Mixing up the menu
If your baby is accepting gentle tastes and smooth textures quite easily, now's the time to start moving on to the next stage - introducing more adventurous tastes and mashed textures.
Nutrition
At this age no single food can give your baby all the nutrients needed; variety is the name of the game to make sure they get the right balance of vitamins and minerals, as well as the energy required for all that growing and exploring. It's especially important to make sure their food and milk contain an adequate amount of iron, as the natural iron stores they were born with begin to run low after about six months.
Milk is still an important part of your baby's diet and they'll need around 600 – 800 ml a day, including the milk you use to make their food.
Your baby will now be having 2-3 solid meals as well as breast milk or infant formula feeds. You can offer complementary foods after breast milk or infant formula.
Taste
It's important to excite their curious taste buds at this stage and help them learn to enjoy even more foods. That's because by the age of two your baby's tastes can become relatively fixed until they're around eight years old.
Texture
From this time they will be ready for slightly more textured foods. It's more about mashed textures gradually becoming lumpier, rather than chunkier, as this encourages biting and chewing, which will help with teething and later with talking.
Your baby's coordination may also be improving, so as soon as they are able to grasp and hold objects, that's the time to begin introducing finger foods. Small pieces of cooked, mixed vegetables and little cubes of fruit are ideal to start with. Be sure to avoid hard, crunchy foods which are more likely to cause choking.
Appropriate Foods
Continue with stage one food suggestions with the addition of the following foods:
- Fortified infant rice cereal (mixed with breast milk, formula or cooled boiled water). Ground rice may also be used; it is not a good source of iron.
- Cooked mashed whole egg
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Cooked mashed vegetables
- Cauliflower
- Yams
- Courgette/zucchini
- Broccoli
- Green beans
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Ripe fruit
- Melon
- Plums (no skins or seeds)
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Cows' milk or suitable alternative for food preparation
- Custard
- Milk puddings
- Cheese
- Cottage cheese
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Carbohydrates
- Well-cooked pasta
- Well-cooked noodles
- Couscous
- Rusks
No additional salt or sugar needs to be added. Also, products such as honey, nuts and tea are best avoided until the age of 12 months. Fruit juice should also be limited due to its high sugar content, which can contribute to tooth decay.
Once your baby has mastered the second foods, it is time to aim at more textured foods and to expand the variety even more! Your baby is now ready to proceed to third foods.