With the first stages of weaning under your belt and your baby relishing pureed fruit, mashed veggies and more, it’s time to move on to family meals…
From six months, babies need more than milk alone and are physically ready to start eating solids. Once weaning is underway and your baby is accepting new foods and combinations of flavours, you can gradually introduce him to family meals.
It's safe for your baby to eat most of what you eat, which is great news for you – just one round of cooking! You’ll only need to make a few changes for his benefit.
Take care with:
Salt – too much salt can overload your baby's kidneys so don't add salt to your baby's food.
Sugar – we all know it leads to tooth decay and too much can encourage a sweet tooth. Use natural sweeteners instead, like fruit.
Honey – avoid giving your baby honey in his first year, as it can sometimes contain a bacteria which can cause infant botulism.
Eggs – make sure they’re well cooked.
Nuts – at a year old, your baby should still avoid whole nuts (babies can easily choke on them). Nuts can also cause allergic reactions.
Your baby needs breakfast, a main meal around lunchtime, and then another in the afternoon. He’ll also need a couple of small snacks in between meals for energy. His mealtimes might differ from yours, but try to join in, even with just a snack, so it feels like a family meal.
Cooks tips:
- Stick to full-fat dairy foods, instead of the low-fat or fat-reduced kinds. Babies benefit from the fat-soluble vitamins present in whole yoghurt, full-fat cheeses and other products
- Don't be frightened of lumps! By six months most babies can have non-smooth foods. Sometimes, babies who've only ever had purees get fussy about lumps in their food
- When he shows an interest, let him feed himself and include finger foods to encourage him.
Eating should be a fun, sociable activity, so keep mealtimes relaxed. Remember your baby has his own likes and dislikes, and babies often differ about how much they want to eat. If he doesn’t take to something, don’t make a fuss. Offer him something else and try another day.
Meal planner
The more foods you introduce your baby to at an early age, the less fussy he’s likely to be when he’s older. He needs a balanced and varied diet which includes fruit and vegetables, carbohydrates and protein rich foods. By 12 months, aim for:
- Three to four portions of fruit and veg a day
- Three to four portions of carbohydrates a day
- Two servings of milk and dairy products and two servings of protein a day
- Small amounts of fats and sugars
The size of a portion or serving depends on his appetite, but as a rule of thumb it’s about a tablespoon.
Here are some yummy meals to tempt your baby’s - and your family’s - taste buds…
Brilliant breakfasts – porridge (with or without fruit), Weetabix and mashed banana, scrambled egg, toast, fruit compote, yoghurt and fromage frais.
Lunch and dinner ideas – mini sandwiches, simple chicken casserole, fish with veg and rice, mild chilli con carne, pasta with tomato and vegetable sauce, mild meat or vegetable curry, cottage pie, mini pizzas, macaroni or cauliflower cheese.
Something for desert – fruit: either raw, dried, mashed or made into a crumble, yoghurt, fromage frais, jelly, rice pudding, custard.
Snack attack – pieces of fruit (a mini box of raisins are a great standby), cubes of cheese, slices of bread or bread sticks.
Thirst quenching
As well as his daily milk (either breastmilk or formula), you can start to include other drinks. It’s best to stick to water or very dilute fruit juice (not squash or cordial).
Follow-on formula is higher in iron than ordinary pasteurised milk, but it is no better than ordinary formula. Breast milk is the best of all, so if he’s happy on the milk he has now, there’s no need to change for the time being.
After a year, you can switch your baby to cow’s milk if you want to. Make sure it’s full-fat, whole-pasteurised milk and stick to this until the age of two and a half. You can then move on to semi-skimmed milk if he’s having a good range and quantity of other foods. At five, skimmed milk is fine.
At the age of five months and upward, babies can start learning to use a spouted cup.
