Babies first real 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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15 Real Food Ideas for Baby's First Solids

Updated: March 23, 2021 | 8 Comments | This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for our full disclosure.

Even the most mainstream nutritional advice today says to minimize or avoid refined white carbs, like white flour, white pasta, and white rice.

So then WHY on earth do they recommend a refined, powdery, white rice cereal for baby’s first food? It’s positively baffling. Rice cereal has practically no nutrition, and 6-month-old babies don’t even have the required enzyme (amylase) for grain digestion. It’s just not a good choice, friends.

There are many better choices for nourishing (not to mention delicious!) first foods for baby to enjoy. We went the rice cereal route with our firstborn, but once we learned more about real food (including real food for babies!) we did things drastically different with our second and third kids.

We ditched the rice cereal and started offering real foods via baby-led weaning when they started showing an interest and could sit up on their own.

When we couldn’t do homemade food (like when out of the house) we would often use pouches of fruit and veggie purees like these ones from Plum Organics® – certified organic, non-GMO, minimally processed whole ingredients. I would hold off on the blends that have grains until after a year old, but the veggie-fruit combos are great for starting out.

Here’s a list of fifteen of the first foods that we offered in the transition to solid foods. Keep in mind that this was a gradual and slow transition that took months (my babies didn’t really eat a lot of solids until after their first year).

15 Real-Food Ideas for Baby’s First Solids

1. Avocado (high in healthy fats – perfect for baby’s developing brain!)

2. Steamed carrots with butter and sea salt

3. Soft-cooked egg yolk with a pinch of sea salt (I usually scrambled it)

4. Applesauce

5. Plain yogurt

6. Banana

7. Homemade muffins (grain-free for the first year)

8. Organic, non-GMO puree pouches (great for on the go)

9. Large chunks of soft meat

10. Homemade broth (this can be mixed in with other foods for a nutrition boost!)

11. Sweet potatoes, steamed and cut in chunks, or mashed with butter and salt/pepper.

12. Herbs and spices. Okay, technically not a food in and of themselves, but they deserve a spot on the list! Babies don’t need to eat boring and bland food – jazz it up with herbs and spices!

13. Berries (awesome finger foods)

14. Winter squash, steamed with butter and sea salt (mashed or in chunks as finger food)

15. A wee bit of homemade sauerkraut juice – an amazing and natural source of probiotics. Just a dribble of the juice to start out.

Introducing solids to a real food baby doesn’t have to be a bland, boring, or highly-processed experience! Give your babies whole, real foods to help them develop great lifelong eating habits.

What was/is your baby’s favourite first food?

Disclosure: this was post was sponsored by Plum Organics, but the content and opinions are all mine! I only partner with companies that fit the mission of Red+Honey.

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Scheme of introducing complementary foods according to the new rules: what has changed - Parents.ru

About nutrition

When the baby is five or six months old, it's time to introduce him to "adult" food. And then the difficulties begin: the pediatrician says one thing, the grandmothers say another (they also say, they say, they raised you, and everything is in order).

Until now, Russia has followed the recommendations of the World Health Organization. And last year, a document was adopted that regulates in detail all issues related to the introduction of complementary foods - this is a new version of the "National Program for Optimizing Feeding Children in the First Year of Life in the Russian Federation. " She has made major changes to the scheme we are accustomed to.

Four major innovations

- Starting complementary foods, regardless of the type of food, is recommended from 5 months, and if there are problems with weight, even earlier.

- The introduction of meat is recommended at 6 months.

- Fruit puree is recommended in case of constipation at any time. In the absence of constipation, fruit puree is introduced after meat.

- Portion size of mashed potatoes and cereals for a child of 5-7 months - 150 gr.

In addition, there are a few more important details - we will analyze them.

At what age to start complementary foods

Over the past decades, the rules for introducing complementary foods have changed dramatically. It is not necessary to give a baby apple juice at three months, and borscht at six months. Offering a chicken bone to scratch her gums is also not worth it.

Recall that, according to the WHO recommendation, complementary feeding of breastfed children should be started at six months. Until this moment, it is not necessary to supplement the child even with ordinary water. With artificial feeding, complementary foods are usually started a month earlier. According to an individual schedule, regular food will be introduced to babies who do not grow well on their mother's milk, do not gain weight, or they have some kind of allergy.

At the same time, domestic scientists, based on the opinion of ESPGHAN (European Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition), believe that exclusive breastfeeding does not always provide a sufficient level of micronutrients, especially iron, in the baby's body.

Therefore, in their opinion, the first complementary foods should be started at five months, and already at six months meat should be added to the diet as a source of this very iron.

There are additional recommendations. For example, the UK National Health Service highlights four things that indicate that a baby is ready for food other than formula and breast milk.

