating infant cereals, it is important to offer a variety of fortifiedalert icon infant cereals such as oat, barley, and multi-grain instead of only rice cereal. Only providing infant rice cereal is not recommended by the Food and Drug Administration because there is a risk for children to be exposed to arsenic. Visit the U.S. Food & Drug Administrationexternal icon to learn more.
How Should I Introduce My Child to Foods?
Your child needs certain vitamins and minerals to grow healthy and strong.
Now that your child is starting to eat food, be sure to choose foods that give your child all the vitamins and minerals they need.
Click here to learn more about some of these vitamins & minerals.
Let your child try one single-ingredient food at a time at first. This helps you see if your child has any problems with that food, such as food allergies. Wait 3 to 5 days between each new food. Before you know it, your child will be on his or her way to eating and enjoying lots of new foods.
Introduce potentially allergenic foods when other foods are introduced.
Potentially allergenic foods include cow’s milk products, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy, and sesame. Drinking cow’s milk or fortified soy beverages is not recommended until your child is older than 12 months, but other cow’s milk products, such as yogurt, can be introduced before 12 months. If your child has severe eczema and/or egg allergy, talk with your child’s doctor or nurse about when and how to safely introduce foods with peanuts.
How Should I Prepare Food for My Child to Eat?
At first, it’s easier for your child to eat foods that are mashed, pureed, or strained and very smooth in texture. It can take time for your child to adjust to new food textures. Your child might cough, gag, or spit up. As your baby’s oral skills develop, thicker and lumpier foods can be introduced.
Some foods are potential choking hazards, so it is important to feed your child foods that are the right texture for his or her development. To help prevent choking, prepare foods that can be easily dissolved with saliva and do not require chewing. Feed small portions and encourage your baby to eat slowly. Always watch your child while he or she is eating.
Here are some tips for preparing foods:
- Mix cereals and mashed cooked grains with breast milk, formula, or water to make it smooth and easy for your baby to swallow.
- Mash or puree vegetables, fruits and other foods until they are smooth.
- Hard fruits and vegetables, like apples and carrots, usually need to be cooked so they can be easily mashed or pureed.
- Cook food until it is soft enough to easily mash with a fork.
- Remove all fat, skin, and bones from poultry, meat, and fish, before cooking.
- Remove seeds and hard pits from fruit, and then cut the fruit into small pieces.
- Cut soft food into small pieces or thin slices.
- Cut cylindrical foods like hot dogs, sausage and string cheese into short thin strips instead of round pieces that could get stuck in the airway.
- Cut small spherical foods like grapes, cherries, berries and tomatoes into small pieces.
- Cook and finely grind or mash whole-grain kernels of wheat, barley, rice, and other grains.
Learn more about potential choking hazards and how to prevent your child from choking.
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When Can My Baby Start Eating Solid Foods? (for Parents)
A friend just started giving her 3-month-old applesauce and rice cereal.
My son is just 2 weeks younger than hers, and I am wondering if I should be introducing solids soon too. When should I start?
– Taylor
Doctors recommend waiting until a baby is about 6 months old to start solid foods. Starting before 4 months is not recommended.
At about 6 months, babies need the added nutrition — such as iron and zinc — that solid foods provide. It’s also the right time to introduce your infant to new tastes and textures.
Some babies may be ready for solids sooner than 6 months, but don't start until your baby is at least 4 months old.
How do you know it’s the right time to start solid foods? Here are some signs that babies are ready:
- They have good head and neck control and sit up in a high chair.
- They're interested in foods. For example, they may watch others eat, reach for food, and open their mouths when food approaches.
- They don’t push food out of their mouths, which is a natural tongue reflex that disappears when they’re between 4–6 months old.
- They weigh twice their birth weight, or close to it.
Talk to your doctor about the right time to start solid foods.
How Should I Start Solids?
When the time is right, you can start with a single-grain, iron-fortified baby cereal. Start with 1 or 2 tablespoons of cereal mixed with breast milk, formula, or water. Feed your baby with a small baby spoon. Don’t add cereal or other food to a baby's bottle because it can lead to too much weight gain. Let your baby practice eating from a spoon and learn to stop when full.
When your baby gets the hang of eating the first food, introduce others, such as puréed meat, fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, or yogurt. Try one food at a time and wait a few days before trying something else new to make sure your baby doesn't have an allergic reaction.
