When can a baby begin eating cereal and finger foods

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

Baby food you can eat with your hands - Encyclopedia Baby food

Finger food

Levchuk Victoria ©

It is worth trying healthy baby food recipes to stimulate your child's interest in food. Children's food, which is eaten with their hands, should not exceed the size of a small box of porridge. It is also necessary to take into account that the child needs to be offered products that are age-appropriate and soft like mashed potatoes.

Hand food for children can be any food that the baby likes and is age appropriate.

A child does not need teeth to chew. Babies use their gums to soften food until their molars appear between 12-18 months of age.

TIP: Puree food or cut into small pieces to make it easier for your child to chew.

Table of Contents:

Fruit Ideas You Can Eat With Your Hands

Fruits are colorful and highly nutritious, small soft pieces of fruit can be eaten with your hands. Fruit is an excellent food for a child, which is eaten with the hands, just be sure to remove the seeds and bones.

Soft baked peaches - cubes
Banans
Small pieces of ripe apple
ripe pears
Small plum cubes
Little pieces of apricot
Small Blacks
. it was possible to eat with fingers (we mix no more than three types of fruit)

In order for fruits to show themselves in a new way, sometimes it is enough to sprinkle them lightly with spices or wheat germ.

Vegetable ideas that you can eat with your hands

Vegetables are like fruits, you can eat them with your hands; make sure the vegetables are soft, cooked, seeded and peeled as needed:

soft cubes of baked sweet potatoes
soft cubes of baked white potatoes
small cubes of soft boiled carrots
small cubes of soft peas
cubes of soft boiled broccoli
small pieces of soft boiled green beans
small pieces of soft baked pumpkin or zucchini
large cubes of soft boiled vegetables mixed as a vegetable salad (no more than three types of vegetables)

You can try frying some of the vegetables - they make delicious snacks! Do not forget about herbs and spices to improve the taste.

Other finger food ideas

More snack foods - snacks aren't always fruits and vegetables. You can try some of the ideas below:

tofu cubes with oatmeal or wheat germ
boiled pasta (coils or butterflies)
small pieces of cheddar or gouda cheese, etc.
small cubes of boiled chicken, fish, beef or turkey, cottonseed 4 cereals, multi-cereals, etc.
small toasts with fruit, pure or with thin cream cheese
omelet

-7 days of waiting after using a new product, in order to avoid an allergic reaction from the baby. If necessary, you can consult with the child's pediatrician.

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Keshishyan Elena Solomonovna

1819 views

December 24, 2021

Whatever happens to a child at the age of 1-2 years of their life, these are steps in the growth of their skills, knowledge of the world and, as a result, in their development. Cognition occurs through the development of all the senses, but nevertheless, in the first months of life, the most important are tactile sensations - the child pulls everything into his mouth and feels with his hands, calms down from touch.

Food as a tactile sensation

The main tactile sensation is food - first, the feeling of the skin of the mother's breast (or bottle) when sucking, during which there is an extraordinary pleasure from the sensation of warm milk, and then the blissful state of satiety. Even if then pain occurs when digesting food (flatulence, spasms), in the mind of the baby they are not associated with bright positive emotions from feeding.

The development of taste sensations is a gradual process, and we are well aware of situations when a baby who is breastfed perceives any type of complementary foods very poorly - he does not like them, since taste buds "know" only milk and give a negative taste response to other types of food .

That is why it is advisable for the baby to offer already from 4-5 months, before the introduction of complementary foods, trial introductions of products through a nibbler and similar devices.

"Introduction" to food

But now the child is already receiving complementary foods, sitting at the table, and the mother feeds him from a spoon - a perfectly correct picture. The child's hands are not busy, and they require constant tactile familiarity with everything around. And the food offered to him is of the greatest interest. In his mind, “one link is missing” - here he gets delicious food - he feels it, it is associated with certain dishes and a spoon, with the sounds of the voice of a loved one who gives this food. But… what is she like? And the child reaches for a plate or a jar with his hands, wants to take a spoon, kneads the food in his hands. From the outside and from the point of view of an adult, it is very ugly, dirty, not aesthetically pleasing, and not hygienic. From the point of view of the child, this is the knowledge and associative connection of the product, its taste, smell, appearance and sensation. The sooner the child masters all these connections, the sooner he will lose interest in “getting dirty and being washed hands and faces by adults”.

Why is it important to touch food

Understanding this, as well as the fact that the process of eating is one of the main in the formation of various developmental skills, parents should not only allow the child to feel the food, but also offer during the snack, or even the main meal, products that can be eaten with hands - pieces of fruit, vegetables, cookies, not to deprive the right to suck on a chicken leg, and so on, bringing more variety to these options as the child grows older.

What does it give the baby: