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Baby Solid Foods Introduction Guide

August 9, 2024

Page Contents

  • Signs of Readiness for Solids
  • Things I Wish I Knew Starting Solids
  • When to Offer Solids During the Day
    • 6 months – 7 months: starting solids
    • 9 months onwards: breakfast, lunch and dinner
  • How and What Solid Foods to Give Baby
      • 101 Foods Before One
      • Veggies before Fruit
      • 1, 2, 3 of Introducing Food Types
      • How to Prepare and Serve Baby’s Solids
  • Overfeeding and Bad Eating Habits
  • Water During the Meal
  • Feeding Must Haves
      • Do I Need a Baby Food Maker?
  • Foods and Ingredients to AVOID Until Baby Turns One
  • Common Allergens
  • Healthy and Yummy Snacks
  • Additional Resources
      • Baby Books and Flashcards
      • Accounts to Follow

Starting solid foods for your baby can seem like a daunting endeavor. For my first daughter, I was excited yet nervous about introducing solid foods. What if she chokes? What if she has an allergic reaction? What if she eats too much? What if she doesn’t eat at all? So I started my research…

Starting with veggies, providing enough variety, and definitely do NOT feed baby honey are just a few of the things I wasn’t aware of as a first time mom. This baby’s first solids introduction guide is everything you’d want to know for new parents starting solids journey from the beginning to baby’s 1st birthday.

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Signs of Readiness for Solids

  • Can sit upright with minimal assistance (5.5 – 6 months).
  • Can hold head upright and steady while seated for at least 10-15 minutes.
  • High interest for foods when you eat: like opening her mouth when you offer food, looking at what you are eating, reaching out for your food.

Remember that solids is a supplement (namely for iron) to their main source of nutrients which should still mainly be breastmilk or formula until 12 months of age. Do NOT fret if your baby is “not eating enough solids”.

Note that even if your baby displays all of of these signs, it is NOT recommended to start when baby is younger than 4 months of age.

Things I Wish I Knew Starting Solids

  • It is normal for babies to eat a lot one day, and almost not at all the next. It is more important to track their weekly intake, not their daily intake.
  • It is normal for babies to gag (when eating age appropriate foods) as they are learning to swallow and build oral motor skills. Remember they are going from drinking liquid only to solids. This is a big change.
  • It is normal for babies to like to eat a food one day, then completely disregard it the next day.
  • Babies are developing their grasping and hand-eye coordination. They are learning about gravity. They will be messy eaters and will likely throw, smoosh, smash, and drop food all over the place. It is all part of their exploration. Make feeding time fun and not stressful so your baby does not stress during meal times.
  • Babies are always trying to communicate with you. Watch and learn their hunger and full cues.

When to Offer Solids During the Day

6 months – 7 months: starting solids

To start the solid foods journey, I found it easiest to offer solids about 30 – 60 minutes after breastfeeding or formula. This ensures your baby is not overly hungry, therefore hangry, and not interested in exploring new skills and foods.

It is easiest to start with lunch, then incorporate breakfast, and lastly dinner.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that both you and your baby are relaxed and ready to explore. When either of you are tense, rushed or having other needs, it is very difficult to focus on the task of exploring solids.

9 months onwards: breakfast, lunch and dinner

A typical schedule would look like:

  • Milk upon wake
  • Breakfast 30 – 60 minutes after milk
  • Milk
  • Lunch 30 – 60 minutes after milk
  • Afternoon Snack
  • Milk
  • Dinner 30 – 60 minutes after milk
  • Milk before bed

How and What Solid Foods to Give Baby

101 Foods Before One

I offered just about 100 foods before both my daughters turned one. At the time, I put together my own list on an excel sheet and tracked it there. I wish I had a First Food Log (101 foods before one) like this one that I can track but also get inspirations from what to give my baby when I was going through this process.

Veggies before Fruit

I started with an avocado, and progressed through a few vegetables before venturing into fruits. The earlier you introduce fruits (especially those that are very sweet), the less likely your baby will like to eat the veggies offered. I have tried this approach with both of my daughters and it has worked out for us.

1, 2, 3 of Introducing Food Types

You don’t know what kind of allergies your baby might have, or what foods your baby might be sensitive to. It’s important that when you start the solids journey, you start slow and offer only ONE kind of food per meal to rule out any allergens.

I offered the same food item TWO days in a row to observe any abnormal reactions, and moved on to the next. I then offered the “safe foods” together in a meal, and eventually having more combinations as my daughter grew.

If your child does not seem interested in the food (ahem, vegetables) you’re offering that day, try again another day. As my daughter grew older, I would have THREE different kinds of food items on her plate: 1 new, 1 safe and she likes to eat, and often, 1 safe but she doesn’t like to eat. Exposure creates consistency and you just never know when their growing palate may change to love this item.

How to Prepare and Serve Baby’s Solids

I started with purees by spoon feeding, then moved into steamed foods that are cut into finger sizes for baby to eat herself, a method called Baby Led Weaning (BLW). A good rule of thumb to see if the food item is too hard to eat for babies with no teeth, is to smush it between your fingers. If it does not smush, then it is too hard.

As baby has more teeth or is around 9 months of age, you can size down to bite-sized pieces.

I did both purees and BLW, and there is no need to choose one over the other. You can read more about the methods from the Solid Starts blog post here.

Whenever I was unsure if a food item was safe to introduce at a certain age or how to prepare the food, I used the Solid Start’s First Food Database (there’s an app, too) to search it up. It’s a free database (but requires sign up).

Overfeeding and Bad Eating Habits

Babies are very intuitive. Before babies can communicate verbally, she will communicate via physical cues to let you know when she is full (head turning away, pushing food away, physically leaving the eating area), or hungry (crying). If you ignore or turn a blind eye to these cues, you risk a very frustrated and stressed-out baby, as well as developing issues for self-regulating food intake later in life.

If your baby seems to be eating a lot, that’s great! If your baby wants to eat, let her eat. Watch her so she doesn’t eat too quickly and choke on the food, but know that babies do not overeat. Obesity is linked to the type of foods eaten, drinking sugary beverages, lack of exercise, or the pressure to eat from a young age disrupting self-regulation later in life.

(Source: “Bad eating habits as main cause of obesity among children“)

I highly recommend to start teaching your baby sign language at the same time you are introducing solids to communicate more effectively with your baby and minimize the frustration for both parties.

[Related Post: “Baby Sign Language Basics“]

Other common bad eating habits include chasing down your baby so he will eat that last bite, giving incentives to eat more, or eating in front of a screen (TV or tablet). I do not recommend these approaches. Starting the solids journey with healthy eating habits and healthy foods with no distraction will teach your baby that mealtime is for eating and communicating with family, and to listen to their body cues.

As your baby becomes more mobile, it is important to teach him that you eat food in a specified area. When he leaves this area, it is a sign that he is done. You should remove the food and clearly tell him, “you are leaving the dinner table, that means you are done.”

Following through is very important, and having routines is crucial so your baby knows what to expect. See my blog post below for my approach to discipline:

[Related Post: β€œ10 Toddler Discipline Methods for Happier Kids and Happier Parentsβ€œ]

Water During the Meal

Once baby starts solids, I offer water (boiled then cooled to room temperature) in an open cup or a cup with straw during mealtimes. This is not essential but it helps to practice from drinking from a cup.

I don’t recommend providing a sippy cup because it is a transitional product that does little to teach any lasting skills. If you are out and about and don’t want to have water spills everywhere, you can consider this Munchkin 360 Trainer Cup with Handles. Teaching your baby to drink from a straw is a lifelong skill (more on this below).

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Feeding Must Haves

UpSeat Baby Seat

  • I rave about this seat both in real life and on my post here (vs. Bumbo) to any parent that will listen. Learning the hard way after being gifted a nice Peg Perego Prima Pappa Zero 3 and actually trying to best to use it…and clean it. Don’t be like me.
  • You can wash the WHOLE seat easily in the sink for the UpSeat and tray. It is easily portable (great for eating out, too), and I start by placing it in the middle of my dining table/kitchen island to catch all of the food fallout. When baby gets bigger and have the risk of toppling over, strap the full seat into your dining chair.
  • If you’re on the fence about dishing out the big bucks for a nice high chair (like the cult favourite Stokke Tripp Trapp), I would wait…or just not get a high chair at all! I used this until my first daughter was 2 years old (24 months), and got her the Upseat Booster thereafter.