- He is already sitting and holding his head well.

- He can swallow food - the spoon ejection reflex has faded.

- His movements are coordinated: he can take a spoon and put it in his mouth.

- First teeth erupted.

What foods to introduce complementary foods with

The classical scheme, relatively speaking, consists of three steps: vegetables-porridge-meat.

As a rule, the first vegetables of the child are white and green vegetables: zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli. Porridge is preferably buckwheat, corn or rice. Of course, on the water. Meat - turkey, beef, rabbit. The first baby fruits will be banana, apple, peach and pear.

Please note that if the child is not gaining weight well, then most likely the pediatrician will swap the first two steps, and complementary foods will start with cereals. He will tell you when it is really better to give the child meat. Any general rules can only be adjusted by a doctor who has been observing him since birth.

Cook your own or buy store-bought jars, it's up to you. Each of the options has its pros and cons. We only note that both the WHO and our doctors prefer industrial products.

“Modern industrial complementary foods are enriched with biologically active components, such as vitamins, minerals, pre- and probiotics, LCPUFA (omega 3), etc., which gives them functional properties,” the National Program says.

At 7 months, the new rules allow the addition of yolk, at 8 - fish puree, as well as cottage cheese and sour-milk drinks.

The attitude towards whole cow's milk has not changed - it is still not allowed to be used for baby food. And now, domestic experts have expressed an opinion about complementary foods with vegetarianism. In their opinion, "children on a vegan diet are at high risk for developing deficient conditions and require increased attention." And if parents are not going to give up their beliefs, then children need to be additionally given the necessary vitamins and minerals, especially B12.

9 complementary feeding rules

- One week, one new product. This is important for the adaptation of the body and in order to track signs of allergies if they appear. If you see that everything is in order, then after about a month and a half, new products can be introduced every three days.

- The first sample is literally three grams. It's less than half a teaspoon. And, of course, breastfeed or formula feed.

- It is desirable that complementary foods be in the afternoon feeding.

- The first real food should be liquid. Vegetable puree can first be slightly diluted with water or breast milk. 7-8 months is the time to introduce the baby to partially solid foods, and from 8-9 you can offer to chew small soft pieces, such as boiled carrots or potatoes. Ideally, by the age of one, the child can already safely eat solid food from the common table.

- Every day we slightly increase the portion. When we bring it to the desired volume (150 grams), we no longer give the breast or mixture in this feeding. At this point, you can add half a teaspoon of vegetable oil to the puree.

- When introducing new products, we always offer them first. Then we feed the already familiar ones.

- With the introduction of complementary foods, you can start offering water to your baby. And even immediately from the cup, bypassing the stage of the drinker. Juices during this period, doctors do not recommend categorically. Firstly, they have little nutritional value, and secondly, if you drink juice between meals, this increases the risk of developing caries. They can also cause weight gain if consumed in excess.

- If the child refuses complementary foods on principle, do not insist. This is common, sometimes it takes 10-15 attempts to "accept" a new product. Offer the product again after a couple of days.

- Do not introduce new foods when the baby is sick or recovering, during the period when an allergy is manifested, in preparation for or after vaccination. And how to improve digestion in case of dysbacteriosis, read the link.

In what order to introduce foods into the diet

(for a breastfed child without any allergic manifestations)

4-5 months (vegetables for lunch, porridge for breakfast)

1 week - zucchini

2nd week - cauliflower

3rd week - broccoli

4th week - a mixture of three already familiar vegetables + vegetable oil + teaspoon of butter

8 weeks - pumpkin, fruit puree - apple, pear, prunes

6 months (new product can be introduced every three days)

Meat - rabbit, turkey, veal in the form of puree

Baby biscuits

This was the base. Now the baby has a full breakfast and lunch, and you can introduce other foods in approximately that order, gradually replacing evening feeding with dinner.

7 months

egg yolk

8-9 months

cottage cheese, kefir, potatoes, carrots, beets, white bread, fish puree (2 times a week instead of meat), juice 901 20203

berry puree

Other approach

In the UK, by the way, there is a completely different attitude towards the first complementary foods. While we diligently grind vegetables and fruits into a liquid gruel, they prefer to start right away with pieces. Yes, yes, right at six months. And without any nibblers with nets. Of course, it should not be immediately slices of apples, carrots and other hard vegetables. But the principle itself is this: you put small pieces of food on the child’s plate and allow him to eat on his own, actually sitting at the common table. Yes, it will be long and most likely not very clean. But local pediatricians are sure: in this way, the crumbs will immediately develop the correct eating behavior. He will be able to stop eating when he is already full, and also - this is already a matter of development - in this way he will improve fine motor skills.