Starting Solid Foods: First Meals from Six Months

Why Six Months

For the first six months, breast milk (or infant formula) gives a baby everything they need. After that, a growing baby needs more energy, iron, zinc and vitamin A than milk alone can give. The World Health Organization and Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health recommend starting other foods at six months, while carrying on breastfeeding.

Starting much earlier — as many families are advised to do with pap at a few weeks old — replaces breast milk with less nourishing food and raises the risk of diarrhoea. Starting much later than six months can leave a baby short of iron and slow to accept textures. If your baby was born early, ask the clinic when to start.

Signs Your Baby Is Ready

Most babies show all three of these signs at around six months:

• Sits up with a little support and holds the head steady.
• Looks at food, reaches for it and puts it in their mouth.
• Swallows food rather than pushing it straight back out with the tongue.

Chewing fists, waking at night, or wanting extra feeds are normal baby behaviour. On their own they are not signs that a baby needs solid food.

First Foods from the Market

Babies do not need special jars or packets. Good first foods are the ones you already cook, prepared without salt, pepper or seasoning cubes, and mashed smooth and thick. Take the baby's portion out of the pot before you season it.

• Enriched pap (ogi, akamu, koko). Make it thick, then stir in one or two of: ground crayfish, groundnut paste, soya flour, a mashed well-cooked egg yolk, or breast milk. Plain thin pap is mostly water and starch.
• Beans and moi moi (without pepper): mash well-cooked beans with a little palm oil, or crumble plain moi moi. Peeling the beans makes them smoother at first.
• Egg: cooked until the yolk and white are both solid, mashed.
• Fish, liver and meat: boiled, free of bones, finely mashed or blended into stew or pap. Liver once a week is rich in iron.
• Yam, sweet potato, cocoyam, potato and ripe plantain: boiled and mashed, with a little oil or groundnut paste.
• Vegetables: ugwu, spinach, garden egg leaves, carrots and pumpkin, cooked soft and mashed into other foods.
• Fruit: ripe pawpaw, banana, mango, avocado and orange segments (pips and skin removed), mashed.

A good meal combines a staple (pap, yam, rice, plantain) with something from an animal or a legume, a little fat (palm oil, groundnut oil or paste), and a vegetable or fruit.

Textures by Age

Moving on to lumpier textures by about nine to ten months matters. Babies kept on smooth food for too long often find lumps harder to accept later.

How Much and How Often

Keep breastfeeding as often as your baby wants, and add meals like this. A "cup" here is a normal 250 ml cup.

A baby who is not breastfed needs one or two extra meals a day, and milk from a cup. From six months, offer a few sips of clean, boiled and cooled water from a cup with meals.

Iron: The Nutrient Babies Run Short Of

Babies are born with a store of iron that runs low at about six months. Iron is needed for the brain and for blood, and too little causes anaemia: a pale, tired, irritable baby who may be slow to develop. Iron deficiency is common in young children in Nigeria.

• Richest in iron: liver, meat, fish, crayfish, eggs.
• Also useful: beans, cowpeas, soya, groundnut paste, dark green leaves such as ugwu.
• Help the body absorb it by giving fruit rich in vitamin C, such as orange, pawpaw or guava, with the meal.
• Keep tea, coffee and cocoa drinks away from meals and from babies altogether; they block iron.

How to Feed: Follow Your Baby

Babies eat best when an adult sits with them, face to face, and responds to their signals. This is called responsive feeding.

1. Sit your baby upright, on your lap or in a chair, never lying back.
2. Give your baby their own bowl, so you can see how much they have eaten.
3. Offer the spoon and wait for the mouth to open. Talk, smile, and name the food.
4. Let them touch and hold food, and try to feed themselves. Mess is part of learning.
5. Stop when they show they are full: turning away, closing the mouth, pushing the spoon away, playing.
6. Offer a refused food again another day. Babies may need many tries before accepting a new taste.

Never force-feed, hold the nose, or pour food or liquid into a baby's mouth. It can make food go into the lungs, and it teaches babies to dislike eating.

Gagging and Choking

Gagging is normal and safe. It is how a baby moves food that is too big back to the front of the mouth. A gagging baby coughs, splutters, goes red, pushes the tongue out, and then carries on. Stay calm and let them sort it out.

Choking is different and is an emergency. The airway is blocked: the baby cannot cry, cough or breathe, may make a high-pitched noise or none at all, and may go blue. Learn what to do before you start solids: read choking first aid for babies and children, and see the difference explained at gagging or choking.

Foods to Avoid

Groundnut, Egg and Allergies

Food allergies are less common than many parents fear. Research now shows that giving foods such as groundnut and egg early — from around six months, once your baby has started solids — makes an allergy to them less likely, not more. Offer one new food at a time, early in the day, and keep offering it regularly once it is accepted.

• Groundnut: a little smooth groundnut paste stirred into pap. Never whole or crushed nuts.
• Egg: well cooked and mashed.

If your baby has severe eczema, or already reacted to a food, talk to a doctor before introducing groundnut and egg. Read more in our guide to allergies.

Clean and Safe Food in the Heat

Diarrhoea is common once babies start solids, and much of it comes from germs in food, water and dirty hands. In Nigerian heat, germs grow fast.

• Wash your hands and your baby's hands with soap before preparing food and before eating.
• Use clean bowls, cups and spoons, washed in hot soapy water. Cups are easier to clean than feeding bottles.
• Use safe water: boiled and cooled, or treated.
• Cook fresh, and serve straight away. Do not leave cooked food at room temperature for more than 2 hours, and less in hot weather.
• Throw away what the baby leaves. Saliva from the spoon lets germs grow in the rest of the bowl.
• If you keep food in a fridge, cool it quickly, cover it, use it within a day, and reheat once until steaming hot all through. During power cuts, cook smaller amounts more often rather than storing.

A Day's Meals at Nine Months

An example to adapt to your family's food and your baby's appetite. Breastfeed whenever the baby wants, including at night.

When to Get Help

Our nutrition and feeding support team checks growth, works through the feeding problem with you and agrees a plan. For older children who are fussy eaters, see picky eating in toddlers and children.

Questions Parents Ask