You’ve been waiting for this moment: It’s finally time for baby to eat! But what and how exactly do you start? We’re here to help you make the right decision for you and your baby. Read on for some simple feeding solids guidance.
What's the point?
They say, “Food before one is just for fun.” Until babies are 1-2 months, their sole source of nutrition comes from breastmilk, formula, or a combo. The objective of your infant making it into a 6-month-old’s mouth does not constitute meaningful calories and nutrition. But all that mess, stress, and effort isn’t for nothing — the purpose of “feeding solids” is to introduce babies to texture, improve hand-eye coordination, and mature the gag reflex.
First Food Options
The most popular feeding styles are purees and baby-led weaning. You can go with one or the other (or a combo) — it’s totally a personal preference. Many start with purees for a few weeks and then slowly add in finger foods. At first, most of the food will end up, well, everywhere (the floor, baby’s face, high chair tray), but your baby builds their self- feeding skills as much as they build the time they’re at a seated table. Whichever method you choose, your baby will learn to eat. It’s really about what method best fits your parenting style.
Purees
Purees are exactly what they sound like—fully cooked and blended food that you typically serve with a spoon or a pouch. There’s minimal risk of choking, which makes this the method of choice for more nervous parents. If you decide to make your own purees, the Béaba Babycook steams and blends in the same vessel (fewer dishes to clean), or for a more economical solution, the small Magic Bullet blender purees well (just not ideal to boil/steam on the stove first). Also, bookmark Baby Foode, which is full of recipes based on age and stage.
Baby-Led Weaning
Baby-Led Weaning is a popular new-ish method that skips purees and goes straight to finger foods. It does entail assisting baby’s grasp reflex to keep her from choking, which can be a bit anxiety-inducing for parents. If you go this route, we recommend this book for guidance and this cookbook for recipes. The idea is to serve 6-month-old babies at mealtime with the rest of the family, just cook theirs longer so it’s softer. Let them “feed” (i.e. pick, grab, and chew!) themselves. By letting them learn to bite, chew, and stop eating when they feel like it, you’re establishing healthy eating habits from the get-go.
Pre-Made
Making your own baby food is time-consuming and not for everyone, and there are some great store-bought brands out there you can feel really good about. Plus, most of these brands offer both purees and finger foods, so it works for whatever feeding style you do choose.
White Leaf Provisions is the only Demeter-certified, biodynamic pre-made puree. What does that mean exactly? Good stuff. No chemical fertilizers are used, just compost and natural herbal sprays; no GMO’s or growth hormones; and all organic ingredients grown on the family farm.
Little Spoon’s nutrient-dense, organic blends are designed to help baby meet developmental milestones and are rigorously tested for harmful heavy metals found in most grocery store baby foods (so you don’t have to think about that). Use code NARABABY50 for 50% off for first-time customers.
Tiny Organics organic, plant-based meals contain no added sugar or salt, and 70% of their options lean more towards savory than sweet (i.e. veggie flavors aren’t masked with fruit). Plus, they’re all free of the Big-8 allergens. But our favorite thing is the range of global flavors (paella, ratatouille, curry), which sets littles up to be adventurous eaters for life.
Food Allergies
There’s growing evidence that introducing allergens to babies at an early age may help prevent allergies from developing. Advice has changed dramatically in the past decade because many global research studies have found it is both safe to introduce common allergens in infancy and effective to help protect against sensitization. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends you work to introduce foods that commonly cause allergies in infancy. The most common allergens are called “The Big 8”: cow’s milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanut, tree nuts, soybeans, and wheat but sesame is now #9 as a fast-growing allergy in the US so include that on the shopping list, too!
The best way to introduce foods that commonly cause allergies is to be intentional about it: start with whatever first food you’d like (you get to decide!) but also include common allergens when you start complementary feedings at 4-6 months of age. Babies benefit from diet diversity, even as young as 6 months of age, so the more food groups you feed routinely into your baby’s diet, the better. Many families will introduce one common allergen at a time in the beginning, while some intro more than one. Whichever route you choose, the goal is to not wait — pediatricians and pediatric allergists urge families to work to introduce common allergens in infancy and keep them in the diet so that babies can grow up and develop in the presence of all of those foods. One way to do so is to introduce a new food every day for 100 days to get all the food groups in. If you have any concerns about food allergies or specific risk factors like severe eczema, talk with your pediatrician and/or read up on what constitutes (and what to do) if your baby does have a mild, moderate, or severe reaction.
Gagging vs. Choking
Hearing your baby gag is a little scary – but totally natural and safe! When they first start to eat, babies are figuring out how much food they can swallow at once and often gag (thrust their tongue out, retch, cough, even vomit) in an effort to move food forward when they’ve tried to swallow too much. This is normal. Choking, on the other hand, is when an airway is blocked. When that happens, babies often can’t cough or gasp, and may be silent with their mouth open. We recommend taking a CPR class before starting solids – it’ll make you feel more in control.
And just remember, you’ve got this.
