Getting more adventurous!
As your baby moves a few steps closer to enjoying family meals, you can start to mix up the menu. Keep in mind though that your baby's needs are very different to an adult's.
Nutrition
Even though your baby's tastes might be getting a little more grown-up now that they can cope with quite chunky food, many adult foods still aren't appropriate for them as they contain too much salt, sugar or fibre. However, you can still offer a wide variety of foods - cereal and dairy at breakfast for plenty of protein, and vegetables for their main meal and fruit and dairy for dessert. This will help provide a good balance of the vitamins and minerals, proteins and fats they need to help them grow.
Your baby will now be having three solid meals a day plus 1-2 snacks in between is fine. Their breast milk or infant formula feeds will continue, and you can now offer complementary foods before breast milk or infant formula.
Taste
At this stage, you can begin to introduce your baby to more complex recipes that combine different flavours. You could include some of the usual herbs and spices that are used in regular family meals.
Foods like spaghetti bolognaise, vegetable casseroles, mixed fruit desserts, and fruity breakfasts will encourage them to grow to love a healthy variety of food in the future.
Texture
Introducing more chopped, roughly mashed textures and bigger pieces will help continue the development of their chewing skills and speech muscles.
Giving them finger foods like fresh fruit pieces, strips of vegetables or cubes or sticks of cheese will also help them continue to develop their hand and eye co-ordination.
Continue to encourage your baby to feed themselves. While this is often a messy process it's so important for their development – and can actually be lots of fun for both your baby and you! (Be sure to take some pictures!)
Appropriate Foods
Continue all the stage two foods with the addition of the following foods:
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Meat, chicken and seafood (Kai Moana):
- Minced or finely chopped or as finger food
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Legumes
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Add soy foods e.g. tofu, tempeh, soy yoghurt, soy custard
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Other Kai Moana* (seafood):
- Kina (sea-eggs), pipi, koura (crayfish), pupu (periwinkles), parengo (a type of seaweed), paua and eel
*Avoid seafood when there is any possibility of marine biotoxin and food poisoning bacteria. Babies can be very sensitive to it. Kai Moana must be collected only from safe and unpolluted areas.
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Cooked roughly mashed or chopped vegetables:
- Spinach
- Raw or cooked tomatoes
- Brussels sprouts
- Creamed corn
- Peas
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Salad vegetables:
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Fruit:
- Berry fruit
- Orange
- Mandarin
- Kiwifruit
- Pineapple
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Cows' milk or suitable alternative for food preparation:
- Custard
- Milk puddings
- Cheese
- Cottage cheese
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Wheat:
- Breakfast cereal e.g. porridge, wheat biscuits
- Bread
- Crackers
- Iron fortified wheat biscuits
- Infant cereals
No additional salt or sugar needs to be added to these foods. 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 third foods at round about 12 months of age, your baby can progress to sharing the family meal because chewing should be well established. Continue to offer foods with no or little salt and sugar added. Your baby will enjoy large finger foods as well as more textured foods.