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Introducing a variety of flavors, textures and colors when starting solid foods helps a growing child to be a healthier and more adventurous eater later on, including during the picky phase that typically sets in around 18-24 months of age.
Most babies are ready for solids around 6 months old. Look for these signs:
- Your baby can sit up mostly on their own.
- Your baby can hold their head up for a long time.
- Your baby is interested in mealtimes and may grab food off of your plate.
- Your baby doesn’t automatically push food out of their mouth with their tongue (young babies have a tongue-thrust reflex that fades as they get older).
How to start solids
- Start with foods that are great sources of iron and zinc for healthy brain development. These include:
- Iron- and zinc-fortified infant cereals
- avocados
- cooked legumes such as beans, peas, lentils
Introduce a variety of solid foods to avoid picky eating later on:
- Just one new food at a time.
- Make sure the food is soft and small enough that your baby will not choke.
- Wait at least one to three days before introducing new foods so that you can tell if a baby has an allergic-type reaction such as a rash, vomiting or diarrhea in response to any specific food.
- Around 6 months offer allergenic foods like peanuts, eggs, wheat, and soy to help reduce food allergies. Eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, sesame, fish, and shellfish are the foods most likely to cause an allergic reaction.
- Offer fruits and vegetables at every meal, and snack time too! Avocado, bananas, sweet potatoes and squash are also excellent first foods.
It’s OK if it seems like your child does not like a certain food. Continue to offer the food to your child.
- It can take many tries (8-12 or more!) to develop a taste for a new food.
- Remember, you only need to offer a small bite or taste each time.
Choose healthy drinks
- Keep giving your baby breast milk until age 2 or as long as desired by infant and mother. Formula-fed infants should transition to whole or 2% milk at 12 months old.
- Offer water with meals. At 6 months old, you can start offering water from an open cup. This helps your baby get used to and prefer the taste of plain water while also helping to develop fine motor skills of getting the cup to her mouth.
- Do not offer juice or sweetened drinks, which can be very sugary and are unhealthy for your child's teeth.
- Avoid toddler formulas, unless otherwise directed by your child’s clinician.
- Do not put cereal in your baby’s bottle unless directed by your clinician.
Watch for hunger and fullness cues
- When starting solids, your baby is developing important eating skills including understanding and trusting their own hunger and fullness cues.
- If your baby turns their head away from food or keeps their lips shut, they are done eating. Don’t force them to eat more. It is normal for babies to only eat 1 or 2 teaspoons of food at a time when first starting solids. Over time they will begin eating more at each meal.
- As your baby begins to eat more solids, they will naturally start to decrease liquid intake from breast milk or formula.
This publication was adapted from information within American Academy of Pediatrics Patient Education Handouts and drnataliemuth.com
Reviewed by: NM M.D., AR D.O. | 12/2023