Foods that are more likely to cause allergies can be among the foods you introduce to your baby. These include peanuts, eggs, cow’s milk, seafood, nuts, wheat, and soy.
Waiting to start these foods does not prevent food allergies. Talk to your doctor if you are concerned about food allergies, especially if any close family members have allergies, food allergies, or allergy-related conditions, like eczema or asthma.
Infants with severe eczema or egg allergies are more likely to have allergies to peanuts. Talk to your doctor about how and when to introduce these foods to your child.
When starting your baby on solids, avoid:
- foods with added sugars and no-calorie sweeteners
- high-sodium foods
- honey, until after the first birthday. It can cause botulism in babies.
- unpasteurized juice, milk, yogurt, or cheese
- regular cow's milk or soy drinks before 12 months instead of breast milk or formula. It’s OK to offer pasteurized yogurt and cheese.
- foods that may cause choking, such as hot dogs, raw carrots, grapes, popcorn, and nuts
Also, do not give fruit juices to infants younger than 12 months old.
Over the next few months, introduce a variety of foods from all the food groups. If your baby doesn't seem to like something, don’t give up. It can take 8 to 10 tries or more before babies learn to like new foods.
Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: February 2021
Diet for a 4-6 month old baby
Your baby is already 4 months old. He has noticeably grown up, become more active, is interested in objects that fall into his field of vision, carefully examines and reaches for them. The emotional reactions of the child have become much richer: he joyfully smiles at all the people whom he often sees more and more often, makes various sounds.
You are still breastfeeding your baby or have had to switch to mixed or formula feeding. The child is actively growing, and only with breast milk or infant formula, he can no longer always get all the necessary nutrients. And that means it's time to think about complementary foods.
The optimal time to start its introduction is between 4 and 6 months, regardless of whether the baby is receiving breast milk or formula.
This is the time when children respond best to new foods. Up to 4 months, the child is not yet ready to perceive and digest any other food. And with the late introduction of complementary foods - after 6 months, children already have significant deficiencies of individual nutrients and, first of all, micronutrients (minerals, vitamins, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, etc.). In addition, toddlers at this age often refuse new foods, they have delayed development of chewing skills for thick foods, and inadequate eating habits are formed. It is important to know that, no matter how strange it may seem at first glance, with a delayed appointment of complementary foods, allergic reactions more often occur on them.
When is it advisable to introduce complementary foods as early as 4 months, and when can you wait until 5.5 or even 6 months? To resolve this issue, be sure to consult a pediatrician.
As a rule, at an earlier age (4 - 4.5 months), complementary foods are introduced to children at risk of developing iron deficiency anemia, as well as children with insufficient weight gain and with functional digestive disorders.
The optimal time to start complementary foods for a healthy baby is between 5 and 5.5 months of age.
The World Health Organization recommends that breastfed babies should be introduced to complementary foods from 6 months of age. From the point of view of domestic pediatricians, which is based on extensive practical experience and scientific research, this is possible only in cases where the child was born on time, without malnutrition (since in these cases the mineral reserves are very small), he is healthy, grows well and develops. In addition, the mother should also be healthy, eat well and use either specialized enriched foods for pregnant and lactating women, or vitamin and mineral complexes in courses. Such restrictions are associated with the depletion of iron stores even in a completely healthy child by 5-5.5 months of age and a significant increase in the risk of anemia in the absence of complementary foods rich or fortified with iron. There are other deficits as well.
The first complementary food can be vegetable puree or porridge, fruit puree is better to give the baby later - after tasty sweet fruits, children usually eat vegetable puree and cereals worse, often refuse them altogether.
Where is the best place to start? In cases where the child has a tendency to constipation or he puts on weight too quickly, preference should be given to vegetables. With a high probability of developing anemia, unstable stools and small weight gains - from baby cereals enriched with micronutrients. And if you started introducing complementary foods with cereals, then the second product will be vegetables and vice versa.
If the first complementary food is introduced at 6 months, it must be baby porridge enriched with iron and other minerals and vitamins, the intake of which with breast milk is no longer enough.
Another important complementary food product is mashed meat. It contains iron, which is easily absorbed. And adding meat to vegetables improves the absorption of iron from them.
It is advisable to introduce meat puree to a child at the age of 6 months. Only the daily use of children's enriched porridge and meat puree can satisfy the needs of babies in iron, zinc and other micronutrients.