Bumkins SuperBib

  • This is my second baby discovery after trying out too many feeding bibs on the market that just doesn’t work for little ones starting the feeding journey. The best way and easiest way to start this journey without a bib is just simply to strip baby naked and feed.
  • I love that it is waterproof, big enough to provide full frontal and some arm coverage (but not too big that it takes forever to dry), easy to clean, quick dry AND stain and odor resistant.
  • I do NOT recommend the smock style full sleeved bibs even though they might seem like a good idea, it’s a huge pain to wash and dry after each feed. I also do NOT recommend starting with a silicone bib as it is too bulky for the little ones until past 12 months old.

Munchkins Feeding Spoon

  • If you are starting with purees and spoon feeding like I did, these are my favourite long handle spoons. The are perfectly sized and gentle on baby’s gums. Easily washed in the dishwasher, too.

Num Num Baby Spoon

  • This is by far the best starter self-feeding spoon because it has grips to hold the right amount of food, cleans easily, and perfect for little hands to grasp.
  • I highly recommend getting 6 spoons because you’ll likely need 3 spoons per feed. It’s the “Spoon Rotation Method:”
    • You pre-load 1 spoon, hand it to baby. As you load up another spoon, you’ll find that baby does NOT want to let go of the first spoon.
    • Give baby a pre-loaded second spoon so both hands are occupied.
    • Now, load the third spoon, and baby will drop one of the spoons to take the new spoon with food on it.
    • Rotate.

Ezpz Mini Cup with Straw – Alternative: Smack Fun Cup with Straw and Handle

  • These cups are small but weighted at the bottom so they don’t topple over easily. The silicone is gentle on baby’s gums, and easily used to practice drinking from a straw and open cup.
  • I do NOT recommend sippy cups because it is a transitional skill and another type of “nipple” they have to wean from. It is also not good for the oral development. Drinking from a straw, on the other hand, is a lifelong skill.
  • Open cups also promote oral motor skills to prepare baby for talking.

Open Cup with Handle

  • I have a tiny cup from the Lovevery kit that has a handle on it, and my daughters used that as their first open cup and drank well from it since about 7.5-8 months old after some practice.
  • Cups with handles are easier to grasp for babies than the ezpz cup, but the key point is that the cup is an open cup – not a sippy cup.

Stick and Stay Suction Plate

  • I start Baby Led Weaning (BLW) by placing foods directly onto the Upseat tray, but once you are serving more and different variety of foods in one sitting, you can get a plate.
  • I don’t recommend starting with divided plates (since your baby is unlikely to drink soup or foods that need dividing for a long time) but if you were to get one, I recommend getting one like this munchkin one, or a bamboo one like this one. I got the popular bumkins silicone plate as a gift, but I don’t recommend it because it has that silicone/plastic smell, retains food smells, and and doesn’t clean easily with oily foods.
  • Divided plates give your baby or toddler the sense that food should be always divided and may start to refuse to eat when foods are touching.

OXO Tot Glass Baby Blocks Food Storage Containers 4oz

  • These are hands down the best storage containers. They don’t leak, they open and close easily (I don’t recommend twist caps because the caps are often defective or gets worn down much quicker)
  • I prefer glass as it doesn’t stain, doesn’t hold or transfer the taste of plastic, and cleans really well. You can feed directly out of the container after heating it up.
  • The 4oz size has a longer shelf life than these 2oz containers in plastic. These 2oz containers are great for meal prepping small amounts of food for one feed (purees, mostly). I also use them to store snacks for on the go. These WILL stain with carrots, though.

Do I Need a Baby Food Maker?

The short answer is no.

If you have a steamer pot (or even a steamer rack inside a regular pot), a food processor, or even just a magic bullet, you really don’t NEED a baby food maker.

With my first daughter, I used my instant pot and magic bullet for all of my baby food cooking. The quantities are usually bigger and clean up is more labor intensive, but if you batch cook, it’s really not too bad.

