Baby Solids by Age

At around 6 months, single-ingredient foods in soft form, one new one every 3 to 5 days; at 7 to 9 months, mashed and lumpy textures and finger foods as fast as she can manage them; at 10 to 12 months, smaller portions of what the rest of you are eating. Milk runs underneath all of it for the whole year. The list of what to keep out matters more than the list of what to put in, and it is at the bottom of this page in full.

This page assumes she is already showing the readiness signs — the three that count are on their own page and are not repeated here.

Around 6 months: tastes, not meals

The first weeks are about the idea of eating rather than the amount of it. One small amount a day, at a time of day that suits you, alongside her milk rather than in place of it. Whether the spoon comes before or after the milk feed is not in anything this site has registered as a source; early on plenty of people offer it after, so that she is not trying to learn a new skill while hungry.

Offer one single-ingredient food at a time and leave 3 to 5 days before the next new one, so that anything that disagrees with her has something to point at. Texture can be purée, mash or a soft finger food she can hold — a strip of well-cooked vegetable, a piece of soft fruit. Iron and zinc belong in the diet from the start: the AAP names them specifically, and the NHS's food groups put beans, pulses, fish, eggs, tofu and meat in the same job.

Fruit and vegetables can be at every meal from around 6 months. Expect 10 tries or more before she gets used to any one new food, and expect most of the first month's servings to end up on the floor, the sleeves and you.

7 to 9 months: texture, and more of the day

The move off smooth purée is the part of this year most often left too late. The NHS's instruction is to move on from purées to mashed, lumpy or finger foods as soon as she can manage them — which is a signal from her rather than a month on a chart, and it is worth pushing on with, because learning to move a lump around the mouth is a skill and skills need practice.

Meals multiply somewhere in here. How many at which month is a figure nobody registered on this site publishes; what families describe is one meal a day settling into two and then three across this stretch, and that is unsourced, here only so the charts you have already read have something to sit against. The AAP does put a rough size on a meal: about 4 ounces at each daily meal. Treat that as a rough band rather than a portion to get into her, because appetite varies day to day.

Variety is the actual work of this stage. Starchy foods — bread, potatoes, rice, pasta — for energy, though wholegrains alone can fill a child under 2 before she has taken in the calories she needs. Protein and iron from beans, pulses, fish, eggs, tofu and meat, aiming for at least 2 portions a day from vegetable sources or 1 from animal sources, and at least 1 portion of oily fish a week.

10 to 12 months: your dinner, in smaller pieces

By the end of the year most of what she eats can come off the family plate, cut small and cooked without salt. That is the plain reason to keep the salt out of the cooking rather than off her portion: it is the same pan.

Milk is still doing heavy lifting for the whole of this year, which is why the feeding schedule for 6 to 12 months is a separate page rather than a paragraph here. What changes at the first birthday is the milk itself: pasteurised whole cows' milk can become her main drink from the age of 1, and from then the NHS's figure is at least 350ml of milk a day or 2 servings of dairy, full fat until she is 2. Before 12 months, first infant formula is the only suitable alternative to breast milk.

The list that matters: what stays out

• Salt. None added to her food or the cooking water, and no stock cubes or gravy. A baby's kidneys cannot deal with it.
• Sugar. She does not need it, and keeping sugary snacks and drinks out helps prevent tooth decay.
• Honey — not until they are over 1 year old. It occasionally contains bacteria that can produce toxins in a baby's intestines and cause infant botulism, which is a very serious illness. This one is worth saying out loud to anybody else who feeds her, because it is the rule visiting relatives most often have not heard.
• Whole nuts, under 5. Children can choke on them. Nuts are fine from the start of weaning crushed, ground, or spread thinly as a nut butter onto food rather than given from the spoon on its own.
• Mould-ripened and unpasteurised cheeses, because of listeria.
• Rice drinks, under 5, in place of milk — because of the arsenic levels.
• Small round foods, whole. Grapes get cut into quarters lengthways, and anything else that shape gets the same treatment.
• Anything hard and raw — raw carrot, whole nuts, apple in chunks. Cook it soft or grate it.

And the rule with no exceptions: stay with her whenever she is eating, sitting up, not in a car seat or a pram, not walking around with food in her mouth.

Gagging, choking, and the honest gap

Nothing this site may cite prints a test for telling one from the other, so what follows is a plain description rather than a quotation. Gagging is noisy and it is the reflex doing its job — a heave, a red face, a cough, sound. Choking is quiet, because a blocked airway cannot make a noise. If you are unsure which you are looking at, treat it as choking and get help.

The useful preparation is a paediatric first aid course, in a room, with a doll, before you need it. No web page is a substitute for one, and this one is not trying to be.

Spoon, or her own hands

The NHS describes both in the same breath: some babies take to mashed, lumpy or finger foods quickly, others need longer with smooth textures on a spoon. No publisher this site is allowed to cite ranks the two approaches or says one is safer than the other. The safety rules attach to the food rather than to the method — the same quartered grapes, the same cooked-soft carrot, the same adult sitting with her, whichever way it gets into her mouth. Most households end up doing both by accident, and nothing published suggests that is a problem.

Two more pages sit next to this one. The foods most likely to cause a reaction have their own, because the guidance on them reversed within the last decade and the method is specific: introducing allergens. And when you want to know whether enough is going in, the answer is not on the plate — it is what comes out the other end and her weight gain. The feeding chart printable and the day log are there to write a fortnight of it down for somebody who can see her.

This page is general information, not medical advice, and it cannot see your baby. Allergies, reflux, poor weight gain, a food she cannot manage or a worry that will not go away are all conversations with your health visitor, GP or pediatrician.