But it is better to introduce juices later, when the child already receives the main complementary foods - vegetables, cereals, meat and fruits. After all, complementary foods are needed so that the baby receives all the substances necessary for growth and development, and there are very few in their juices, including vitamins and minerals.
Juices should not be given between feedings, but after the child has eaten porridge or vegetables with meat puree, as well as for an afternoon snack. The habit of drinking juice between meals leads to frequent snacking in the future, a love of sweets is instilled, children have more tooth decay and an increased risk of obesity.
With the start of the introduction of complementary foods, the child is gradually transferred to a 5-time feeding regimen.
Rules for the introduction of complementary foods:
- preference should be given to baby products of industrial production, they are made from environmentally friendly raw materials, have a guaranteed composition and degree of grinding
- Complementary foods should be offered to the baby by spoon at the start of feeding, before breastfeeding (formula feeding)
- the volume of the product increases gradually, starting with ½ - 1 spoon, and in 7 - 10 days we bring it to the age norm, subsequent products within the same group (cereals from other cereals or new vegetables)
- can be entered faster, in 5 - 7 days
- start introduction with monocomponent products
- it is undesirable to give a new product in the afternoon, it is important to follow how the child reacts to it
- do not introduce new products in the event of acute illnesses, as well as before and immediately after prophylactic vaccination (should be abstained for several days)
When introducing a new type of complementary food, first try one product, gradually increasing its amount, and then gradually “dilute” this product with a new one.
For example, vegetable complementary foods can be started with a teaspoon of zucchini puree. During the week, give the baby only this product, gradually increasing its volume. After a week, add a teaspoon of mashed broccoli or cauliflower to the zucchini puree and continue to increase the total volume every day. Vegetable puree from three types of vegetables will be optimal. The portion should correspond to the age norm. Over time, you can replace the introduced vegetables with others faster.
After the introduction of one vegetable (bringing its volume to the required amount), you can proceed to the intake of porridge, and diversify the vegetable diet later.
If the child did not like the dish, for example, broccoli, do not give up and continue to offer this vegetable in a small amount - 1-2 spoons daily, you can not even once, but 2-3 times before meals, and after 7 - 10, and sometimes 15 days, the baby will get used to the new taste. This diversifies the diet, will help to form the right taste habits in the baby.
Spoon-feeding should be done with patience and care. Forced feeding is unacceptable!
In the diet of healthy children, porridge is usually introduced after vegetables (with the exception of healthy breastfed children, when complementary foods are introduced from 6 months). It is better to start with dairy-free gluten-free cereals - buckwheat, corn, rice. At the same time, it is important to use porridge for baby food of industrial production, which contains a complex of vitamins and minerals. In addition, it is already ready for use, you just need to dilute it with breast milk or the mixture that the baby receives.
Children suffering from food allergies are introduced complementary foods at 5-5.5 months. The rules for the introduction of products are the same as for healthy children, in all cases it is introduced slowly and begins with hypoallergenic products. Be sure to take into account individual tolerance. The difference is only in the correction of the diet, taking into account the identified allergens.
From meat products, preference should first be given to mashed turkey and rabbit.
Diets for different age periods
Explain how you can make a diet, it is better to use a few examples that will help you navigate in compiling a menu specifically for your child.
From 5 months, the volume of one feeding is on average 200 ml.
Option 1.
If your baby started receiving complementary foods from 4-5 months, then at 6 months his diet should look like this:
| I feeding 6 hours | Breast milk or VHI* | 200 ml |
| II feeding 10 hours | Dairy-free porridge** Supplementation with breast milk or VHI* | 150 g 50 ml |
| III feeding 14 hours | Vegetable puree Meat puree Vegetable oil Supplemental breast milk or VHI* | 150 g 5 - 30 g 1 tsp 30 ml |
| IV feeding 18 hours | Fruit puree Breast milk or VHI* | 60 g 140 ml |
| V feeding 22 hours | Breast milk or VHI* | 200 ml |
* - infant formula
** - diluted with breast milk or VHI
Option 2.
