Solid Foods
Why introduce solids? For the first year, experience with solids foods is about skill development much more than it is about nutrition. When little babies first start tasting and then eating solid foods, they are working on oral motor skills and tolerance for a variety of flavors and textures.
When to introduce solids? Our short answer is: Introduce solids when your baby is ready for them!
Eating food requires a set of developmental skills, and just like rolling over or smiling, there is a range of ages when babies become ready for this milestone. That’s why we recommend taking a developmental approach, rather than an age-based approach, to decide when to introduce solid foods, including purees.
Signs of being ready for eating solids (including spoon feeding) are:
Baby can stay sitting up with little support
Baby has good head control and neck strength
Baby shows a strong interest in food
Baby can reach out, grab, and bring something to his mouth
When you touch your baby’s lips, he opens his mouth, and his tongue stays back and flat instead of coming forward to suck (he is losing the rooting reflex).
What foods to introduce? Research suggests there is a developmental window during which babies will accept a wide variety of flavors. This window actually starts when babies are in utero! That’s why we recommend introducing little tastes as early as 3 or 4 months. There is also research suggesting a developmental window for texture tolerance, which seems to be around 4 to 9 months of age.
You can buy baby foods or offer the food you are already eating yourself, adapting the texture as needed to match your baby’s developmental ability. We encourage feeding your baby at the table with the rest of the family and letting him explore foods from your plate!
If you offer rice cereal, make sure you rotate it with other foods to avoid unsafe levels of arsenic.
Additionally, exclusively breastfed infants need daily food sources of iron after about 6 months, so be sure to include your favorite iron-rich foods among those you offer your baby.
In short….variety is key!
What about food allergies?
You may have heard that you should introduce certain foods before others, or wait a few days before introducing a new food. These suggestions are not aligned with current recommendations or research.
If your baby is at low risk of developing food allergies, there are no foods you need to avoid except for honey.
Current guidelines from the American Academic of Pediatrics call for early introduction of peanuts to help reduce risk and severity of nut allergies. If you have a family history of food allergies, talk to your provider about how and when to introduce potentially allergenic foods.
What about choking?
Many parents worry about their babies choking. If you are able to mash or break up a food on the roof of your mouth with your tongue, it is not considered a choking hazard. You will almost certainly notice your baby gagging as she explores solid foods. Gagging is a normal part of the learning process and is actually the body protecting the airway from choking.
Where to get more information?
The Centers for Disease Control page on Infant and Toddler Nutrition is a great starting point.
The Ellyn Satter Institute has excellent resources for parents on feeding children of all ages.
Healthychildren.org is another source of reliable information.
Check out this handout from IABLE.
We would love to have you attend one of our infant nutrition classes for in-person, interactive learning about introducing tasting, solids, and cup drinking. Contact us to register!
DISCLAIMER: We know when you surf the web for information, you can get conflicting results, and it’s not easy to know whether you are finding evidence-based, high quality recommendations. That’s part of our job here at Kodiak KINDNESS; we are here to support your informed decisions about infant feeding through your baby’s first year. We’ve done some background work, and to the best of our knowledge, this post reflects current best practices. However, the information contained in this post and any links contained herein is for your informational use only; it is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Furthermore, Kodiak KINDNESS is not responsible for the accuracy of any information contained in this post or links contained herein; it is for you to review at your own risk and discuss, as needed, with your health care professional in order to make a plan that suits your individual circumstances.