However, when I was pregnant with my second daughter, I knew I needed to free up my time and hands as much as possible since I’m likely to have my hands full.

My criteria:

  • Glass material
  • Larger capacity above 4 cups
  • Easily cleaned without too many parts
  • Separate steaming with blending (I want to control the amount of water for blending)
  • Quiet operation, especially for blending

The only one that really fit all of my criteria is this one:

BEABA Babycook Neo

  • This baby food maker saves me so much time both cooking AND cleaning up. I didn’t splurge on this until my second daughter, but it really made a huge difference.
  • I got mine from Chapters during a sale and got the plum points discount, too. It really doesn’t go on sale often so if you see it, snag it!

Foods and Ingredients to AVOID Until Baby Turns One

  • Honey (can lead to infant botulism)
  • Sugar (try avoid fruit juice and any other drinks outside of milk and water. If you must, dilute with water)
  • Foods high in salt
  • Processed foods (sausage, chips, ready meals)

Common Allergens

If your family has a history of allergies and are sensitive to certain foods, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. I know some parents try these common allergens at a doctor’s office or even in the parking lot of the hospital to be safe.

The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) and the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (CSACI) recommends “early and often” introduction of common allergens (6 months onwards) to help prevent development of food allergy in babies.

Source: Food Allergy Canada

If you are currently pregnant and not allergic to the common allergens, I highly recommend you consume these in your third trimester when your baby’s taste buds are developing (around 30 weeks). There is no direct research supporting this, but anecdotally I have many friends who did this and it seemed to have paid off. It also worked for me, although my family does not have a history of food allergies.

  • cow’s milk
  • eggs
  • foods that contain gluten including wheat
  • peanuts
  • tree nuts
  • sesame
  • soy
  • tofu
  • shellfish
  • fish

Healthy and Yummy Snacks

Below are our household favorites, tried and true. I usually only give snacks between lunch and dinner to hold my kids over.

  • Baby Mum Mum (6 Months+)- You can get this from your nearest grocery stores with some lesser known name alternatives for much cheaper with similar ingredients.
  • Gerber Puffs (8 Months+) – Cheaper on Amazon in bulk rather than individually in stores unless they have sales!
  • Little Bellies (10 Months+) – Puffed corn is our family favourite. It’s cheapest to bulk buy via Amazon than in individually from brick and mortar stores.
  • Yogurt Melts (says 12 Months+ but it melts in the mouth, less of a choking hazard than the Gerber Puffs in my opinion, so monitoring intake one at a time for a self feeder is safe) or Baby Gourmet Organic Meltable Mushies (says for “self-feeders)

Additional Resources

Baby Books and Flashcards

  • “Mealtime” by Elizabeth Verdick – I really enjoy this series, and this book in particular has a ton of great phrases and sayings that can help reinforce good habits with your baby.
  • “(Sign About) Meal Time” – wonderful resource to teach baby sign language about meal time and food specific signs.
  • Fruits/Vegetable/Foods flashcards with real images (not cartoon) – great way to teach baby new words, show her what it looks like, and get her curious to try new foods.
  • My First 100 Food We Eat with real images (not cartoon)
  • “The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eats Dinner” by Eric Carle – another favourite in my house to teach babies about eating and foods.

Accounts to Follow

I am not affiliated with any of the accounts below. These accounts are public and I’ve found them via friends’ recommendation or my own research and found the free resources to be helpful!

  • @solidstarts or Solid Starts – my favourite is their First Food Database (they have an app!)
  • @feedinglittles or Feeding Littles
  • @mylittleeater or My Little Eater

This post was all about starting baby’s solid foods journey with a comprehensive Baby Solid Foods Introduction Guide.

The when, what and how to introduce solid foods to your baby is all in this blog post. Starting solids for your baby is an exciting time and you’ll likely be cleaning up more than baby’s eating, but it’s such an important milestone and journey so enjoy the ride! Remember to make mealtimes fun, stress-free, and never pressure or force your baby to eat.

If this post has helped you, Subscribe to Time Value of Mommy’s newsletter to keep updated on new posts that can help you as a first time parent.

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