Most babies are ready to start solid foods right around 6 months old, and the process is simpler than it might seem. You’ll begin with just a few spoonfuls of soft, iron-rich food once or twice a day while breast milk or formula remains your baby’s primary nutrition. From there, you’ll gradually increase variety, texture, and frequency over the coming weeks.
Signs Your Baby Is Ready
Age alone isn’t the only factor. Your baby should be showing a few physical milestones before you offer that first bite. They should be able to sit up with support, hold their head steady, and open their mouth when food comes toward them. One of the most important signs: your baby swallows food rather than pushing it back out with their tongue. That push-out motion (called the tongue thrust reflex) is a protective reflex that fades when a baby is developmentally ready for solids. If food keeps coming right back out onto their chin, give it another week and try again.
What to Offer First
Iron is the nutrient to prioritize. Babies are born with iron stores that start running low around the 6-month mark, so their first foods should help fill that gap. Good options include pureed meats (beef, chicken, turkey), mashed beans or lentils, iron-fortified infant cereal, eggs, and tofu. You don’t need to start with rice cereal or follow any particular food order. Any soft, iron-rich food works.
The body absorbs iron from animal sources more easily than iron from plant sources. If you’re offering plant-based foods like lentils or fortified cereal, pairing them with something rich in vitamin C helps your baby absorb more of that iron. Mashed sweet potato, pureed broccoli, or a little mashed strawberry alongside the meal does the trick.
Textures and Safe Food Shapes
At 6 months, foods should be either smooth purees or soft pieces that mash easily between your fingers. That finger-squish test is the simplest safety check you can do: if you can’t smush it between your thumb and forefinger, it’s too hard for your baby. Think steamed sweet potato, ripe avocado, or well-cooked broccoli florets.
If you want to skip purees and go straight to finger foods (sometimes called baby-led weaning), cut soft foods into stick shapes about the size of an adult finger. At this age, babies grab food with their whole fist, so longer pieces they can hold with part of the food sticking out work best. Avoid anything raw and hard like apple slices or raw carrot sticks.
How Much and How Often
In the first few weeks, you’re not trying to replace milk feeds. One to two small “meals” a day is plenty to start. A meal might be just a few spoonfuls, or a couple of soft finger food pieces your baby mostly mushes around and tastes. That’s fine. The goal is exposure and practice, not calories.
By the time your baby is closer to 8 or 9 months, you’ll work up to about 3 meals and 2 to 3 snacks a day, offering something to eat or drink roughly every 2 to 3 hours. Breast milk or formula remains the main source of nutrition for the entire first year, but solids will gradually make up a bigger share of the diet as your baby gets more skilled and interested.
Introducing Common Allergens
Current guidelines recommend introducing allergenic foods early, not delaying them. Peanut, egg, dairy, wheat, soy, fish, and tree nuts can all be offered starting around 6 months. Research shows that waiting longer to introduce peanut actually increases the chance of developing a peanut allergy, so there’s a real benefit to getting it into the rotation early.
The safest way to introduce peanut is by thinning a small amount of smooth peanut butter into infant cereal, pureed fruit, yogurt, or even breast milk or formula. Never give a baby whole peanuts or chunks of peanut butter, which are serious choking hazards. For eggs, start with a small portion of well-cooked scrambled or hard-boiled egg, roughly a third of an egg. Whole milk yogurt or Greek yogurt is a fine way to introduce dairy, even though plain cow’s milk as a drink isn’t recommended before 12 months.
Introduce one new food at a time and wait at least a day before trying another new one. After each introduction, watch for signs of an allergic reaction: rash, diarrhea, vomiting, or swelling. If your baby has severe eczema or a known egg allergy, talk with their pediatrician before introducing peanut, since these babies are considered higher risk for peanut allergy and may need allergy testing first.
Gagging vs. Choking
Almost every baby gags when learning to eat solids, and it looks alarming the first few times. Gagging is actually your baby’s built-in safety mechanism. At 6 months, the gag reflex is triggered much farther forward in the mouth than in adults, which means babies gag on food well before it reaches the back of their throat. You’ll hear coughing, sputtering, and gurgling. Your baby’s face may turn red. This is normal and means the reflex is doing its job.
Choking is different. When food actually blocks the airway, your baby may make high-pitched sounds while trying to breathe, or they may go silent with no coughing at all. This requires immediate intervention. Taking an infant CPR class before starting solids is one of the most practical things you can do to feel prepared. Always have your baby seated upright during meals, and never leave them alone with food.
Foods to Avoid Before 12 Months
Honey is the most important one. Never give honey in any form to a baby under 1 year old. Honey can contain bacterial spores that cause infant botulism, a rare but life-threatening condition where a toxin blocks nerve signals to muscles, potentially including the muscles used to breathe. An older child’s gut can handle these spores, but an infant’s cannot.
Beyond honey, skip anything that poses a choking risk: whole grapes, whole nuts, popcorn, raw hard vegetables, large globs of nut butter, and hot dog rounds. Avoid added salt, added sugar, and unpasteurized foods. Fruit juice isn’t necessary and offers no nutritional advantage over whole fruit.
Water and Vitamin D
Once your baby starts solids, you can offer small sips of water with meals. The recommended amount is 4 to 8 ounces per day between 6 and 12 months. This doesn’t need to be precise. An open cup or straw cup with a little water at mealtimes helps your baby practice drinking and can ease digestion as they adjust to solid food. Water doesn’t replace any milk feeds at this stage.
Babies under 12 months need 400 IU of vitamin D daily. If your baby is breastfed or partially breastfed, they likely still need a vitamin D supplement even after starting solids, since it’s difficult to get enough from food alone. Formula-fed babies typically get adequate vitamin D from their formula, but once formula intake drops as solids increase, it’s worth checking with your baby’s doctor about whether a supplement makes sense.
A Simple Week-One Plan
Pick one iron-rich food, like pureed beef or iron-fortified cereal mixed with breast milk or formula. Offer a few spoonfuls once a day, ideally when your baby is alert and not too hungry. Mid-morning or early afternoon often works well. Keep the portion small and the mood relaxed. If your baby turns away or seems disinterested, that’s fine. Try again tomorrow.
After a couple of days, introduce a second food: mashed avocado, pureed sweet potato, or a soft fruit like banana. By the end of the first week or two, you might have three or four foods in rotation. From there, keep adding variety. The more flavors and textures your baby experiences in these early months, the more likely they are to accept a wide range of foods as they grow. There’s no need to stick with bland or white foods first. Babies around the world start with spiced lentils, mashed fish, and seasoned vegetables, and they do just fine.