Introducing solid foods
Introducing solid foods
Introducing your baby to solid foods, often called weaning, should start when your baby is around six months old. The latest research by the World Health Organization shows that babies receive all the nutrients they need from breast milk or infant formula milk until they are six months old. This gives your baby’s digestive system time to develop, so that it can cope fully with solid foods.
Your baby may be ready for weaning if they are able to:
- stay in a sitting position and hold their head steady
- co-ordinate their eyes, hands and mouth, so they can look at the food, pick it up and put it in their mouth by themselves
- swallow food (babies who are not ready will push the food back out of their mouth, so they get more round their face than they do in their mouths)
Please note that it is rare for these signs to appear together before your baby is six months old.
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