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Baby handbook

Starting solids

Feeding4 min read

How to tell your baby is ready around 6 months, and how milk still does most of the work.

Starting solids is a milestone, and it is also a side dish. From about 6 months to the first birthday, breast milk or formula is still the main source of calories and nutrients. Food is for iron, for learning texture, and for joining the table. Rushing that, or delaying it long past 6 months, both miss the window pediatric groups describe.

Signs your baby is ready

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC point to the same cluster of skills, usually arriving together around 6 months:

  • Sits with little or no support, and holds the head steady
  • Has lost the tongue-thrust reflex that pushes food straight back out
  • Shows interest, leaning toward food and opening the mouth
  • Can bring hands and toys to the mouth on purpose

Age alone is not the signal, and neither is waking at night. Waking is not proof that a baby needs cereal. If your baby is 4 months and not sitting, wait. If your baby is 6 months and meeting the signs, it is time to begin, including babies who are nursing well. Waiting many months past readiness makes iron harder to come by, because stores from birth start to run low in the second half of the first year.

What the first meals look like

Offer solids when your baby is happy and not starving. A milk feed first, then a small taste, works for a lot of families. Once a day is plenty at the start. Move toward two or three meals as interest grows, still with milk feeds around them.

Texture can be a smooth mash or soft finger foods. Both approaches can be safe if the food is soft enough to squash between your fingers and your baby is sitting upright. You do not have to pick a camp. Many families mash some foods and offer a strip of soft avocado or a spoon of yogurt the same week.

A first menu that covers iron:

  • Mashed meat, beans, or lentils
  • Iron-fortified infant cereal mixed with breast milk, formula, or water
  • Soft vegetables and fruit: avocado, sweet potato, banana, cooked apple
  • Full-fat plain yogurt or very soft scrambled egg, if you are also introducing allergens

Rice cereal is optional. It is not more advanced than a vegetable. Variety matters more than a sequence of orange, then green, then grain.

A sample day around 7 to 8 months

This is one pattern, not a prescription. Milk feeds still bookend the day.

Time What is on offer
Wake Milk feed
Mid-morning Milk, then a few spoons of iron-rich food
Midday Milk, nap
Afternoon Milk, then soft fruit or vegetable
Evening Milk, then a shared bit of the family meal if it is soft and unsalted
Bedtime Milk feed

Water can come in a small open cup or straw cup with meals, a few sips, not a bottle of water that replaces milk. Juice is not needed.

Safety at the table

Sit your baby upright in a feeding seat, and stay within arm’s reach. Talking or looking away for a minute is how choking happens. Learn the difference between gagging and choking. Gagging is noisy, with coughing and a red face, and it is how babies learn the edge of a bite. Choking is quiet, with little or no sound and a baby who cannot cry or cough. If you have not taken an infant choking and CPR class, this is a good month to do it.

Skip these until your clinician says otherwise, and some of them for years:

  • Honey, until the first birthday, because of botulism
  • Whole nuts, popcorn, whole grapes, raw carrot coins, and hot-dog rounds
  • Added salt and sugar in large amounts
  • Unpasteurized dairy and undercooked egg if you are avoiding infection risk
  • Cow’s milk as the main drink before 12 months. Yogurt and cheese are fine earlier. A bottle of cow’s milk is not a substitute for formula or breast milk.

How much is enough

At first, a meal may be two spoons, most of it on the bib. That is a success. Follow your baby’s pace. Leaning in means more. Turning away, batting the spoon, or playing with the bowl means the meal is over. Do not scrape food back into a closed mouth. Pressure at this age is how mealtimes become a fight later.

By 8 or 9 months, many babies are on three small meals and are practicing a pincer grasp with soft bits. Milk intake often stays in a familiar range. If milk drops sharply and weight falters, check in with your pediatrician. If milk stays high and food is still a taste, that is also common at 6 months. Keep offering, without turning the high chair into a performance.

Allergens belong in this chapter

Current guidance is to introduce peanut, egg, and other common allergens in infant-safe forms around the time solids start, not to wait until toddlerhood. Babies with severe eczema or a known food allergy need a plan with their clinician before peanut. The allergen guide in this library walks through that in more detail. The short version: early, ongoing, and in a form that is not a choking hazard.

Sources

This guide is general information for families, not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for your pediatrician.

This Baby handbook page is general information, not medical advice. When in doubt, call your pediatrician.