* - infant formula Option 3. : ** - diluted with breast milk Up to 7 months, increase the volume of porridge and vegetable puree to 150 g and introduce fruit puree. The materials were prepared by the staff of the Healthy and Sick Child Nutrition Laboratory of the National Research Center for Children's Health of the Ministry of Health of Russia and are based on the recommendations given in the National Program for Optimizing the Feeding of Children in the First Year of Life in the Russian Federation, approved at the XV Congress of Pediatricians of Russia (02.2009d.) Parents often come across complementary food tables and schemes that indicate the approximate portion at each age stage, and when which product should be introduced into the child's diet. The dream of any mother is a unified policy for the introduction of complementary foods, so that the industrial production of baby food agrees with pediatricians and mothers on the age of introduction of the product into complementary foods. Some brand labels can be confusing when to use prepared foods, as well as how to combine canned food with home cooking. The popular Gerber brand has registered trademarks labeled "1st Foods", "2nd Foods" and "3rd Foods". Other brands simply use "1", "2" or "3" or indicate the child's age in months, and some use it to indicate the stage at which a child is ready for a certain type of food consistency. Table of Contents: The World Health Organization, in its brochure Infant and Young Child Feeding, divides childhood into several stages. These main stages are calculated up to the year of the child, they imply a smooth transition of the baby "from mother's milk to food from the family table." The most popular brands of baby food use the main stages of the transition of the child's diet in the labeling of canned food. There are four stages in total, starting at 4 months and ending at 12 months. These steps are not standardized. You can read more about the age stages of baby food in the following articles: Food can label Start of complementary foods at (4) 6 to 7 months of age, includes foods from one-ingredient, smooth, light texture without a single lump, with a low level of allergy, without salt, sugar and seasonings, for example, rice porridge or zucchini puree. Here are some examples of popular brands: When children are 7 to 8 months old, they are given one-component and two-component products, simply pureed, of medium thickness, sometimes products that seem to rubbed, i.e. food appears in pieces that are easy to swallow, but do not choke. Products are given with a low level of allergy, but slowly they begin to introduce the child to the average. Second step product examples: Between 8 and 12 months of age, babies are fed a thicker texture with easy-to-chew and easy-to-swallow meals. Examples of products from the third stage: 3-stage jar food is very easy to find in the store. Around this period, according to manufacturers of baby food, the child's appetite increases, respectively, and the portion he consumes, so we focus on jars of 200-250 grams per serving. But usually a child is not able to eat that much at the age of 9-10 months, even if this portion is written in all textbooks on baby food. But what about throwing away the leftovers? Calm down, around this period, many mothers begin to cook for 2 times (the dish is stored in the refrigerator for about 24-36 hours), the child's body is already strong enough and adapted to complementary foods that pathogenic microbes in the finished dish are not dangerous to him. Approximately one year old, the consistency of baby food is close to that of an adult table. If by 10 months the dish is thick with pieces of food, then closer to 12 months the baby eats small pieces of food, by 1.5 years it completely eats adult dishes, only occasionally large pieces that are difficult to chew, for example, meat, are crushed by adults. By the age of 2, the child eats completely from the common table without the help of strangers. At this point, you can continue to feed the baby with canned food or completely transfer the baby to an adult table. Parents who initially fed the baby only canned food, by about 2 years old, are transferred to homemade food, i.e. up to 2 years they do not refuse jars, simply because they are used to it and it is convenient, safe, etc. Examples of products of the fourth stage: 0003 However, it should be noted that after a year, all age restrictions indicated on canned food most likely carry information on products allowed for a given age, and not food consistency. We also take into account that the portion for a 3-year-old child is much larger than for a one-year-old baby. For example, Frutonyan has milk porridges of 200 ml from 6 months, and 500 ml from 3 years old, the porridge can be identical in composition, the difference is only in the portion. Please note that the age recommendations for each stage are only general recommendations. The age of introduction of complementary foods for each child is individual, so one will be ready at 5-6 months, and the other closer to 7 months. We look at signs of readiness for complementary foods, consult a pediatrician. Moreover, the transition to a new consistency also occurs individually, as the baby is 7-8 months old, it is impossible to abruptly transfer the baby to thicker food or add hard pieces, there may be consequences in the form of vomiting or suffocation. It is important that the child gradually learns to chew food, with gradual complication, for effective skill acquisition. Don't forget our pediatricians, who can help a mother determine if a baby needs extra time to learn chewing skills or if it's time to move on to