What it is
You are searching 'when to start food,' 'baby-led weaning,' or 'purees.' Milk stays the main food until around a year. Readiness is about the baby, not the calendar: sitting up, reaching for your food, and not pushing it back out with the tongue. Baby-led weaning means soft finger foods the baby feeds herself; purees are spoon-fed. Many do both.
What's typical
The AAP and WHO say around six months, and not before four. By nine months, many babies eat three small meals plus milk. Gagging is loud, common, and protective; it is not choking. Iron stores from birth run low around six months.
What's known
The biggest change in advice is on allergens. The AAP and NIAID now say that offering peanut, egg, and other common allergens around six months, then regularly, lowers the chance of allergy. Honey is the one firm no before a year, because of botulism. Many cultures start with a warm grain porridge, like rice congee.
What helps
- Start with soft, iron-rich foods: mashed beans, well-cooked meat, egg, lentils.
- Offer peanut as thinned peanut butter stirred into a puree, never whole nuts.
- Cut round foods lengthwise: grapes, cherry tomatoes. Nothing hard or coin-shaped.
When to call someone
- Now911 for choking where the baby cannot cough or breathe, or for face swelling or trouble breathing after a new food.
- Todayhives within two hours of a new food, with no breathing trouble. Call before offering it again.
- At your next visitrefusing all solids past eight months, or severe eczema. Ask whether to test before peanut.
Who helps
Tools: Postpartum Meal Planner
Related
- Weaning: gradual, abrupt, and baby-ledFeeding Your Baby
- Dairy and other sensitivities in a breastfed babyFeeding Your Baby
- Iron-rich foods and how to absorb themPregnancy: Eating
- Pediatrician visits in the first weeksBaby Basics
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Sources
- American Academy of Pediatrics — Patient FAQ on starting solid foods
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — Addendum guidelines for the prevention of peanut allergy in the United States
- World Health Organization — Complementary feeding guidance
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