Introducing solids foods to babies

Babies don’t need to eat solids until they have from four to eight teeth, or until they can sit up and support themselves in a high chair, and manage to get more food into their mouths, by themselves, than they do in their hair or on the floor. The precise age for this varies greatly from family to family. But don’t confuse the need for oral discovery, with hunger. Babies become very orally excited from between five to nine months. Perhaps as an extension of an innate and basic survival mechanism, all humans in their first year of life discover the world with their mouths. Infants, when they begin to wiggle, creep and crawl along, sweeping the floors clean with their bodies, begin to taste EVERYTHING. For a baby, a dust bunny is a delight, a piece of newspaper a delicacy, and sticky leftover food droppings a hidden treasure. It is not that they need to fill their tummies with solids or liquids, rather it’s really more about the oral sensation. If a baby is breastfeeding well, not getting sick and is happy, then think of food as a science project. Let your infant explore the world of taste and texture by letting her smell, play and mush all kinds of foods. Give her different colors and textures to play with. Rather than push quantities of food into their little tummies that most babies don’t require, allow their inquisitive scientific minds develop. Breast milk changes as the child grows, keeping up with the nutritional needs of the baby, so why the rush into solid foods? Your breast milk is as nutritious for a ten month old as it was for a two week old.

  • Don’t rush the introduction of solid foods. Babies don’t need to eat solids until they have from four to eight teeth, or until they can sit up and support themselves in a high chair, and manage to get more food into their mouths, by themselves, than they do in their hair or on the floor
  • Don’t confuse the need for oral discovery, with hunger. Babies become very orally excited from between five to nine months.
  • Do let your infant explore the world of taste and texture by letting her smell, play and mush all kinds of foods. Give her different colors and textures to play with. Rather than push quantities of food into their little tummies that most babies don’t require, allow their inquisitive scientific minds develop.

Do be aware that breast milk changes as the child grows, keeping up with the nutritional needs of the baby, so why the rush into solid foods? Your breast milk is as nutritious for a ten month old as it was for a two week old.