the next stage. Consistency of food up to a year. Click on me!!! And a little about baby food manufacturers. The main thing is that parents understand and know the rules and terms for the introduction of complementary foods, as well as listen to their intuition, which does not deceive. The appearance and abilities of the baby will tell parents more about the readiness for complementary foods than the age marking on canned food. It's a strange name for a subtitle, but it's difficult to name what's going on in the industrial production of baby food in any other way. Each brand has its own recommendations for the introduction of complementary foods, based on their data, they label jars. Therefore, the first 2 stages parents either listen to a pediatrician, or look at a diagram from the Internet, or follow a complementary food table, which is listed on the website of their favorite canned food manufacturer. Although here, too, manufacturers can spoil the situation, so I met thickeners in the form of oatmeal in one-component baby purees (to which an allergy is possible at the beginning of complementary foods). Think for a moment, a one-component puree should contain 1 product and water, the only additional ingredient, but no, they can put any thickener, and it’s good if it’s rice or oat flour, but if the thickener is a preservative? Therefore ALWAYS read the composition of baby food before you buy it. The first 2 stages seem to be not difficult, but as soon as the child approaches the 3rd stage or lumpy food, then it's just a disaster. Consider the situation on the example of milk. Now pediatricians, scientists and most parents agree that it is better to introduce dairy products into complementary foods gradually, starting with fermented milk, and milk is given after a year. But what do manufacturers of baby food offer us, milk porridge from 6 months old, or goat milk porridge from 4 months old. It seems that the recommendations of doctors for brands of baby food are empty space, the main thing for them is to offer an assortment, and parents will have to take care of the children. Therefore at the beginning of complementary foods, it is important to decide on a strategy, namely, to choose at least approximately a table of complementary foods or to make a list of the introduction of products, focusing on the recommendations of a pediatrician. No one canceled the risk of an allergy to a product, and the sooner a child gets acquainted with a highly allergenic product, the stronger the reaction, read more here. If you feed the baby only canned food, focusing on age markings, that the child will eat delicate light food that will not teach him to chew, and then at 2 years old the question arises: Why does the child vomit on adult food? And the answer is simple, his body simply does not know how to chew, swallow and digest ordinary adult food. Therefore, as always0061 I speak and will speak and write, I feeding
6 hours Breast milk or VHI* 200 ml II feeding
10 hours Dairy-free porridge**
Fruit puree 150 g
20 g III feeding
14 hours Vegetable puree
Meat puree Vegetable oil
Fruit juice 150 g
5 - 30 g
1 tsp
60 ml IV feeding
18 hours Fruit puree
Breast milk or VHI* 40 g
140 ml V feeding
22 hours Breast milk or VHI* 200 ml
** - diluted with breast milk or VMS 
I feeding
6 hours Breast milk II feeding
10 hours Dairy-free porridge**
Breast milk supplement 100 g III feeding
14 hours Vegetable puree
Meat puree Vegetable oil
Breast milk supplement 100 g
5 - 30 g
1 tsp IV feeding
18 hours Breast milk V feeding
22 hours Breast milk 
Canned nutrition - Understanding the age
Levchuk Victoria © 
WHO Child Nutrition Stages
Stage 1: Age at (4) 6 to 7 months
Stage 2: Age 7 to 8 months
Stage 3: Age from 8 to 10 months
There are more three-component purees. Foods with small pieces help stimulate baby's chewing. Sugar, salt and spices are still missing from baby food.
We just follow the rules of cleanliness, namely, we took a clean spoon, put a small portion from the jar into a separate plate, put the jar in the refrigerator with the rest of the food, and warmed up the postponed dish, fed the baby. Stage 4: 10 to 12 months
Canned food age recommendations
They indicate early dates for the introduction of complementary foods, this is a common marketing ploy to sell more, or they simply do not want to revise the layout of their labels, taking into account the recommendations of Russian pediatricians or the World Health Organization. Although recently, there is less and less canned food on sale, recommended from 3 months. Chaos in canned food
Moreover, it is very difficult to understand their logic. The first two steps are easy for many parents because in general one or two ingredient purees are easier to navigate than multi-ingredient purees. 
Either some manufacturers do not produce food with pieces, then they do, but the composition is complex, there are many ingredients, more than half of the child was not introduced into complementary foods. Parents have to switch from one brand to another or choose 2-3 brands that inspire confidence. 
You can not blindly buy canned food, looking at the age on the label.
Canned nutrition is convenient, simple and easy, but should be in moderation. Up to a year, diversity, diversity, the first 2-3 months is a quiet pace, which grows and grows by the year. We offer the child different food, canned and homemade, but at stage 3 we try to give more homemade food, because it is always different, well, it is not possible to make mashed potatoes always the same, especially if you use only a fork, this is what the baby needs, different textures, different components, as in the game - different levels, for complication.
