Introducing solid foods
Weaning (also known as introducing solids) is a crucial milestone in a baby’s life, but it can be difficult to know when to start, what food to introduce and how much to give them.
Best Start in Life and First Steps Nutrition offer simple, evidenced based advice on how to introduce solid foods, safely and confidently.
Weaning – Best Start in Life – NHS
See NHS pages for practical tips about introducing solids, including signs they are ready, what to offer them, navigating the shop bought options, through a variety of different forums including a quiz, videos, fact sheets and new letters.
Infant & new mums — First Steps Nutrition Trust
There is a resource “Eating well: the first year. A guide to introducing solids and eating well up to baby’s first birthday”. This provides information is in line with current policy in the UK and provides a pictorial guide which can be used to support families in the first year of their baby’s lives. This guide includes information and example recipes for vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free diets. Information on cultural diets and fussy eating are also included in this guide.
In addition to this more general guide there are other resources supporting healthy eating up to the age of 5 years:
- Pack lunch and snack idea
- Portion size guidance
- Healthy family recipes using ingredients that can be bought through the Healthy Start or Best Start Foods schemes
- Vegan diet suggestions for infants
- South Asian age-appropriate recipes based on unprocessed and minimally processed foods.
- Recipe book
- Eating well for babies 6 months + poster